the law 1. Walsingham mentions the attack made upon the Temple by the rebels in 1381 because it was the house of the lawyers. We have a reference in the Year Book of 29 Edward III to the apprentices in their hostels 3. We have little more than these scattered notes; and we can therefore only supply by conjecture and analogy the want of more definite information.

We know that in Edward I's reign there were a class of apprentices of the law, and that the crown desired the judges to exercise some control over them. We know that the common law was becoming a definite science, and that it was not taught at the universities *. These two facts, and the analogy of the origins of the mediaeval Universities, must be the guides to our conjectures as to the origin of the Inns of Court.

It is in connexion with the apprentices that we first hear of the Inns or hospitia.' Probably, as Mr. Fletcher says,

'the earliest hospices... originated, as did the halls at Oxford, in the hire of a house by a party of students, who, at the requirement of the landlord, named one of their number as the person responsible for the rest, and afterwards committed to him the direction of their Society 5'

From the first there must have been grades among the apprentices. There were among them elder men who were fit to conduct cases. There were also younger men who assisted their elders, and who in return were taught by the elders. These elder men would naturally assume the headship of such a society; and a number of Masters of the Law, drawn by the ties of a common profession to live together in London, each of whom took pupils whom he housed, educated, and controlled, would tend to assume a quasi-corporate form". If this account of the origin of the Inns is correct it would

1 Of the Manciple, of a Temple, he says:

Of maysters hadde he moo than thries ten,
That were of lawe expert and curious;

Of which there were a doseyn in an hous.'

Chaucer's evidence is the more valuable if it be true that he was himself a member of the Temple. In Speght's edition of Chaucer (1574) it is stated that he was of the Inner Temple on the authority of Master Buckley,' who, as chief butler of the Inner Temple, had access to records which are now lost, Calendar of I. T. Records, ii, viii; if this be so Chaucer's reference to 'A Temple' would be strong evidence that in his day the Societies were not divided.

.2 S. A. 1381, 'Satis malitiose etiam locum qui vocatur Temple Barr in quo Apprenticii juris morabantur nobiliores, diruerunt . . . ubi plura munimenta, quae juridici in custodia habuerunt, igne consumpta sunt'; cp. Dugdale, Orig. Jud., c. lvii.

3 Y. B. 29 Ed. III, Mich., p. 47.

Fortescue, De Laudibus, c. 48, ascribes this to the fact that at the University 'onely the Latine tongue is exercised,' whereas a knowledge of Latin, French, and English is required for the study of English law. The great fact is that English law was not taught. If it had been, would the Inns of Court have ever attained their present shape?

Pension Book, xii.

Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, i, xl.

account for the fact that there are no signs of democracy in their constitution. We get the oldest authentic records from Lincoln's Inn. In 1422 we see there a Society in which the Benchers, a body co-opted from among the members of the society, are entrusted with full educational and administrative control; and there are no signs in the records or traditions of the other Inns that matters had ever been otherwise with them1. Probably, then, we must look to some of the smaller Inns of Chancery for the origins of the privileged position ultimately attained by the four great Inns of Court.

It is not unlikely that the serjeants and the judges, who desired to regulate and organize the legal profession, assisted the older apprentices, who governed these smaller Inns, to maintain order and to educate their juniors in the law, by allowing those alone whom they nominated to practise in the courts 2. We know that in later times the call to the bar was made by or on the recommendation of the Reader-the member of the bench responsible during his term of office for the teaching of the students. The judges in the sixteenth century issued orders as to the conditions. under which a call to the bar was allowed; and at Lincoln's Inn, as late as 1578, they had some sort of control over the Reader5. Such an origin would explain the reason why the right to call to the bar has come to be vested absolutely in the Inns of Court 6, 6 and why it is that a student has a right of appeal to the judges against a refusal to call to the bar 7. Thus it has been conjectured with great probability that we must seek the germs of the Inns of Court in 'a body of Masters of the Faculty of Law, giving lectures and instructing their pupils in law; and when satisfied of the proficiency of their pupils, admitting them to the order of Masters by calling them to the Bar; and further... enforcing on the newly called an inceptio after the fashion of the great mediaeval Universities. It becomes at any rate possible to understand how

1 Pension Book of Gray's Inn, xiii. Mr. Fletcher sees these teaching apprentices in those selected by the ordinance of 1292-'In these practising and teaching apprentices-masters probably in a new gild-we may recognize the class from which came the founders of the two Temples, Lincoln's Inn, and Gray's Inn.' 2 Ibid. xiv.

