payment of debts and other legacies, he is called the residuary legatee.

The bequest of a legacy confers only a contingent or inchoate property on the legatee, which does not become complete until the assent of the executor or administrator with the will annexed, as the case may be, has been given. But before such assent the bequest is transmissible to the personal representative of the legatee, and will pass by his will. The assent of executor or administrator, however, cannot be refused, except so far as this, that he is not hound to admit that there is any property due to the legatee till the debts of the deceased are first paid.

If executors omit to pay legacies at the expiration of one year after the death of the testator, the legatees will be entitled to interest from that period. But no action can be brought for the non-payment of a money legacy; the Court of Chancery being the proper jurisdiction for redress, Deeks v. Strutt, 5 T. R. 690. Generally an executor cannot be compelled to pay legacies until after the expiration of twelve months from the testator's decease, and not even then, unless the assets should be realized, and the debts paid and provided for; but, as the rule is only for the several convenience of executors, if it should appear that alt the debts of the testator are paid, the executor may be compelled to pay legacies before the twelve months have expired.

Interest is payable from the testator's death on a legacy to a natural child, with directions to apply a competent part of the interest for its maintenance, 3 Swanst. 689.

In case of a deficiency of assets to pay the debts, all the general legacies must abate proportionally; but a specific legacy of a piece of plate, a horse, or the like, is not to abate, unless there be not sufficient without it. And, if the legatees have been paid, they are afterwards bound to refund a rateable part, in case debts come in more than the amount of the residue after the legacies are paid.

If a legatee die in the lifetime of the testator, the legacy falls into the residue of the personal estate; but if the bequest is so clearly worded as to show the testator intended it to go to the children or representative of the legatee in case of his death in the testator's lifetime, the legacy will not fall into the residue.

If a contingent legacy be left to any one, as when or if he attain the age of twenty-one, and if he die before that time, it is a lapsed legacy. But a legacy to be paid when he attains the age of twenty-one years is a vested legacy; and if the legatee die, his representative shall receive it at the time it would have become payable had the legatee lived. The reason of this distinction is, that the insertion of the words "to be paid" have the effect of immediately vesting the legacy, and the period mentioned is not a condition of payment, but the completion of the time when the legatee should be put in complete possession.

But the old rule in respect of lapsed legacies has been modified by the Wills Act; and the 1 V. c. 26, s. 33, provides that, when legacies are bequeathed to a child or other issue of a testator, who shall die in his lifetime, leaving issue, and such issue shall be living at the testator's death, the legacies shall not lapse, unless a contrary intention shall appear upon the face of the will; but shall take effect as if the legatee had died immediately after the

testator.

General conditions imposed on legatees not to marry are void, as immoral, by tending to prevent the multiplication of the species; but conditions which restrain marriage within a reasonable time, or to particular persons, are good, because the liberty of marriage is not taken away, only a qualification imposed, which may be expedient. So a condition by a husband, that his wife shall be entitled to a legacy he has left her only so long as she continues his widow, is binding.

Legacies bequeathed to women married before the 9th of August, 1870, ought, in general, to be paid to their husbands; but the executor, with the consent of the wife, may withhold the payment of such legacies till the husband consent to a suitable provision or settlement on the wife.

An inaccurate description or addition of a legatee, correctly named, will not destroy the effect of a legacy given to him by nomination. So, also, if the testator mistake the name of the thing bequeathed, having no other thing to which the term can be applied, the wrong description of the bequest will not defeat the legacy.

In leaving two separate legacies of the same amount to the same person, it is proper to express whether the second legacy be an addition to, or in lieu of, the first legacy.

Unless the testator has otherwise directed, the residuary legatee is entitled not only to what remains after the payment of debts and legacies, but also to whatever may fall into the residue after the date and making of the will.

No legacy can be recovered in any court after twenty years next after a present right to receive it accrued to some person capable of giving a discharge or release for the same, unless some principal or interest has been paid thereon, or an acknowledgment in writing, signed by the party liable to pay, or his agent, and then only within twenty years after the last of such payments or acknowledgments; and the recovery of interest is limited to the last six years.

Legacies to witnesses of a will are void by 1 V. c. 26.

Lastly, in the bequest of legacies be careful to specify the fund out of which they are to be paid, otherwise no fund for the purpose may be found to exist, as was the case with the legacies nominally left by the notorious Alderman Wilkes.

CHAPTER VII.

Bills of Exchangé.

A BILL of exchange is a mercantile instrument, generally written on a broad but short slip of paper, whereby one person orders or requests another to pay a certain sum of money, on his account, to a third person, or to his order, at a time therein specified.

The person who makes or draws the bill is termed the drawer; he to whom it is addressed is, before acceptance, called the drawee, and afterwards the acceptor; the person for whom it is drawn is termed the payee, and when he endorses the bill the endorsee; and the person to whom he transfers it is called the endorser; and in all cases the person in possession of the bill is called the holder.

