sadly changed, while that of the Inns of Chancery has long wholly disappeared. For Selden, writing in 1737, observed "The eight Inns now remaining are mostly inhabited by attornies, solicitors, and clerks." Could the good old days of the revels and of the study of original and judicial writs "which are the very first principles of the law" be again restored, then surely "time" would "run back and fetch the age of gold." But time is quite otherwise employed: and very different prospects are in store. Any person walking into New Inn now would certainly never dream of associating it with "revels," or with any society from which expulsion was to be dreaded more than imprisonment and irons. "Lucus a non lucendo" is a method of nomenclature which all educated men desire to avoid. Yet learned people of all ages have been accustomed to give the name of "New" to that which they earnestly hope will some day be "old." "New College," Oxford, was already more than a century old, when a name was required for the then recently established Inn of Chancery, in Wych Street, and no better name than "New Inn" could apparently be found. New Inn, which to-day is doomed to disappear in the interests of London betterment, is indeed a building of prinarily antiquarian interest; but it so happens that its history is one which touches the lawyer about as nearly as it does the antiquary. So lately as the summer of last year the annals of the Inns of Chancery became the matter of an erudite discussion before Mr. Justice Cozens-Hardy in a case which arose out of the demolition of Clifford's Inn.' The question was whether in the case of that particular Inn the property belonged to the individual members for their own personal benefit or was held upon trust for 1 In his notes to the De Laudibus Legum Angliae above cited. 2 Smith v. Kerr (1900) (2) Ch. 517 charitable purposes. Mr. Justice Cozens-Hardy decided in favour of the latter view. In his judgment, however, he said: "It is a matter of public knowledge that the buildings belonging to or occupied by some of the old Inns of Chancery have been dealt with as private property. I do not desire in any way to cast a doubt upon the title of the present owners. It is for those who allege the existence of a charitable trust to establish it. If nothing more is known than that the property was purchased by funds subscribed by members of a voluntary society, such as an Inn of Chancery or was given by members of the society, if there are no title deeds or if the title deeds do not support a public trust, it may be well that the members for the time being are entitled to say that the property in Equity belongs to them and that there is no trust of a public or charitable nature affecting it." And he confined his decision entirely to the case of Clifford's Inn then before him. It is therefore a question of fact in each case whether the purposes for which the property is under its title deeds to be applied are public and charitable in the view of the law. "If," said Vice-Chancellor Sir William Page Wood, (afterwards Lord Hatherley, Lord Chancellor), "you find a gift from an individual or the Crown or the Legislature, of a sum of money for a purpose which is a charitable purpose, that is a charitable trust to all intents and purposes. But you raise money for a purpose which in itself might be a charitable purpose by taxation from the very persons that would be benefited by that which would be a charity if it was a gift from another if you raise it by taxation from those parties, then you are only taxing those parties to do themselves good. It amounts to that-that the parties are subscribing in a particular manner and form for their own individual benefit." if The Attorney-General v. Eastlake, 11 Hare, 217. A fortiori it would seem that if a number of men combine, without any assistance by or interference from the Crown or the Legislature or any outside individual, to benefit themselves by the establishment of some institution, then such an institution would not be a charity. In the case of Clifford's Inn, however, the facts were very clear; for by an indenture dated 29th March, 1618, the Earl of Cumberland and Lord Clifford "granted bargayned and solde aliened enfeoffed and confirmed" the messuage and premises known as Clifford's Inn to certain members of the Society as trustees in consideration of £600, with a declaration that the true intent and meaning of the deed was that "the said capital messuage now called by the name of Clifford's Inn should from thereafter reteyne and keep the same usuall and antient name of Clifford's Inn and should for ever thereafter be contynued and employed as an Inn of Chancery for the good of the gentlemen of that Societe and for the benefytt of the Commonwealth as aforesaid and not otherwise, nor to any other use intent and purpose." In Maitland's History of London we read: "At the corner of Seacoal Lane in Fleet Lane was situate an Inn of Chancery; but the same being found too remote from the Courts at Westminster, the students removed to New Inn near Drury Lane," and again "New Inn is a House of Chancery, situate in Wych Street continguous to St. Clement's Inn on the West, which was founded about the year 1485 in a common Inn, for the reception of the students of an ancient Inn of Chancery formerly situate at the South East corner of Seacoal Lane. This Inn, which is an appendage to the Middle Temple, is governed by a treasurer and twelve ancients, who with the other members are to be in commons a week every term or compound for the same." Ed 1760. 1 Smith v. Kerr (ubi supra) p. 513. 3 Ibid. Page 1279. Stowe tells us that "New Inn is so called as being more lately made of a common Inn and the sign of Our Lady, an Inn of Chancery for students than Clement's Inn, namely about the beginning of the reign of King Henry VII., and not so late as some have supposed, to wit at the pulling down of Strand Inn in the reign of King Henry VI For I read that Sir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chancellor, was a student in this New Inn and went from thence to Lincoln's Inn."1 From all of these passages there remains no kind of doubt what sort of place and what sort of an institution the founders of New Inn intended it to be: but its present position in law is quite a different matter. And if anybody seeks to establish that there is any trust or charity affecting it, he must do so by strict proof. The test has been already indicated :-Did the original founders combine, without any assistance by or interference from any outside individual, to benefit themselves by the establishment of an institution? Or were the premises conveyed to the Society or any of its members upon a trust of a public and charitable nature? Nobody will raise a hand to save the actual building of New Inn. Ruskin said "A fair building is necessarily worth the ground it stands upon." We doubt whether the London County Council would agree with him. But in this case it matters not: for New Inn is not a "fair building." The life, however, of the Inn in the days when it was really "new" and played its part among the other similar institutions described by Fortescue was something "fair" and its memory is surely worth preserving. And if Mr. Justice Cozens-Hardy had lived some centuries ago and had seisin of some case involving the legal position of all those old Inns and their "ancients," we do not think Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster. 6th ed. 1755. Page 576, 2 The Seven Lamps of Architecture. Chapter VI. Sect, XX, having regard to the probable truth as to the facts-that he would have permitted them to become what fate has decreed that they should be in the lapse of time. E. A. JELF. [NOTE.-There does not seem to be material available for any very detailed history of New Inn, unless of course the secret muniments of the Society may chance to afford such material.] IV. ROMAN LAW: ITS STUDY IN ENGLAND. THE HE second English edition of Professor Sohm's Institutes of Roman Law has already been noticed in the February issue of this magazine. In the course of this article, we hope, in addition to discussing the subject of the study of Roman law in England, to make some further reference to Professor Sohm's work, and also to a small book by Mr. W. H. Hastings Kelke, recently published, of a less ambitious character than the first-mentioned work, but which we think will prove useful to students. Not the least interesting portion of the new edition of Professor Sohm's Institutes is the description of the Pandect law in Germany, and the account of the new German Civil Code, which came into force on January 1st, 1900, and which has superseded the old Common law (ie., the Pandect law) of Germany, as well as the particular private law (v. §§ 2-5). The new chapter on the subsequent fate of Roman law (§§ 23-28) is also highly interesting, and well worthy of careful study. In connection with the German Civil Code we may observe that its effect is to place the study of Roman law in Germany on much the same footing as in England, i.e., it makes it purely academical, subject to this reservation, namely, that the Roman law was once jus receptum in a large part of the German Empire, and must therefore, though shorn of its former authority, still enjoy a large measure of its old influence and importance. |