WILL OF THE LATE MR. JUSTICE MANISTY.-Probate of the will, dated September 18, 1888, with a codicil made July 2, 1889, of the late Right Hon. Sir Henry Manisty, of Gray's Inn and 24 Bryanston Square, one of the judges of the Queen's Bench Division of her Majesty's High Court of Justice, who died on January 31 last, aged eighty-one years, has been granted to the executors, his wife Dame Mary Anne Manisty and his sons Henry, Edward, and Herbert Francis, to the last-named of whom the testator bequeaths his law library and 3,5007.; to his senior clerk, Mr. William Bundock, 2,500l.; to his junior clerk, Mr. Charles Barnes, 1007. a year for life; to each servant of two years' service 107., and to each servant of five years' service 251. He bequeaths to his sister-in-law Mrs. Grace Dickson, 250.; to his grand-daughters Constantina and Dorothy Dickson, 1,000l. each; in trust for his sister-in law Mrs. Robina Robinson and her children, 1,000.; to his brother Francis, 1,000l. ; and to his brother Charles a life annuity of 501. The testator bequeaths to his daughters Mrs. Macrory and Mrs. Leggett, 5007. each; to his son Edward, 5007.; to his sons Henry and Robert, 2,000l. each; to his daughter Isabel, 2,5001.; and to the Barristers' Benevolent Association, St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, and the London Fever Hospital, 2501. each. He bequeaths to Lady Manisty 2,000l., his leasehold house in Bryanston Square and its furniture, and the income for her life of his residuary estate (the personalty being valued at 122,8157. 4s. 9d.), which, subject to Lady Manisty's life-interest, is left as to one-seventh each to or in trust for the testator's four sons and three daughters, after payment of further legacies of 1,0007. each to his son Mr. Henry Manisty and his grand-daughters Constantina and Dorothy Dickson. THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN'S CASE.-The Bishop of Ely, in reply to the Cambridge protest' as to the Archbishop of Canterbury's jurisdiction, writes: My Reverend Brethren,-I have received your protest signed by 202 of the beneficed clergy of my diocese, against the claim of his Grace the Lord Archbishop of the Province to bring to trial pro salute anime and to pass sentence on any bishop of the province. I think the word "claim" in its usual sense is not applicable to the archbishop's action in this matter, for it seems to imply that he desired to acquire this jurisdiction. I understand, however, that you employ the word more strictly and technically as meaning the solemn assertion of a right, of the existence of which his Grace was satisfied after hearing and judicially considering the arguments pro and con laid before him by counsel learned in the law. Το pass from this mere verbal question to the substance of your representation, you contend in effect that the law of the Church of England ought to conform to the law of the primitive Church, and that, according to that law, the proper tribunal for the trial of a bishop was a Court composed of bishops of the province presided over by the Metropolitan. In both these opinions I agree. There are, however, grave difficulties in the way of giving effect to these principles, and I see no immediate probability of the State erecting a tribunal for the trial of bishops upon what you consider, I believe rightly, to have been the primitive model. Meanwhile, let us remember that the government of the Church is absolutely and entirely in the hands of her Master, and He can make what seems the most imperfect means effectual for His great work, the salvation of her members, and therefore, although it is our clear duty to remedy any fault we can detect in her Courts or in her discipline wherever we are able to do so, yet we need not be anxious if this is! beyond our power, but may safely trust Him who sitteth above the water-flood and remaineth a King for ever.-ALWYNE ELY.' LICENSING APPEALS.-It is proposed, in a bill introduced by Mr. W. P. Sinclair, M.P., to change the Court of Appeal in licensing matters. Where a person thinks himself aggrieved by an act of any magistrates under a Licensing Act, and an appeal now lies to quarter sessions, the appeal is, according to this proposal, no longer to be made to the quarter sessions, but to the general body of justices for the town or the county, and the decision of that Court is to be final as to all matters of fact. For the purpose of hearing these appeals the quorum of the Court of justices is to be three members; but no magistrate is to join in the hearing or determination of an appeal from an act done by him. In boroughs where there are less than ten justices acting in it the decision of the joint committee' appointed under the statute of 1872 to confirm new licenses is to be final in respect of all matters of fact, and consequently the appeal to the county quarter sessions is in this respect repealed. A fundamental principle of the bill is that nothing in it is to be construed as altering the law of appeal in relation to matters of law. INSANITARY LAW COURTS.