The case has been very thoroughly and earnestly discussed, and their lordships compliment counsel on the great learning and ability with which it has been argued on No. 34. both sides. It may be added that the proceedings before the Judicial Committee have been expeditious, the final decision being rendered within seven months after the judgment in our Court of Appeal. MIDDLEMISS v. HOTEL DIEU. The judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench at Montreal, in the case of The Hotel Dieu of Montreal, Appellant, and Middlemiss, Respondent, rendered on the 22nd of December last (LEGAL NEWS, p. 51), has been confirmed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (13 July, 1878). The question was as to the right of the appellants to a commutation fine claimed from the respondent, Middlemiss, on certain property in the fief St. Augustin, by reason of his having obtained this property from the Crown in exchange for other property. The defence was that after the Crown acquired the property, it paid the indemnity due under the law in consideration of the extinction of all seignioriai rights; that these rights were then finally extinguished, and could not be revived by any sale or exchange that the Crown might thereafter make. The plaintiffs (the Hotel Dieu) replied that the indemnity paid represented only that indemnity which was payable by all mains mortes when they acquired immoveable property; that the tenure was only suspended, and when the property passed out of the hands of the Government the seigniorial rights revived. The Superior Court sustained the plaintiff's pretensions. In appeal this decision was reversed, Judges Monk and Tessier dissenting, and the judgment of the majority has now been affirmed by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Their lordships hold that under the law of real estate as it was introduced into Canada, and as it existed here at the time of the transactions referred to, the acquisition by the Crown of lands held from a Seignior as part of his fief, extinguished absolutely and for ever all feudal rights in such lands, and gave the Seignior a mere right to an indemnity of one fifth of the price. The law being thus defined, their lordships further decided that the indemnity paid by the Government in 1860 was in fact the indemnity payable on the final extinction of feudal rights, and that the plaintiffs were entitled to nothing more. THE SCOTTISH BAR. There are many who lament what appears to them to be a great falling off in the learning, dignity, and greatness of the English bar. Goldwin Smith, in an address delivered before Convocation of McGill University, recognizing the fact, ascribed it in some measure to the overshadowing influence of the solicitor branch of the profession, which renders success at the bar next to impossible unless the aspirant is favored with a relative who enjoys a good business as an attorney. An article which we copied in our last issue from the London Week took a similar view. A like decay in the bar of Scotland has also been deplored by some of its members, but Professor Lorimer comes to the defence of his associates, and, in a letter addressed to the Scotsman, stoutly resists the imputation that the bar is not equal now to what it was in what are regarded as its palmy days. At the same time he wishes the bar not to restrict itself to too narrow a field of activity. The letter is as follows: 1 BRUNTSFIELD CRESCENT, JULY 17, 1878. "SIR:-An addition to the bar of nine members in eight days, which has just taken place, is a social phenomenon too important to pass without notice in your columns. Nor is this all. The whole number for the year, I am told, is expected to be fourteen-the average for many years past having been eight. I do not profess to explain a manifestation of vitality so unequivocal in a body the decay of which was supposed, by many, to be a fact as incontrovertible as that of the Ottoman Empire. There is one explanation, however, which I can foresee will be given of it-not quite unwillingly, I fear, by those to whom, in its palmy days, it was an object of envy-I can at once put aside. The bar, they will say, has become democratic -it can no longer lay claim to the exceptional ing must be so expanded and adjusted as to prepare a class of specialists for this new sphere. To explain how this is effected in con encroachment on your space. All that I can do for the present is to call the attention of your readers to a series of papers in the Journal of Jurisprudence, in which this is being done very fully, by my friend and colleague, Professor Mackay; and to the first article in the last number of that periodical, which is devoted to the subject. In urging the adoption of the course which I have here indicated, it will be seen from the information contained in Professor Mackay's articles that the writer, far from proposing a novelty, is only suggesting that this country should do what the rest of the civilized world has done already. I am, etc., J. LORIMER." INCIDENTS OF ENGLISH BAR advantages either in the culture or social position of its members, which it owed to its exclusiveness, and hence the increase in its members. The gain in quantity has been pur-tinental countries would involve an unjustifiable chased at the sacrifice of those special qualities to which, in former times, so much value was attached. Now I can state, emphatically, as a matter of personal knowledge, that such an explanation would be wholly at variance with the truth. Whether we adopt intellectual or social