Held, confirming the judgment of the Court below, that there was sufficient evidence to show an undertaking, on the part of the appellant, to pay for the use of defendant's property, and that the latter was entitled to a quantum meruit and to a droit de rétention until paid, the Court abstaining from deciding the question raised as to the extent of the right each party had to the use of the River Etchemin. Judgment confirmed. NOTE. The following appeals, also decided during the December term, do not require special mention : GUY et al., Appellants; and Guy et al., Respondents. The appeal was from a judgment of the Superior Court, declaring two lots of land grevés de substitution and subject to the usufruct of plaintiffs (respondents). The judgment was confirmed as to the first lot and reformed as to the second; Monk, J., concurring, but being disposed to go a little further, and to deal with both lots in the same way. PAYTON, Appellant; and CORNELLIER GRANDCHAMPS, Respondent.-A question of evidence as to verbal sale. Judgment reversed, Ramsay and Tessier, JJ., dissenting on the ground that the sale was not proved. LACROIX et al., Appellants; and THE CITY OF MONTREAL, Respondents.-An action by contractors for the new City Hall, from whom a contract had been taken away. A question of evidence. The judgment of the Court below, which dismissed the action, was reversed, and $400 allowed the appellants. Hus, Appellant; and MILLETTE et al., and BRUNET et al., Respondents.—A question as to the ownership of some land. Judgment confirmed. DESMARTEAU, Appellant; and SENECAL, Respondent.-Action on a note. A question of evidence. The judgment of the Court below in favor of the respondent (plaintiff) was confirmed, Ramsay, J., dissenting. Dec. 22. HOLDEN, Appellant; and MANN, Respondent. -An action of damages. Judgment confirmed, Monk, J., dissenting. Erratum.-In the case of Lavigne & Villars, mentioned on p. 31, read "reversed" for "confirmed." PRIVY COUNCIL. Dec. 12th, 1877. LAMBKIN V. SOUTH EASTERN R. R. Co. Appeal to Privy Council--Interlocutory Judgment. The verdict of a special jury awarded the plaintiff $7,000 damages for injuries sustained in a railway accident, and judgment was rendered against the defendants by the Superior Court, Montreal, in accordance with the verdict. This judgment being reversed and a new trial ordered by the Queen's Bench in appeal, the plaintiff moved for leave to appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. The Q. B. rejected the application on the ground that the judgment being interlocutory was not susceptible of appeal. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council considered that though this was an interlocutory judgment, it was of such a nature that an appeal should be allowed, and, in the exercise of their discretion, granted leave to appeal. Leave to appeal granted. Doutre, Doutre, Robidoux, Hutchinson & Walker for the Petitioner Lambkin. SUPERIOR COURT. TATE V. TORRANCE et al. Action for debt due to dissolved Partnership—Signification-1571 C. C. The plaintiff brought action for a debt due to a firm of Tate & Co., of which he had been a partner. By the deed of dissolution it was agreed that the business of the firm should be carried on by plaintiff and Charles Tate, to whom the retiring partner, Grant, transferred his rights. Charles Tate died and his rights were represented by the plaintiff. Held, that it was not necessary that the deed of dissolution by which Grant transferred his rights to the other partners, should be signified to defendants before suit, such deed of dissolution of partnership and transfer not falling within the category of transfers or sales of debts or rights of action, which must be signified before action brought against third parties. Demurrer dismissed. Abbott, Tait, Wotherspoon & Abbott for plaintiff. G. B. Cramp for defendants. Montreal, Dec. 19, 1877. PAPINEAU, J. petitioner was allowed to withdraw his application, and it was intimated that if it were to HOTTE V. CURRIE; McDONALD, T.S.; and GOR- be renewed, which perhaps might not be necesDON et al., intervening. sary in the interests of the petitioner in view Capias-Charge of Secretion-Name of Informant of Art. 792, C. C. P.; the applicant should be prepared to meet the difficulty arising from section 25 of our Habeas Corpus Act, C. S. L. C., cap. 95. -Loss of Affidavit. Held, that in an affidavit for capias under Art. 798 C.C.P., declaring that the defendant has secreted, or is about immediately to secrete his property and effects, it is not necessary that the deponent should give the name of the person who informed him of the facts alleged in the affidavit, nor the special reasons which lead him to believe that the facts are true. 2. Where the affidavit on which a capias issued has disappeared from the record, the capias cannot be held good, though the contestation by defendant is manifestly unfounded. Quimet & Co. for plaintiff. Trenholme & Maclaren