-On Monday, March 31, Mr. Channing asked the Home Secretary whether his attention had been called to the statement of Mr. Justice Denman at Chelmsford on Friday, March 21, that the Assize Court was in such an insanitary state as to be a perfect disgrace and dangerous to judges, counsel, and prisoners; and, further, to the similar comments made by Mr. Justice A. L. Smith and Mr. Justice Wills on Thursday, March 27, at Cardiff, as to the sickening smells in the Assize Court at Cardiff; whether attention was drawn by the departmental committee two years ago as to the insanitary condition of these Courts; and whether he would take immediate steps, by representations to the local authority or otherwise, to have these and other Courts which might have been similarly complained of put into a proper sanitary condition.--Mr. Matthews: Yes, sir. The learned judge has called my attention to the state of the Court at Chelmsford, but I have not seen the comments referred to as to the Cardiff Court. The duty of providing a proper Court-house and accommodation for prisoners awaiting trial rests with the local authorities. In consequence of the report of the committee of 1886, I made strong representations to all the local authorities throughout the country, including those of Chelmsford and Cardiff. At Cardiff many improvements have been made. With regard to Chelmsford I again in July last asked the justices to take the earliest opportunity of giving effect to the recommendations of the committee. I am now making further inquiry with regard to both places. BIRTH. Cooper, Esq., Solicitor, of a daughter. MARRIAGES. On March 27, at the Parish Church, Croydon, Lawson Niven Peregrine, Barrister-at-Law, of the Middle Temple, and of the Colonial Civil Service, son of Thomas Peregrine, M.D., late of Half Moon Street, Mayfair, to Grace Isabella, daughter of Edward William Puxon, of Wintons, Croydon. On March 27, at St. Simon's, Southsea, William Tyndall Barnard, Barrister-at-Law, elder son of W. T. Barnard, Barrister-at-Law, of Gray's Inn, London, to Eleanor Anne Nellie, youngest daughter of the late Captain H. G. Raynes, R.N., Southsea. On March 29, at St. Paul's, West Brixton, Arthur Staples to May, youngest daughter of Charles Marsh Denison, of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law. DEATH. On March 28, at Bencombe, Uley, Gloucestershire, Emma Lansdown, widow of the late John Osborne, Q.C., aged 75. THE LAW JOURNAL REPORTS AND STATUTES .. d. 1 6 0 If taken with the LAW JOURNAL REPORTS 1 Supplied upon application to THE PUBLISHER, 5 Quality Court, Chancery Lane, W.O. SCALE FOR ADVERTISEMENTS. Four Lines, or 40 Words, in Column.. .. £ s. d. Public Companies' Announcements, 8s. per inch in Column, or 71. 4s. per Page. Auction Sales, 7d. per Line. Per Annum. think so. 'There can be no doubt,' observed Jessel, 340M.R., in In re The Phonix Bessemer Steel Company, 44 Law J. Rep. Chanc. at p. 685, 'that the power to mortgage future calls can be given to a company by the memorandum of association; and though this judgment will not, of course, be binding on the House of Lords as an authority, we think it likely that the House will concur in the reasoning of it, and also in the reasoning of Lord Justice Lindley's exhaustive and lucid judgment in the Court of Appeal. Unsecured creditors of a company should carefully search the register of mortgages directed to be kept by section 43 of the Companies Act, 1862. It has, no doubt, been held that a mortgage not registered as directed by this section is not void (see In re The International Patent Pulp Company, 46 Law J. Rep. Chanc. 625, and the cases there cited); and the penalty on any director, manager, or other officer of a company for omitting to register is only 507. We think the decisions to the effect that an unregistered mortgage is not void are perfectly good law, but are of opinion on the whole that section 43 of the Companies Act requires amendment, and that unregistered mortgages ought to be made void, unless it can be shown that the mortgagee has done his best to procure registration, but has been foiled by fraud or negligence on the part of the officers of the company. ADVERTISEMENTS RECEIVED UP TO NOON ON THURSDAYS. IN carefully considered judgments the Court of Appeal, with considerable hesitation on the part of Lord Justice Lopes, has affirmed the considered judgment of Mr. Justice Stirling in the important Pyle Works Case (noted last week at p. 46), to the effect that the mortgage by a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1862, of its uncalled capital is good, so that unsecured creditors who have been trading with such a company, and giving it almost unbounded credit on the faith of such uncalled capital, may find the fund, out of which they expected in the last resort to obtain payment of their debts, completely exhausted by the secured creditors. It is impossible to exaggerate the gravity of this decision, which will, we hope, be forthwith taken to the House of Lords. But is there any reasonable expectation that the judgment of the Court of Appeal will be reversed? We cannot MR. DIGBY's article in the Law Quarterly on 'The Law of Criminal Conspiracy in England and Ireland is an interesting one. It is pointed out that it is impossible to describe a certain class of conspiracies in terms more precise than those used by Mr. Justice Stephen (Crim. Law Dig. art. 160) in describing them as 'agreements between more persons than one to carry out purposes which the judges regarded as injurious to the public.' It is, however, as Mr. Digby says, above all things desirable in criminal law that what is and what is not crime should be clearly and intelligibly defined, and