tests, whether we take learning or refinement as our measure of value, the bar never received, during the long period I have known it, more valuable accessions to its ranks, than in the young gentlemen who have joined it at present, and during the last few years. So thoroughly, indeed, am I persuaded of this fact, that, with all the respect which I feel for the rapidly thinning ranks of my seniors, and with all the natural clinging which I have to those who are of my own age, or my immediate juniors, I do not hesitate to state it as my opinion that much of the best blood and brains and culture at the bar will be found amongst the men under ten years' standing. But if all this be true, even those of your readers who hear it gladly, may not, unnaturally, shake their heads when a brilliant future is predicted for the bar. The practice of the Court of Session they will say is falling off; the number of judgeships and sheriffships is being diminished; the office of Lord Advocate is in danger of being shorn of its political importance, and that of Lord Clerk Register is threatened with abolition, or, what is pretty much the same, with being transferred to London. What, then, are all those gifted and accomplished young fellows to do? What a prodigious waste of talent and energy must be going on in the Parliament House, and how many of those men whom you now regard as so promising, if no change for the better should occur in their prospects, must run utterly to seed. It is sadly too true; and the fact, I think, points clearly to the necessity of the bar vindicating for itself a wider field of activity than it has hitherto enjoyed, or than can now possibly be furnished to it by the practice of the law. The bar, meaning thereby the highest branch of the legal profession, must develop in this country, as it has done elsewhere, a political and official, as well as a legal side, and our university teach The practice of the law in England is commonly supposed to be characterized by the most profound respect and decorum on the part of the bar towards the bench, while the members of the latter are presumed to live in an atmosphere too elevated and dignified to be affected by human infirmity or foible. A brace of incidents which we find in a single issue of an English journal (Liverpool Post, Aug. 2), are somewhat at variance with such preconceptions. The first is headed" A Scene in Court," and is as follows: "During the hearing of the Herne Bay Waterworks petition in the Court of Chancery, London, on Wednesday, a scene occurred between Vice-Chancellor Malins and Mr. Glasse, Q.C., the leading counsel of the court. The Vice-Chancellor having stated that the case had better stand over till the November sittings, Mr. Glasse remarked on the inadequacy of the court to deal with the business.— The Vice-Chancellor: That is a very improper remark for you, as the leading counsel of the court, to make.-Mr. Glasse: The public will judge.-The Vice-Chancellor. Your remarks are of an infamous description. I wonder you have the audacity to make them.-Mr. Glasse (who spoke with suppressed excitement): I, standing here, will not condescend to tell your lordship what I think of you." And the other relates to a gentleman who became famous as counsel during the second Tichborne trial: "Mr. Justice Hawkins seems to have developed a singular passion for military costumes. At the Derby Assizes, the high sheriff appeared in court in ordinary morning dress, to the great disappointment of Mr. Justice Hawkins, who insisted that this gentleman should attend in uniform or other official attire. The high sheriff ventured to point out to his lordship that as he was not a deputy lieutenant of the county, and held none of those positions which carry with them the perquisite of a uniform, he could not very well conform to the judge's request. His lordship still refused to forego the gratification of seeing the high sheriff in uniform, and threatened that if his commands were not obeyed, he would next day fine that official £500. In vain did the high sheriff protest that in appearing in morning dress he was only following the practice of his predecessors. Mr. Justice Hawkins was inexorable, and the next morning, no doubt to his lordship's very great delight the high sheriff presented himself in -the uniform of a captain of the Derbyshire Volunteers! Whether his lordship, who appears to be in these matters as punctilious as a Chinese Mandarin, will insist on uniform the next time he presides at the Derby Assizes remains to be seen." And a third incident, which is depicted in the following little sketch from the London World, does not place English court proceedings in a more dignified light; "Divisional Court.-Cor. KELLY, L.C.B., and MELLOR, J. "Eleven A. M.-At the conclusion of the ex parte motions. "Mr. A.-Might I mention to your Lordship a case of Snooks v. Jones, which stands fifth on your Lordship's list? [The learned gentleman was here interrupted by another learned counsel, who made some communication to him.] I beg your Lordship's pardon; I find that it is now useless to apply to your Lordship. [Prepares to sit down.] The L.C.B.-What is the name of your case, Mr. A.-My Lord, the case is that of Snooks v. Jones; but-Mr. J. Mellor. -Snooks against what? Mr. A.-Jones, my Lord. The L.C.B.-How do you spell it? Mr. A.-J-o-n-e-s, my Lord. But as I said before [Writes -The L.C.B.-One moment, pray. down the name.] Now will you have the goodness to tell us what the case is what question is raised for the decision of this court, and in what form? Mr. A.