Bills are either foreign or inland; foreign, when drawn by a merchant abroad upon his correspondent in England, or the contrary; inland, when both the drawer and drawee reside in the kingdom. Formerly, foreign bills were regarded of more importance in the eye of the law than inland bills; but now they are both nearly placed on the same footing, and the law and custom of merchants in regard to one extend equally to the other.

Inland bills generally consist of one piece of paper; but foreign bills may consist of several parts, in order that the bearer, having lost one, may receive his money on the other. The several parts

of a foreign bill are called a set; each part contains a condition that it shall be paid provided the others are unpaid.

By the Mercantile Law Amendment Act of 1856, the 19 & 20 V. e. 97, s. 7, every bill of exchange or promissory note drawn in any part of the United Kingdom or the Channel Islands, or islands adjacent, and made payable in, or drawn upon any person resident within, those dominions of her Majesty, is deemed an inland bill.

No particular form or set of words is necessary in a bill, any more than in a bond or other deed the following, however, is the usual style of foreign and inland bills :-

Form of a Foreign Bill.
Exchange for 5,000 Francs.

London, 1st March, 1839.

At twenty days after date [or at one or two usance, or at sight, or certain days after sight, as the case may be, pay this my first bill of exchange (second and third of the same tenor and date not paid) to Messrs. Arthur Jones and Co., or order [or bearer], five thou

sand francs, value received of them, and place the same to account, as per advice from

To Messrs. Dumont and Mallecot,

£100

Banquiers, Paris.

Form of an Inland Bill.

Two months after date [or at days after sight, as the case may or order, one hundred pounds.

To Mr. Henry Heaps,
Hosier, Bristol.

ROBERT ANDREWS.

London, 3rd March, 1839. sight, or on demand, or certain be], pay to Mr. Thomas Brown, Value received.

DANIEL HARDCASTLE.

The chief property of a bill of exchange is, that it is assignable to a third party not named in the bill, so as to vest in the assignee a right of action in his own name; which right of action, no release by the drawer to the acceptor, or set-off, or cross demand due from the former to the latter, can affect.

II. PARTIES TO A BILL OP EXCHANGE.

Persons under age, and married women, are incapable of being parties to a bill of exchange.

But though no action can be maintained on a bill drawn, endorsed, or accepted by persons so incapacitated, yet it is valid against all other competent parties thereto. Thus, in an action against the acceptor of a bill by the endorsee, it is no defence that the drawer was at that time an infant, or feme covert; for, though the holder is precluded from suing any anterior party, he will still be at liberty to sue any subsequent party to the bill.

As agency is a ministerial office, persons incapable of contracting in their own right may be agents for this purpose. A bill drawn, endorsed, or accepted by the party's agent is said to be done by procuration. But, in such case, it is incumbent on the agent, if required, to produce his authority to the holder, and if he do not, the holder may treat that bill as dishonoured.

When a person acts as agent in a bill, he must either write the name of the principal, or state, in writing, that he acts as agent, otherwise the act will not be binding on the principal; and if a person act in his own name, without stating that he acts as agent, he will be personally liable, unless in the case of an agent contracting on behalf of Government.

Corporations, by the intervention of their agents, may be parties to a bill of exchange.

III. REQUISITES OF A BILL.

The two principal requisites to a good bill are, first, that it is payable at all events, not dependent on any contingency, nor payable out of a particular fund; and, secondly, that it be for the payment of money only, and not for the payment of money and the perform. ance of some other act, as the delivery of a horse or the like.

If, however, the event on which the payment is to depend must inevitably happen, it is of no importance how long the payment is deferred. Therefore if a bill be drawn payable six weeks after the death of a drawer's father, or payable to an infant when he shall come of age, it is valid and negotiable; so, in order to pay money as the drawer's quarter or half-pay, by advance, is a good bill.

A bill cannot be given in evidence either in law or equity unless it be duly stamped, not only with a stamp of the proper value, but also of the proper denomination.

The date of a bill ought to be clearly expressed in words. But the date is not essential to the validity of the bill; for, when the date has been omitted, it will be intended to bear date on the day when it was made. The omission of the date for the purpose of the holder supplying the date at his convenience renders the instrument void; being an interference with the operation of the stamp duties.

The negotiability of a bill depends on the insertion of sufficient operative words of transfer. The modes of making a bill transferable are by making it payable to A. or order, or to A. or bearer, or to bearer generally.

If a bill, after it has been drawn, accepted, or endorsed, be altered in any material respect, without the consent of the parties bound therein, it will discharge them from all liability. But the mere correction of a mistake, as by inserting the words "or order," will not vitiate the bill, if made before the bill was circulated.

It is not essentially necessary to insert the words "value received," they being employed in every bill and endorsement. But, to entitle the holder of an inland bill of £20 and upwards to recover, in default of acceptance or payment, these words should be inserted.

IV. OF THE CONSIDERATION.

A bill is presumed to have been originally drawn upon a good and valuable consideration. But a want of sufficient consideration may be insisted on in defence to an action on a bill; and when the bill is for accommodation, and the holder has given value only for a part of that amount, he cannot recover on the bill beyond that sum.