It has been maintained that,

siderable diversity of opinion. in one respect at least, English bankruptcy procedure is superior to ours in that it provides for the appointment of an official, known as the Official Receiver, whose duties consist, inter alia, first, in investigating the conduct of the debtor prior to his discharge, and reporting to the Court before whom the proceedings pend, whether, in his opinion, the bankrupt has been guilty of fraudulent conduct such as to disentitle him to his discharge; and, second, in taking possession of the debtor's estate between the date of the sequestration (i.e., of the first deliverance) and that of the appointment of the trustee. It is, of course, true that, under our procedure, it is not competent for the bankrupt to present a petition for his discharge on payment of a dividend or to obtain the consent of any creditor to such discharge until the trustee has prepared a report with reference to his conduct, stating categorically, if possible, whether he has made a fair discovery and surrender of his estate, whether he has attended the diets for his examination, whether he has been guilty of collusion, and whether his bankruptcy his arisen from innocent misfortunes and losses in business or from culpable and undue conduct. Now, it can hardly be doubted that if the trustee be a fair and impartially minded man, actuated solely by a sense of duty and unbiassed by ulterior considerations, the result is quite as likely to be satisfactory as if the report had been prepared by a public official. But it is, unfortunately, matter of common notoriety that, for various reasons, trustees are disposed to take a somewhat perfunctory view of their duties with reference to the report on the bankrupt's conduct, with the result that in many cases the report is little better than an empty formality. Again, while it is no doubt true that, theoretically, the debtor's right to the control of his estate determines at the date of the first deliverance, as a matter of fact he remains in practically undisputed control and administration of his estate until the trustee is actually in the saddle. It is true, of course, that, under our procedure, a judicial factor may be appointed to take charge of the estate during this interval. But, whether owing to the fact that special reasons for his appointment must be shown, or for other reasons, it is notorious that in few cases is such an appointment craved or made, the result being that in cases where the debtor is actuated by fraudulent motives, there is nothing to prevent him dilapidating his estate or taking measures which have the effect of frustrating the legitimate claims of his creditors. The consideration that these defects are due rather to lax administration of the statute than to the

absence of provisions adequate to check the abuses does not entirely convince one that some reform might not be beneficial. Several other reforms of minor importance have been suggested, of which want of space meantime forbids even the enumeration. W. W.

REGULATING INTERIM POSSESSION.

A NOVEL point in procedure, of particular interest to Sheriff Court practitioners, was recently decided by the First Division of the Supreme Court, who, in refusing a motion for recall of a Sheriff Court interdict pending an appeal against the SheriffSubstitute's interlocutor, held that applications to regulate interim possession pending appeal in terms of section 79 of the Court of Session Act, 1868, must be taken before the Sheriff, even should the process have been removed from his jurisdiction and control. The section referred to provides that, "in all cases where the judgment of any inferior Court shall be brought under the review of the Court of Session by appeal, it shall be competent for the inferior Court to regulate in the meantime, on the application of either party, all matters relating to interim possession, having due regard to the manner in which the interests of the parties may be affected by the final decision of the cause; and such interim order shall not be subject to review except by the Court at the hearing of such appeal, when the Court shall have full power to give such orders and directions in respect to interim possession as justice may require." The reason given for the motion for recall of interdict being made in the present instance in the Court of Session was that no process remained in the inferior Court, the whole papers in the proceedings having, on appeal, been transmitted to the Court of Session in the usual way. The parties making the motion for interim recall of interdict were the defenders, a District Committee of a County Council, who had in the Sheriff Court been interdicted from discharging sewage into a burn used by the pursuer for agricultural purposes; and the defenders, by marking the appeal, had themselves caused the process to be removed from the Sheriff Court to the Court of Session without any application for an interim order being made by them to the Sheriff. Having omitted to make their motion for regulation of interim possession in terms of the statute, they considered that their only remedy was to ask the First Division, to whom the appeal had been marked, to exercise the functions which by the Act were relegated to the inferior Court; but the judges of the Division, in refusing the motion, indicated that there was a way of getting over the difficulty,

and a very simple way, too, as is explained below. It is of importance to follow the dates of proceedings immediately preceding the appearance of the appeal in the Inner House, and the dates are these-On 10th April, 1907, the SheriffSubstitute, after proof, found pursuer entitled to interdict as craved, and to certain damages, but no actual decree was pronounced, as the cause was continued for a month to allow defenders to propose some remedial scheme. An appeal to the Sheriff was marked, and subsequently withdrawn, by defenders, which explains how the month's continuation was exceeded. On 11th June the Sheriff-Substitute, in respect that the defenders had failed to lodge details of such a scheme as he had called for, pronounced formal decree of interdict, and for damages following on the findings in his previous interlocutor. An appeal against the judgment was, on 19th June, marked to the Court of Session, where it was received on the 21st of the month. It will thus be seen that, had a motion for regulation of interim possession been thought of, there was ample time for defenders to have laid an application before the Sheriff-Substitute; but this they did not do, and, when it did occur to them that such a motion was necessary, they sought to follow the process to the Court of Session, where their motion was refused as being incompetent, the remedy which they sought being one for which statutory provision existed. Why the motion was not made in the inférior Court we have no means of knowing; but it is worth noting that what the defenders asked the First Division to do was, pending the decision of the appeal, to recall the interdict granted by the Sheriff-Substitute, and this would seem to be asking a great deal more than they would have attempted to get from the judge who had granted the interdict, for it does not seem at all likely that the latter, who had already granted delay before pronouncing decree, would have gone the length of acceding to a request which would have the effect of casting doubt on the soundness of his own judgment.