-My Lord, I was just about to tell your Lordship!—The L.C.B. [with some warmth].-Never mind what you were about to tell me, sir. If learned counsel would not constantly attempt to evade the questions of the court, the business of the court would be transacted in a much more rapid and satisfactory manner, and there would be a great saving of the public time. Mr. A.-My Lord, I was not attempting to evade your Lordship's questions; but with the object of saving public time, I ventured to think-The L.C.B.-I must trouble you not to venture to think anything until you have told us the facts. When the court is in possession of all the facts, it will then, and not till then, be in a position to listen to any application which you may wish to make. In the meantime, I must ask you to have the goodness to raise your voice. Mr. A. [in stentorian tones]. I do not wish to make any applica- The L. C. R.-You have not yet informed us for whom you appear. Mr. A.-For the plaintiff. But if your Lordship will bear with me oneThe L. C. B.-Stop, pray; for the plaintiff, you say. Does any one appear for the defendant? Mr. A.-My learned friend, Mr. B. Mr. B.—I appear for the defendant, my Lord. I perhaps may be allowed to tell your Lordship- The L. C. B.-One at a time, please. Mr. A. is at present in possession of the Court; and I desire, in the first instance, to hear from him, if he will have the goodness to tell me, which he seems strangely reluctant to do, the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the facts. [Mr. J. Mellor here left the court, and the facts, which were of an uninteresting and complicated nature, were gone into. Owing to the defective acoustic properties of the building, frequent repetition was necessary, and an hour and a half were thus consumed. Mr. J. Mellor returned.] The L. C. B.-Very well, you have explained the facts lucidly and clearly, and we shall now be most happy to hear the nature of your application. Mr. A.-My Lord, I have no application to make. (Laughter). The L. C. B.-I must really beg-nay, if necessary, I must insist-that there be no unseemly inter ruption to the business of this court. [To Mr. of the ministry, his "Bill of Pains and PenA.] You say you have no application to make.alties against her Majesty," charging her with Will you have the goodness to tell me then, why you are taking up the time of the court? Mr. A.-My Lord, I was about to ask your Lordship to allow this case to stand over until to-morrow, with the consent, as I was informed, of my learned friend on the other side. As I was about to apply to your Lordship, I was told by my learned friend, who entered the court at that moment, that he had given no such consent, and I therefore desired to withdraw my application. The L. C. B. [after consultation with the officers of the court.] Of course, without the consent of the other side, we can make no such order. The case will retain its place on the list. "The court then adjourned for luncheon." It is fair, however, to suppose that these incidents are but as the spots on the sun, and do not detract from the general splendor and dignity of the English bench. A GREAT CHANCELLOR. adulterous intercourse with her Italian servant. Even then, when the government was fairly embarked upon this perilous prosecution, the chancellor might well have saved himself the reproaches which were heaped upon him,had he maintained a discreet silence, declining, as he might well have done, to participate in the discussions leading to the hearing. But, with a strange fatuity, he did not scruple to ally himself openly with the supporters of the bill. Erskine having moved that the queen be furnished with a list of the witnesses against her, and having supported his motion with a manly speech, Eldon spoke warmly in opposition to the motion, thus denying to the queen the privilege to which the meanest sub. ject would have been entitled upon an indictment. Erskine afterwards moved that, as the charge contained in the bill extended over several years and over many countries in Europe and Asia, the queen should, for the purpose of preparing her defence, be furnished with a specification of the times and places when and where the offence was charged to have been committed. This motion, also, was opposed by Eldon in a formal speech. But during the entire course of the trial, in which the fervid eloquence of Denman and Brougham in defence of their client recalled the forensic splendors of the Hastings impeachment, Eldon's conduct as presiding officer of the lords and president of the court was deserving of the highest praise for the judicial dignity and absolute impartiality which it displayed. And it was not until the evidence and argu In 1820 occurred the trial of Queen Caroline, which forms one of the most disgraceful pages of English history. For his conduct in lending encouragement to this unfortunate proceeding, Eldon has been often and severely blamed, and, it must be admitted, with sufficient reason. He had in former years been a warm friend of the unhappy queen, dining often at her table, and acting in many things as her confidential adviser and supporter. But after the accession of George IV. to the regency, and his strenuous endeavors to bring about a judicial separation from Caroline, a change was gradually dis-ments were concluded, and the bill stood upon cernible in the attitude of the chancellor toward this unfortunate woman, which has been not unreasonably ascribed to his anxiety to retain the favor of his sovereign by yielding