the general rule suggested is, that where erime is the object or direct result of the combination, the combination should be held to be a criminal one, but not otherwise; or, in other words, that the enactment of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, 1875, that a combination by two or more persons to do or procure to be done any act in furtherance of a trade dispute between employers and workmen shall not be indictable if such act committed by one person would not be punishable as a crime,' should be made applicable to all combinations whatever. Proudfoot v. Newton, which we report this month (59 Law J. Rep. Q. B. 129), will long be resorted to as an authority for the meaning of 'good tenantable repair' in contracts of tenancy. It was there held that an outgoing tenant under a contract to leave a house at the end of a three years' tenancy is liable both for commissive and permissive waste, but need not repair anything worn out by age, so that he need not put up new wall papers where the old ones have worn out, nor repaint inside woodwork where painting is decorative only, and also that he need not clean or scour wall paper or whitewash ceilings. The Court has, in fact, drawn a sharp distinction between 'tenantable' and 'decorative' repair, and held that the latter kind of repair cannot be thrown upon a tenant unless it be expressly stipulated for, as it very frequently is, by an express principle. The consolidating Arbitration Act, 1889, is undertaking to paint and paper every seventh year, or strangely and unfortunately silent on the point, which in the last year of the term. The official referees gene- still awaits an express judicial decision to settle it rally, it was stated in the argument, had not drawn beyond all doubt. this distinction, taking perhaps the very tenable view that by tenantable repair' is meant such a state of repair as would enable a landlord to relet a house at the same rent without being previously obliged to repaper and repaint. But this view must now conclusively be taken to be a wrong one. THE County Councils Association Expenses Act, 1890 (53 Vict. c. 3), which received the Royal Assent on the 29th of last month, after reciting that an association of county councils has been formed for the purpose of consultation as to their common interests,' enacts that any county council may pay out of the county fund any sum not exceeding 317. 10s., in any one year as a subscription to the funds of such association, as well as any reasonable expenses of the attendance of representatives, not exceeding in any case four, at meetings of the association.' The Act is framed upon the model of the Poor Law Conferences Act, 1883 (46 Vict. c. 11), and the Public Health and Local Government Conferences Act, 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. 22), neither of which Acts, however, authorises the payment of subscriptions to any central association, or limits the number of representatives enabled to attend the meetings of such association at the public expense. 'BRIEFLESS' writes to the Morning Post, à propos of the articles which have recently appeared in that newspaper on the subject of the Law's Delay,' to say that it occurs to him that if a short Act were passed limiting the age of persons eligible for judicial office to sixty years, and compelling the retirement of all judges at the age of seventy on the usual pension, complaints in future of the law's delay would thus be sensibly diminished.' We think seventy too early for compulsory retirement, but we are also decidedly of opinion that' the question is well worth the attention of Parliament, and greatly hope that it may be brought before one House or the other before very long. It is absolutely independent of party, and we think the numerous lawyers in the House of Commons would be doing good service to the profession and the public if they were to take concerted action to bring the law of judicial appointments more in harmony with reason and public opinion than it is at present. 'IN the matter of an arbitration' an application was recently made to send the matters referred back to the arbitrator for amendment of his award, but it was stated that he had been acting gratuitously and had had enough of it.' Curiously enough, the cases are in conflict upon the point whether or not an arbitrator has any implied title to remuneration. Viranny v. Warne, for instance (1801), is to the effect that he has not, while Swinford v. Burn (1818) is to the effect that he has. In Crampton & Holt v. Ridley & Co., however (1887), there is a strong intimation of opinion from Mr. Justice Smith that there is an implied promise by parties appointing an arbitrator jointly to pay for his services, and we think that this is correct in point of THE Daily Chronicle points out that a Bill to promote the laudable object of securing sufficient bedroom accommodation and proper drainage and ventilation in all new cottages, which is introduced by Sir E. Birkbeck, has found supporters in Conservative, Liberal Unionist, and Gladstonian Liberal members as its backers. There are many legislative reforms of an unambitious but useful character which would receive similar support apart from political considerations, and it may be hoped that Sir E. Birkbeck's Bill will not be the only one in which the practical union of political opponents may