If the defenders' sole reason for moving in the Court of Session for recall of the interdict was that no process lay before the Sheriff, the difficulty which troubled them was very simply removed by the First Division judges, the Lord President, in giving the leading judgment, indicating that the Sheriff could quite readily and competently deal with a motion made under the section of the Act on its being laid before him in a separate process, which, if required, could be transmitted to the Court of Session for consideration along with the action on the merits. The decision, which is of date 5th July last, was given on a motion made in an appeal which came up from the Sheriff Court, Paisley, the appellants being the First or Upper District

Committee of the County Council of Renfrew, defenders in an action for interdict and damages against them at the instance of James Trainer. As the motion was refused by the Court, the question as to whether an appeal against a Sheriff Court interdict (which differs from one granted in the Bill Chamber) may be held to open up the whole proceedings was not gone into, but the test of this question would seem to lie in ascertaining whether or not an extract of the decree could be issued and put in force.

LOTTERIES IN THEIR LEGAL ASPECT.

I HAD not seen Sandy Hood, the sheriff-officer, for a very long time indeed, when one day his jolly red face appeared from behind the door of my room, and he burst into the room, exclaiming

"Aboot they limerick competeetions, noo

Catching sight of the commentary on the new Workmen's Compensation Act, the leaves of which I had been turning over as he entered, he suddenly switched himself off the consideration of the limerick competitions, and said—

"Ay, that new Act'll mak' a lot o' difference. Ane o' they insurance inspectors wis tellin' me the ither day that it'll simplify things a bit for them. They'll no' need noo, for example, to bother findin' oot who the undertaker is. Ye'll no' hae heard the story that hings on that expression 'undertaker'? Weel, it wis aboot a young lawyer that had a case for a weedow under the Workmen's Compensation Act. Thinkin' he wisna gettin' on very speedy wi' it, the weedow gaed up to see him, to push him on. 'But, my good woman,' says the young man, 'I can do nothing until I make sure who the undertaker was.' 'I dinna' richt min' his name,' says the weedow, but it's yon shop at the corner o' the Gallowgate and M'Lachlan Street. Will ye no' can find it out frae the directory?" "

I laughed at Sandy's story, which I had not heard before. "By-the-by, man," he proceeded, "hae ye heard my latest conundrum-that's the kin' o' things the young leddies gie ye at tea pairties? When can a change of sex take place in the Small Debt Court? When a sister and a brother are the parties to a case, and decree passes in absence, and the case is sisted, and the brother is the sister!"

'Very well invented," I remarked, laughing.

"That brings me back to the limerick competetions," continued Sandy. "Ye ken what I mean, I suppose?"

"Oh, yes!" I answered.

"Weel, I've been in for five or six o' them, and haena' even

got a consolation prize yet; and my concludin' lines werena' sae Hielan' for a' that. I'm thinkin' o' startin' a competeetion o' my ain. Hoo wid this dae for the young poets o' the nation to try their teeth on ?

There once was a wife in Camlachie,

Who said of her husband that "Ach! he
"So often got drunk,

"That she frequently shrunk—”

That wad be a rale test o' skill.

that in ony rhyming dictionary."

They wadna' get rhymes for

"No, that's quite clear," I answered.

“An' if it's legal for they magazines to conduct sic' a competection, it's legal for me. But what I canna' understaun' is how the limerick is legal if the missin' word wisna'."

"The difference," I replied, " is said to lie in the fact that in the latter it was not the finder of the most apt word who got the prize, but the finder of the word the editor had written, while in the present case it is the line adjudged best that wins."

"The line adjudged best," repeated Sandy, with a contemptuous stress on the word I have italicised, "and no' the best absolutely, or I bate I wad hae had a prize ere noo." "Tastes differ, you know," I replied.

"Ay, an' there's guid taste and bad taste," said Sandy. "Man, it's funny," resumed Sandy, after a pause, “the results that flow frae the prohibition by Parliament o' things no' wrang in themsel's."

"Mala prohibita, non mala in se," I repeated, sotto voce. "Aince I wis secretary o' a boolin' club bazaur," continued Sandy, without noticing my interruption, "an' we had a raffle for a pony. It wis won by a man ca'ed Peebles. When Peebles went to get his prize he fand that the livery-stable keeper that had decently foddered an' exercised the beast had let it damage itsel'; an', like the fairmer in the story that won the £50 pony and trap wi' ae sixpenny ticket, and askit, when his prize wis deliver'd to him, 'Whaur's the whup?' Peebles wantit the club to pey him damages for the injuries to the pony. Weel, what dae ye think I did? I wrote to Peebles, pointin' out that the raffle wis illegal, and that he couldna' even legally compel the delivery o' the beast, and I sell't the pony and added the proceeds to the bazaur fund."

"Served him right for his greed,” I said.

"But the best joke I min' o' relatin' to drawin's an' such like had to dae wi' a buildin' society. As ye'll nae doot ken, maist o' they societies has drawin's for advances withoot interest alternatin' wi' sales o' advances at a premium. Weel, a man I used to ken, ca'ed Scrimyger, wis a member o'yin o' they