to his wishes in that behalf. Certainly, if, with his strong influence over the regent, and his extraordinary ascendency in the House of Lords, Eldon had put his face resolutely against the persecution of the queen, the disgraceful proceedings which followed might have been spared. Unfortunately for himself he chose to trim his sails to meet the royal favor, and yielded to the wishes of the king. Lord Liverpool accordingly introduced, with the approval its second reading, that he again left the woolsack, assumed the role of partisan, and delivered a vigorous speech in support of the bill. The second reading was carried by a majority of only twenty-eight. This small majority, with a growing sentiment everywhere apparent in sympathy with the queen, should have warned the government against further proceedings; but, with a strange fatuity, they continued to press the bill to its third reading, Eldon again speaking in its support. The third reading was carried by a majority of only nine votes, and the ministry, conscious at last of the futility of further proceedings, moved that further con sideration of the bill be postponed six months; and it was subsequently withdrawn. Lord Eldon's connection with this miserable phase of English history must be dismissed without excuse, since it is utterly inexcusable. In 1821 he was raised to an earldom by the king, whose cause he had served so well. The royal patent conferring the new honor recited that it was bestowed in consideration of the "distinguished ability and integrity which he had invariably evinced in administering the laws in his office of chancellor during the period of nineteen years." He took his seat in the House of Lords shortly afterwards as an earl, and was warmly greeted by his brother peers of all parties, with whom he was always a universal favorite. rotted away, while the chancellor was doubting what his judgment should be upon a motion for an injunction. One Taylor, a member of the House of Commons, came to be known as especial guardian of litigants in chancery, and at each recurring session of Parliament, year after year, he introduced a resolution calling for an investigation of the delays in the Court of Chancery. How sorely these complaints vexed the chancellor is apparent from a letter of his written in 1812, a committee of the Commons being engaged in one of these investigations. He writes: "I have now sat in my court for about twelve months, an accused culprit, tried by the hostile part of my own bar, upon testimony wrung from my own officers, and without the common civility of even one question put by the committee to myself in such mode of communication as might have been in courtesy adopted. my officers and that my successors will be, degraded by all this, I say what I think I do know." But while the chancellor was not wholly blameless for the great delay in the dispatch of business, the fault was more the fault of the system than of the judge who administered it. The country had outgrown the Court of Chancery. The court had still but two judges, the lord chancellor and the master of the rolls, just as there had been since the reign of Edward I., while its jurisdiction and its business had increased tenfold. He was much annoyed during this, the second, period of his chancellorship by the frequent complaints of delay in the business of his court, and he seems to have been exceed-When I say that I know that I am, and that ingly sensitive to criticism upon this point. These complaints seem to have increased as his term went on, and in 1811 they had become so frequent that he was reluctantly compelled to refer the subject to a select committee in the House of Lords, and a motion was made for a similar committee in the Commons. Jeremy Bentham, whose iconoclasm in all matters of law reform could ill brook the conservatism of Eldon, was especially bitter in his abuse of the chancellor because of the delays in his court. And the fifth volume of Bentham's published works contains a most bitter philippic directed against Eldon and his court because of the delays and expenses incident to chancery litigation. Indeed, Bentham seems to have hated him from first to last with the most malignant and unsparing hatred, and omitted no opportunity of giving expression to his spleen. The press, too, lent itself to the propagation of absurd rumors concerning the chancellor's delays. It was asserted that many who had large sums of money due them, locked up in chancery, owing to the doubts and delays of the chancellor, actually died of poverty and a broken heart; and that their ghosts might be seen between midnight and cock-crow flitting around the accountant general's office. Equally absurd stories were invented of a cargo of ice having melted away, and a cargo of fruit having So great had become the complaints of the existing system that, in 1813, Lord Eldon procured the passage by Parliament of a bill for the appointment of a vice-chancellor, for the double purpose of relieving the Court of Chancery and the House of Lords, where appeals and writs of error Lad accumulated so that it was many years behind in its appellate judicial business. Campbell, with his accustomed sneer, remarks upon this measure : "I am sorry that the vice-chancellor's bill, which had become indispensable for Lord Eldon's own convenience, is the only instance of his doing anything for the improvement of our institutions." But however little he may have done for the improvement of English institutions or English laws, he certainly dispatched an immense |