for defendant. Montreal, Jan. 25, 1878. DORION, J. CIRCUIT COURT. Sherbrooke, Jan. 12, 1878. DOHERTY, J. CLEMENT V. HEATH, and BACON, petitioner. Jurisdiction-Insolvent Act-Compulsory Liqui dation. Held, that the Circuit Court has no jurisdiction to interfere with a seizure under a writ of attachment in insolvency, though it appeared that the writ issued against a non-trader, and the same goods were under seizure in a suit in the Circuit Court. The action was commenced by arrêt simple, and judgment went in favor of plaintiff for $60. A vend. ex. having issued, proceedings thereunder were stopped by an order of the Judge on the petition of Bacon, assignee, who alleged that previous to the issuing of the vend. ex. a GLOBE MUTUAL INSURANCE CO. OF N. Y. v. SUN writ of attachment in compulsory liquidation MUTUAL INs. Co. Security for Costs-Foreign Company. Held, that a foreign Insurance Company which has a place of business in the Province of Quebec is not bound to give security for costs. [But see 21 Jurist, p. 224.-Ed. L. N.] COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH. Montreal, Jan. 22, 1878. Ex parte GAUVREAU, Petr. Habeas Corpus in Civil Matters. The petitioner was imprisoned for failing as gardien to produce goods seized, and he asked tor habeas corpus in order to be liberated as he was a minor. The Judge refused the application, as there was no notice to the party interested in maintaining the contrainte; and as the affidavit,which only contained a general reference to the allegations of the petition, was insufficient, inasmuch as it did not disclose any reasorable or probable ground for the issue of the writ. The had been issued, and the property of the defendant had thereby been vested in him. The plaintiff contested the petition and order on the ground that the defendant was not a trader. DOHERTY, J., said the defendant was not a trader, and manifestly not entitled to the benefit of the Insolvent Act. But the Circuit Court could not decide this question. The writ of attachment divested the defendant of all his property and vested it in the assignee, and the Circuit Court had no power to set aside the writ. The plaintiff must intervene, and contest the point in the Insolvent Court. Contestation dismissed. Brooks, Camirand & Hurd for plaintiffs. W. White, counsel for plaintiff. Ives, Brown & Merry for assignee. -The Judge of the Sheffield (England) County Court has no confidence in the veracity of woman. On a recent occasion he stated from the Bench that there is ten times more perjury committed by women in his court than by men, and he added that women do not seem to care in the least what they swear to. COMMUNICATIONS. THE CASE OF MR. O'FARRELL. To the Editor of THE LEGAL NEWS: SIR,-In the case of O'Farrell & Brassard a motion was made immediately after the rendering of the judgment of the Court of Queen's Bench, referred to in your leading article of the 19th instant, for leave to appeal to Her Majesty in her Privy Council from that judgment. Under such circumstances a simple report of the case or the publication of Mr. Justice Cross' notes could have required no comment, but the prominence given to the decision and the approving remarks made in reference to it in a publication devoted no doubt to the interests and welfare of the pro. fession, cannot be allowed to pass unnoticed. If, on the one hand, as you remark," punishments are not to be awarded for indefinite offences, and, especially, at the pleasure of the majority of a fluctuating and almost irresponsible tribunal," it seems, on the other, that the exercise of some disciplinary power is essential to the existence of such a body as the Bar. You add further on, that "a majority of a "council might be found in particular circum"stances voting in a very whimsical manner, "and it is wise to place some restraint upon "their action by compelling them to define the "acts which they intend to punish as crimes." The latter portion of this sentence resumes all the reasoning of Mr. Cross' judgment. At first sight it seems difficult to conceive how even so learned a body as the Bar of this Province could frame a set of by-laws containing a complete enumeration of actions derogatory to the honour of the body or constituting a breach of its discipline. A permanent board might have been constituted when the charter was granted, it might have defined ever since and go on defining for another century before its labours would be half complete, and then the ever varying sense of honour would, in course of time, make that wrong which was right at the beginning, and vice versa. That the law can never have intended anything so absurd is quite manifest. But we may be told the Bar might adopt by-laws in general terms, founded on the incompatibility of certain callings with the profession, on well known and generally received rules of social intercourse and moral deportment, &c. Well, and suppose they had, would not Mr. Justice Cross' argument still hold good, and might not the party accused, in almost every particular case, complain that the act charged did not fall within the by-law as well as the statute? We are thus left to two necessary conclusions. 