bear good legislative fruit. THE Gray's Inn Moot Society deserves the cordial support of junior barristers and students. It exists for the purpose of advancing by the organised discussion of legal questions the forensic education of students for the bar. Not only does it, in common with numerous kindred societies of high value and standing, afford facilities for gaining a firm grasp of legal principles and for acquiring a readiness and precision of expression, but, alone among all the institutions in England framed for similar objects, its proceedings are conducted so as to conform as nearly as possible with the conditions of actual practice.' This statement of the objects of the society is taken from a small pamphlet, which may be obtained from the Hon. Secretary at Gray's Inn Library, and in which our readers will find a brief and interesting account of the history, constitution, and methods of the society. Gray's Inn has long set a good example to the other Inns by establishing and keeping on foot an institution which cannot fail to be of the greatest possible advantage to those who avail themselves of its opportunities of forensic instruction. MR. J. THEODORE DODD points out, in the Pall Mall Gazette, that there is a 'not' printed in the English translation of 34 Ed. III. c. 1, 'which is not to be found in the old French,' and there is no doubt of the discrepancy between the translation (or rather translations, for, as pointed out in the notes to the Statutes of the Realm and the two editions of the Revised Statutes, all translations agree in printing the 'not') and the original. The statute in question is the well-known one investing justices of the peace with power, among other things, to inquire of all vagabonds and to take and arrest all those that they may find and to put them in prison, and to take of all them that be [not] of good fame' suflicient surety, and the other duly to punish." How much,' asks Mr. Dodd, of this higlily penal Act is due to the Parliament of Edward III., and how much to the error of the transcriber? We should imagine that the error was in the transcriber of the French, and that the translators erred, if err they did, in trying to make better sense of the statute. As for the proba bility of the English version being the correct one, we may point out that in the Introduction to the Statutes of the Realm (from which the text of the Revised Statutes is taken) it is stated that for the purpose of correcting errors in the translation the several editions, as well of the text as the translation, have been compared with each other.' FRENCH COUNCILS OF PRUD'HOMMES. A SHORT report just furnished by the British Embassy to the Foreign Office, and prepared by Mr. De Bunsen, QUITE the greatest change possible in the constitution on the Councils of Prud'hommes, which are established of this country is suggested by Mr. Dicey in his article in all the important centres of population in France, on 'The Referendum' in the current number of the possesses a special interest both for the insight furnished Contemporary. The referendum is a process in Switzer- into the practical working of institutions among our land whereby any radical change of the law, after being neighbours and for the bearing which it may have on carried by a representative assembly, is referred for ap- certain tendencies and influences at work among ourproval or disapproval to the whole body of the people. selves. We have been long accustomed to the 'domesThe process is said to work very well in Switzerland, and it is argued by Mr. Dicey, with much force and wealth of illustration, that it might work well in this country as a check upon measures owing their success in the House of Commons too much to the spirit of party. tic forum' of arbitration, and the official referees constitute to a certain extent a departure from our regular legal system. The administration of the law under complicated Acts of Parliament has in the case of the railway commission been partly entrusted to laymen specially conversant with the interests involved. But, with these exceptions, the settlement of disputed rights and the adjustment of contractual and other relations between man and man, have with us been exclusively assigned to the legal profession. Extra-judicial bodies have, it is true, of late years grown up among us, such as chambers of commerce and boards of conciliation for the settlement of strikes and locks-out. But these are purely voluntary in their character, and have no legal status or authority. Bodies of this kind, however, as their practical influence extends, are not unlikely in the future to claim statutory powers of a judicial or quasijudicial character. And in the bill recently mentioned in these columns, which Sir Albert Rollit has introduced this session, it is proposed to establish commercial tribunals in which the lay element will be largely represented. We have received a copy of the first number of the Indian Jurist, a legal paper just published at Madras in continuation of the Madras Jurist, which was established in 1866. The editor, we believe, is Mr. J. H. Nelson, late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, and formerly a District Judge in Madras, whose name is already familiar to Privy Council practitioners and to all who take an interest in Indian questions by his two books, Prospectus' and 