3 Black Books, i. 339 (1563), ‘Calls to the Bench or Bar are to be made by the most ancient, being a Reader, who is present at supper on call night'; cp. Pension Book, Gray's Inn, 94.

Middle Temple Records, i. 124 (1559); 201 (1574).

5 Black Books, i. xvi, 410, 'The Judges to be asked their pleasure whether, although Mr. Reader be willing to Reade, yet considringe his wekness it be convenient to have a Redinge.'

Rex v. Benchers of Gray's Inn (1780) 1 Dougl. 353; Rex v. Lincoln's Inn (1825) 4 B. & C. 855; Rex v. Barnard's Inn (1836) 5 Ad. & E. 17.

7 Marchant, Barrister at Law, 5; see 36 & 37 Vict. c. 66, § 12 for the modern rule. Neither the courts acting judicially, nor the judges acting as visitors, can compel an Inn of Court to admit any person as a member. See L. Q. R. xx. 8.

Fortescue, Coke, and Selden speak of the Inns of Court as Universities for the study of the Law on the same footing as the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 1.'

It is easy to see how it was that when the older Inns grew too small for their members they moved into more commodious quarters, taking with them their old organization, their old traditions, and sometimes their old name. They could the more easily do this because, as we shall see, the Inns were at this period only rented by the apprentices. If their old quarters were occupied by new societies of students, these new societies might well wish to connect themselves with the older society, and so become the homes of those junior students who hoped in time to join the older society. Thus, in later times, we find that to each of the four Inns of Court certain of the Inns of Chancery were attached. To Lincoln's Inn there were attached Thavy's Inn and Furnivall's Inn; to the Inner Temple Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, and Lyon's Inn; to the Middle Temple New Inn and Strand Inn; to Gray's Inn Staple Inn and Barnard's Inn. Moreover, there was nothing to prevent spontaneous growth of new Inns of this kind, which would naturally desire to connect themselves with one of the greater Inns. This would account for the uncertainty of Fortescue as to their exact number. There is much therefore to be said for Mr. Fletcher's conjecture that the four great Inns were distinct from the earlier hospices,' and were the result of second thoughts, products of the time when the informal congregation of students in hired houses had proved a source of disorder, and, as at Oxford, the need of more discipline had become apparent "."

At the end of this period the four greater Inns were settled institutions. They had attained this position by various yet similar roads.

1 Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, i. xl.

W. S. HOLDSWORTH.

Mr. Baildon (Black Books of Lincoln's Inn, iv. 294, 295) tells us that this was one of the conditions in the conveyance of Clifford's Inn in 1618; he thinks that this very likely happened in the case of Lincoln's Inn, ibid.; ep. Pitt-Lewis, History of the Temple, 64-67.

3 In Fortescue's time the students of the Inns of Chancery were for the most part 'Yong men, learning or studying the originals, and as it were the elements of the Lawe, who... as they grow to ripenesse, so are they admitted into the greater Innes of the same studie, called the Innes of Court'; cp. Y. B. 37 Hen. VI, Hil., pl. 4. For the history of this Inn see Smith v. Kerr [1900] 2 Ch. 511.

5 He says, De Laudibus, c. 49, 'There be tenné lesser houses or Innes and sometimes more."'

& Pension Book, xiii, xiv.

(To be continued.)

REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

[Short notices do not necessarily exclude fuller review hereafter.]

The Law affecting Foreigners in Egypt, as the result of the Capitulations, with an account of their origin and development. By JAMES HENRY SCOTT, Lecturer at the Khedivial School of Law, Cairo. Edinburgh William Green & Sons. 1907. La. 8vo. xii and 390 pp. (15. net.)

:

THIS book seems likely to be extremely useful by way of an introduction to Egyptian law as it affects foreigners. The history of the Ottoman Capitulations, and so much of the law of the Ottoman Empire, and of Egypt as part of that empire, as is necessary to understand the present complicated system of Mixed Courts and Mixed Codes, are sketched in an interesting manner and without too much elaboration. This occupies thirteen out of the eighteen chapters, the remaining five being devoted to an account and explanation of the actual status of foreigners in Egypt at the present day. In the sixteenth century France for some time held the leading position among European States who received grants of commercial privilegeswhich was all that was at first meant by Capitulations '-from the Ottoman Sultans, and indeed, she went so far as to claim that the merchants of all European States (except the Venetians) were under her protection. The accounts of the growth of the capitulation system, and of the intrigues of England and other States to oust France from her foremost position, are of great interest, even if regarded merely as history. Both historians and jurists will notice that France has had her revenge, notwithstanding the present occupation of Egypt by Great Britain, for the Mixed Codes have been largely copied from the French Codes, and French jurisprudence, both in form and spirit, has gained the upper hand in the Egyptian legal system wherever this has departed from the strict paths of Mohammedan law. To all who are attracted by jurisprudence in the making the legal situation in Egypt is one of singular interest. The Capitulations and Consular Courts have grown into what may be called a system of international exterritoriality with limited powers of independent legislation, and it appears to be only a question of time when Egypt will possess a complete and carefully constructed code of national law, consisting for the most part of liberal adaptations from European, and especially French, Codes. At present the constitutional relation of Egypt to Turkey somewhat resembles that of the British autonomous oversea dominions to the United Kingdom, whilst the fact that Great Britain is practically ruling Egypt, without making even a 'protectorate' of the country under her rule, makes the constitutional position of Egypt absolutely anomalous. Several legal problems in Egyptian law are getting ready for solution, such as the nature of the legally-constituted corporation, the devolution of land on the intestacy of the foreign owner, &c. These problems may possibly not be solved as English lawyers would solve them, but they are interesting phenomena in jurisprudence. Mr. Scott's book is well worth the perusal of lawyers, even those who do not intend to specialize in Egyptian law.

There are, however, some annoying misprints or mis-spellings-as 'council' for 'counsel' (pp. 18, 19), and the index is most insufficient-it occupies two pages!

The Law of Mines, Quarries, and Minerals. By ROBERT FORSTER MACSWINNEY. Third Edition. London: Sweet & Maxwell, Lim. 1907. La. 8vo. lxxx and 895 pp.

CONSIDERABLE additions have been made to this branch of law both by decision and legislation since 1897. One may notice, for instance, that the author's doubt as to the validity of Mellish L. J.'s definition of the word 'minerals' in Hext v. Gill, L. R. 7 Ch. 699 at p. 712, has been justified by Lord Halsbury's remarks in Todd & Co. v. N. E. R. Co. [1903] 1 K. B. 603 at p. 606. Mr. MacSwinney's doubt as to the correctness of Warrington J.'s decision in Batten Pooll v. Kennedy [1907] 1 Ch. 256, seems not so well founded. The mere fact that Proud v. Bates, 34 L. J. Ch. 406 was decided on grounds, which, if Warrington J.'s view of the law had been put forward, need not have been considered, is surely not sufficient to invalidate the decision, which appears to be a logical deduction from Eardley v. Granville, 3 Ch. D. 826, and Lord Macnaghten's dictum in Lord Provost, &c. of Glasgow v. Fairie, 13 App. Cas. 657 at p. 687, that the word 'mines' in its primary significance means underground excavations or underground workings.' The view taken by the learned author of the important case of Manchester Corporation v. New Moss Colliery Co. [1906] 2 Ch. 564, and his apparent recantation on the subject of mines outside the special area under the Railways and Waterworks Clauses Acts were referred to in an article in the last number of this REVIEW (p. 282 above). His attitude seems to be correct on both questions. For the somewhat unnecessary criticisms of recent legislation, political prejudice may serve as an excuse. The structure of the book is not seriously altered, and its old standard of accuracy and convenience is maintained save for one or two misprinted references, e. g. that of Bowes v. Ravensworth on p. 3, note 6, where 19 C. B. is printed for 15 C. B.

Encyclopaedia of Local Government Law. Edited by JOSHUA SCHOLEFIELD. Vol. IV: Hundreds to Nuisances. London: Butterworth & Co., and Shaw & Sons. 1907. La. 8vo. lxxxiv and 691 pp. THIS Volume sustains the high standard of its predecessors. It begins with a short article by Mr. Gerard R. Hill on Hundreds, Wapentakes, Rapes, Lathes, and Tithings,' followed by another by the same author on 'Ice Creams.' After these we find more elaborate treatises on 'Inebriates,' 'Infants,' 'Jurors,' 'Libraries,' 'Light Railways,' 'Loans,' 'Locomotives and Motor Cars,' Lunacy,' Markets and Fairs,' Municipal Corporations,' and 'Nuisances.' Every one of these subjects seems, so far as we can judge by a somewhat cursory examination, to be carefully and systematically treated. Many of the writers are either recognized authorities upon the subjects with which they have been entrusted, or contributors whose work in previous volumes of this series has proved their ability. Thus Mr. Lithiby writes on the Local Government Board, Mr. G. S. Robertson on Light Railways, and Mr. Herbert Chitty on Markets and Fairs, whilst Mr. Gerard R. Hill is responsible for several short articles.

Messrs. W. A. Willis and W. V. Ball contribute a useful article on the Law of Nuisances, so far as it affects local authorities, whether in their