1st. The charter cannot have intended to impose upon the Bar the task of defining all acts derogatory to its honour and constituting breaches of its discipline, for such would be simply impossible. 2nd. Nor could it have intended that there should be a set of rules in general terms, for such could have added nothing to the Act of Incorporation itself. If from these considerations we turn to the statute, we find, with no little surprise, that the terms of section 3, relied upon in the judgment, are simply permissive, "the Corporation may make all such by-laws, &c," and nowhere in the law is to be found the obligation imposed upon the Bar of adopting by-laws at all. It is quite different with regard to the powers conferred upon Councils of sections, and at section 10 of the Act the expressions are The words are as declaratory and absolute. follows: "The council of each section shall, in and "with regard to such section, have power, "First. For the maintenance of the discipline "and honour of the body, and, as the importance "of the case requires, to pronounce, through the "Bâtonnier, a censure or reprimand against any "member guilty of any breach of discipline, or " of any action derogatory to the honour of the "Bar," &c. It is well to remark that in this section no mention is made of by-laws. The law itself defines that which the powers it confers are intended to repress, and without any reference whatever to any further definition by by-law or otherwise. There is nothing obscure in the words used, they could not be more plain. A discretionary power is vested by law in a body deemed worthy of exercising it, and it is painful to see those who have risen from its ranks to places of honour and emolument go out of their way to interfere with such a privilege. For it seems quite clear that in dealing with case. EN DELIBÉRE. It promote this end, and there would be fewer appeals, and less work and more play. After each term the Court should adjourn to a near day to render judgments in cases-as a rule, not as a variety. DESPATCH. CURRENT EVENTS CANADA. SUPREME COURT.-The Supreme Court was occupied from January 21st, the day of opening, to the 24th inclusive in hearing the appeal in the case of James Somerville et al., Appellants, and The Hon. R. Laflamme, Minister of Justice, Respondent. The judgment appealed from, rendered by Dorion, J., July 7th, 1877, dismissed the election petition filed by Somerville and others, contesting the return of the Hon. Mr. Laflamme to the House of Commons for the To the Editor of THE LEGAL NEWS: SIR-One of the evils of our present system is the long délibéré which takes place in all cases, whether important or not. In the Queen's Bench (appeal side) this is always the After argument a case must go en déli-County of Jacques Cartier. The case presented little of interest in a legal point of view, with béré for three months, perhaps for six months. This has become a practice (chronic). the exception of some rulings at the trial on operates injustice in many respects to suitors questions of the admissibility of testimony. and to the profession. If cases were judged The evidence is excessively voluminous, being rapidly the roll would not be so encumbered directed both to the unseating and the disqualwith cases, often taken to appeal merely to ob-ification of the sitting member, but the petitain delay to defeat the ends of justice in fact. These delays only encourage appeals. The men on the bench should be ready men. presume they are so. Deliberations among them should be when the points are fresh, if any point has been raised worthy of discussion. After each term the members of the bench scatter, and the records are expected to be ubiquitous, or to go travelling in a tin box about the country. This is en délibéré ! Speedy justice is expected from a tribunal sitting in appeal. The bar might make the duty of the bench easier. Laboured factums should be abolished: cases made to assume more the form of a mathematical proposition. Cases should be threshed out and reduced in bulk. Long-winded arguments (beating the air) should be given up. The duty of the bar is as ministers of justice to assist the courts in the administration of justice, not to embarrass by creating difficulties which do not exist. Let us have in the Court of Appeals speedy justice. Let bench and bar work together to tioners were unsuccessful on both points in the Court below. As long as elections are fought and contested with the extreme pertinacity which at present distinguishes them in Canada, the time of the Supreme Court is likely to be monopolized to a considerable extent by the hearing of election appeals. On the 28th January judgment was given in the case of The Queen v. Severn. The question was as to the jurisdiction of the Legislature of Ontario to impose a license fee on brewers doing a wholesale business and licensed under the Revenue Acts of Canada. The Supreme Court has reversed the judgment of the Court below, and holds that the local legislature has no power to impose a license fee on brewers, such taxation not falling within sub-section 9 of section 92, B. N. A. Act. ONTARIO. FUSION OF LAW AND EQUITY.