'View' of Hindû law, which received the special commendation of the late Sir Henry Maine in Early Law and Custom.' The Indian Jurist, which is published monthly, combines the functions of a magazine and of law reports, the latter not being confined to Indian cases, but containing also decisions of the Privy Council and notes of English cases. The In France the non-professional administration of juspresent number contains an interesting article on the tice in certain classes of cases has been established right of search under the Code of Criminal Procedure since 1806. The Councils of Prud'hommes are described in connection with a treasure buried in a temple with to be local boards elected for the settlement of disputes which the trustee and manager was suspected of tam- between masters and workmen. The whole system is indipering, and reviews of Griffith on the Code of cative of a much simpler and more patriarchal state of Criminal Procedure,' Shephard's Transfer of Property society than that in which we live, and the jurisdiction Act,' and 'Lyons's Medical Jurisprudence.' The paper exercised is much less important than that with which is well written, well printed, and well got up, and is Sir A. Rollit seeks to invest his tribunals. The quesinteresting, even to the non-Indian reader, as a record tions dealt with by the councils are wages, contracts, of the application of refined British jurisprudence to deductions made from wages in consequence of miscon the primitive conditions of Indian life. There is, how- duct, absences from work, apprenticeship, valuation, ever, a series of amusing blunders in the announcement of Lord Morris's appointment. He is described as a piecework, and, generally, the differences which arise 'Lord Justice of Appeal in ordinary,' and it is said that in the relations of employer and employed. The burnthere are six legal life peers,' the other five being Lords ing question of strikes, however, which in this country Wensleydale, Watson, Gordon, Blackburn, and Mac-extra-judicial bodies, is excluded from the purview of has been made the occasion of the appointment of naghten. Not to speak of more recent events, it is strange that the editor should have forgotten the Wensleydale controversy of thirty-four years ago, or the attempt to confer a life peerage on Baron Parke. these councils, and no matters, such as the rate of wages, of a sumptuary or quasi-sumptuary character are submitted to them for decision. The first council was constituted for the district of Lyons, and the functions of the Prud'hommes have been successively enlarged and revised by a series of enactments, the most important of which are the decree of May 27, 1848, and the laws of June 1, 1853, and February 7, 1880. WITH reference to our remarks on the case of Johnson v. Wild and another, in our issue of March 29, we are asked by the agent of the defendants' solicitors Each council is created at the request of the local to state that the defendants were not mortgagees by chambers of commerce by a Government decree, which subdemise, but simply underlessees of portion of the must specify exactly how many Prud'hommes are to land comprised in the original lease. The rent reserved form the council, six being the minimum, excluding the by the underlease had been subsequently released in president and vice-president, over how many communes consideration of the payment of a lump sum by the this authority is to prevail, and what industries underlessee to the underlessor. The correction does are to be subject to it. Thus the jurisdiction not affect our remarks upon the law of the case, which is strictly limited in each case. Mines and railwill be found correctly noted in last week's Notes of ways are not included, nor are the relations of Cases at page 46. shopkeepers, merchants, and clerks. The councils are, in fact, par excellence, the artisans' tribunal. Efforts, 207., and also modifying the franchise for the election of however, are being made to bring all industries within Prud'hommes. It has not been thought possible to the jurisdiction. The members are elected and the make the council arbiters in strikes, but M. Lockroy is franchise is bestowed on a basis which is calculated to submitting a bill which provides for the constitution of ensure intelligence and character in the voters. It is Boards of Arbitration on the English model. M. de confined to masters and workmen belonging to the Bunsen's report states that great services have been specified trade, who are over twenty-five years of age rendered by these bodies; but he also mentions that there and have resided at least three years in the locality. A is a widely spread fear that the proposed enlargement Prud'homme must be thirty years of age and able to of functions and extension of the suffrage may lead to read and write. These conditions seem to indicate that political and social dangers. In the large towns, indeed, the French urban population is much less migratory wirepullers already to a considerable extent control the than our own, and we imagine could hardly be fulfilled elections. The whole system is a striking illustration in London or the other large cities of this country. of the democratic character of French society, and Masters and men are equally represented in the council. arises out of conditions which have never existed in Before 1880 the president