-A discussion of considerable interest is in progress in Ontario on the subject of the fusion of law and equity. A writer in the Canada Law Journal, over the always until changed, and equally to all the signature "Q. C.," says: courts, and that no court should have any rule at any time which did not equally regulate every other Superior Court not being a Court of Appeal." The carrying out of this reform will make the Ontario system resemble more closely that which prevails in the Province of Quebec. Many of the benefits hoped to be obtained in Ontario by the change, have long been enjoyed in the sister province. QUEBEC. A constitutional "No matter whether it would or would not have been originally better to have left common law and chancery entirely separate, we have now gone too far with the fusion of them to get back to that position. We must therefore go on, and thoroughly fuse them by making all our Superior Courts which are not Courts of Appeal, both Courts of Law and Courts of Equity, to all intents and purposes. The sooner we do so the better for ourselves. Until we do, it is impossible to have any settled intelligible system of practice or pleading in any WRITS OF INJUNCTION. court; whereas, as soon as we shall do so, all point was raised in the Quebec Legislative will immediately be settled and become certain Assembly, January 25th, on the second reading and intelligible, and we will not be compelled, of Mr. Angers' Bill providing for the issue of as we now are, without any remuneration, to writs of injunction in certain cases. Among learn and keep ourselves up in two dissimilar the cases in which the injunction may issue is antagonistic systems of practice, pleading and the following:-To prevent and hinder any procedure, instead of only one system. Second- bank or other corporation or joint stock comly, because, if effected upon proper principles, pany from registering the transfer of shares in it will not only greatly improve the usefulness, such corporation or company, when such shares practice and procedure of all the courts, but belong to minors, interdicted persons, married will also, in the only way possible without women not separated as to property, or unauthabolishing the Court of Chancery, get its prac-orized, or persons legally incapacitated, until tice and procedure sufficiently in harmony with modern ideas to make it work satisfactorily, and do away with unnecessary delays, complications, technical obstructions of justice, and a host of petty expenses impossible to be got rid of while its present system is retained. I think, however, in carrying out what A City Solicitor' has recommended, it would be well, in order to get rid of the injurious effects of the inveterate prejudices which usually cling to old names, when all the courts are fused, to abolish all their old names and re-name them. This would fix in the minds of their judges that their respective courts no longer differ from one another in any respect. It would also be well to make the act come into force upon a future day to be named, which day should be far enough off to enable all concerned to be able to study the new practice and procedure the act would necessitate before it should come into effect. The act should also provide that a sufficient time before that day, the judges, or chief judges at all events, of all those courts, or a majority of them, should devise a new practice and procedure to be embodied in rules of court, which should apply right of property in such shares or stock, or before such Court shall have granted permis the Superior Court shall have adjudicated on the sion for the transfer of such shares. The question was raised by Mr. Bachand whether it legislate as here proposed, inasmuch as banking was competent for the local Legislature to is one of the subjects exclusively pertaining to the jurisdiction of the federal Parliament. Mr. Angers met this point by remarking that the incorporation of banks and their right to issue paper money are derived from the Federal authority, but questions of administration under the incorporation, such as those in relation to which this writ of injunction is to apply, are matters of civil rights and property, and clearly belong to the local authorities. All questions relating to property belong to the Provincial Legislature. UNITED STATES. AUTHORITY OF REVENUE OFFICIALS.-In the case of the United States v. Mann, it has just been decided by the Supreme Court of the United States that a bank officer was justified |