and vice president were ap- this country. The institution can hardly, therefore, pointed by the State, and could only be employers; but serve as a model for our institution. It is one thing now the Prud'hommes elect these officers for the year for a system to have been established under comparaout of their own numbers; and if the president be a tively simple conditions of society; it is quite another master, the vice-president must be a workman, and vice to introduce it into so complicated an organisation as versa. The Prud'hommes are usually, but not necessarily, our own, with habits and traditions so different from paid a salary at the expense of the district over which those which prevail in the country of its origin. their jurisdiction extends. Half of the body retire every three years, but the retiring members are reeligible. It is, one would imagine, an object of ambition for an intelligent workman to obtain election to the council, which it is to be hoped affords scope for energies which might otherwise be devoted, as is too frequently the case in this country, to agitation and mob oratory. SOLICITOR-MORTGAGEES AND PROFIT (Continued from page 197.) a As regards direct authority on the right of a solicitormortgagee to be allowed profit costs, or rather to be Every council is divided into two main bureaux' or allowed the same costs as if he had employed another sections: the 'bureau particulier' or 'de conciliation,' solicitor, it must be admitted that it is not in a very consisting only of one man and one master, and the satisfactory state. On the one hand we have Price v. 'bureau général' or 'de jugement.' The former, which M'Beth, 33 Law J. Rep. Chanc. 460, where, on generally meets once a week, endeavours to settle disputes summons to review the taxation, Vice-Chancellor off hand. If in this way no voluntary agreement can Stuart, without going into the general question, allowed be reached, the case goes to the 'bureau général' for a profit costs to a solicitor-mortgagee acting for himself regular trial, at which witnesses can be examined and in a redemption suit, on the ground that the objection judgment is delivered. This bureau is obliged by law to the allowance ought to have been taken at the trial; to meet at least twice a month, and consists of the pre- and In re Donaldson, 54 Law J. Rep. Chanc. 151, where sident and vice-president and four other members- Vice-Chancellor Bacon, basing his judgment very much masters and workmen being again equally represented. on The London Scottish Benefit Society v. Chorley, Every Counci! settles for itself the order in which allowed profit costs to a solicitor, one of two trustees its members are to serve on the two bureaux. The and mortgagees, of taking the transfer to them of Prud'hommes are practical men with a knowledge of the mortgages, and of an attempted sale, and another the industries over which they exercise jurisdiction. actual sale under the power of sale. On the other hand They are bound by no code or rules of procedure, and we have the case of Sclater v. Cottam, 3 Jur. 630; no lawyers are employed, and very few cases occupy 5 W. R. 744, where Vice-Chancellor Kindersley only more than one sitting. They are also invested with allowed a solicitor-mortgagee acting for himself in a power to punish summarily up to three days' imprison- suit in defence of his own title costs out of pocket as ment any disturbance of order or infraction of dis- against a second mortgagee, a decision which seems to cipline in workshop or factory. They have also police have had some weight with Mr. Justice Kay. It is to functions, which, however, are rarely exercised; and be observed, however, that in Sclater v. Cottam the may inspect premises and report to the regular tribunals solicitor-mortgagee was in possession, and the Viceserious breaches of law, such as the disclosure of trade Chancellor (5 W. R. 745) is reported to have said that secrets or the theft of materials. it' was put upon the same footing as the case of a There are 136 of these councils, which dispose of trustee, with which, although an analogous case, it was about 42,000 cases in the year. Of these 20,000 were by no means identical.' In a case of Matthieson v. in Paris alone. About 16,000 are amicably settled, Clarke (3 Dr. 3), decided by the same Vice-Chancellor about 12,000 voluntarily withdrawn, and only 13,000 three years earlier, a firm of auctioneers conducting a or 14,000 referred to the bureaux généraux' for judg- sale under a mortgage made to a member of the ment. In Paris, the total cost of the municipality firm were disallowed their commission on the express is rather more than 8,000l. a year, of which 4,9921, ground that the mortgagee in the exercise of his or 487. each, goes to the 104 Prud'hommes. The power of sale became a trustee for the mortgagor, summary jurisdiction, from which there is no appeal, extends to cases involving 87. and under; over that amount an appeal lies to the Chamber of Commerce. But M. Lockroy has a bill, now before a committee of the Chamber of Deputies, extending this jurisdiction to and on this footing of trusteeship (if it be a sound one, on which, however, In re Donaldson throws a doubt) there can, of course, be no possible doubt as to the correctness of the disallowance. The Vice-Chancellor says: 'Here we are dealing with a mortgage, and, no doubt, a |