very serviceable to Lord St. Leonards in his Propery Acts. Others of the clauses, relating to the incidents of mortgages, have probably been consulted by the author of the Trustees and Mortgagees' Act of 1860. Honour to whom honour is due. Mr. Lewis proposed that no remainder, or limitation by way of remainder, nor future estate or limitation in lands, although arising under any instrument then already made, should become void, or fail of taking effect, by reason or in consequence of its being or becoming a contingent remainder of the freehold expectant on the determination of a term of years, or particular estate for years, or by reason or in consequence of there being an interval between the determination or appointed time of the determination of the precedent or particular estate and the commencement or taking effect or appointed time of the commencement or taking effect of such remainder, limitation, or estate, or by reason or in consequence of the precedent or particular estate determining or expiring before the happening of the contingency or of the event, or the arrival of the time on or at which any such remainder, limitation, or estate is limited, or made to take effect, or by reason or in consequence of such remainder, limitation, or estate not being ready to vest at the time of the determination or precedent of the particular estate. Words were introduced excepting remainders then actually become void or incapable of taking effect.

A masterly clause in Lewis' Bill was one by which many of the rules of feudal origin in the limitation of estates would have been abrogated at one sweep, in the manner that the present Lord Chancellor has been known to aim at from the time when he became Attorney-General-the assimilation of the legal to the equitable rules of real property. The personal incidents of tenure having ceased for above two centuries to be part of the affairs of life, what separate existence, in any but a system of jurisprudential fiction, can equity have from law, as regards the construction of limitations? Since Serjeant Maynard's lease and release first baffled the Bargains and Sales Enrolment Act, there has existed no shadow of reason

why a devise to a son for life, and after his death to his children who shall attain 21, should fail as to the children, if the father dies leaving them infants, while a trust in the same words would not fail; nor any, why a conveyance to a son to hold from the father's death should be bad, but become good by the interposition of a use. It is needless to multiply such examples of anomaly. In this state of things Lewis framed an elaborate clause, of which the substance was that every estate or limitation should be deemed to be valid at law as well as in equity, and to be cognisable in courts of law as well as in courts of equity, notwithstanding that it were of freehold by deed otherwise than by way of use, to commence at a future day, or were a remainder out of a term of years, or were after or in derogation of a fee, or were to arise on a contingency to abridge the particular estate, or were what is called at law a possibility on a possibility, but all such estates should take effect as if there were no rule of law against them. By another clause the rule against perpetuities was saved; so that if such a Bill became law, that rule would be, as it ought to be, the only restriction on the disposition of land at law as well as in equity.

Until such a reform be made in the law, Lord Westbury may say again, with justifiable irony,

"It is a sweeping censure which I would gladly have disproved or largely qualified, that, as a body, English lawyers have done little for the advancement of the science of jurisprudence. The neglect of this study is plainly evinced, by the contrast between the legal literature of England and of continental countries. Whoever will address himself to the task of directing a course of education in the philosophy of positive law, will become painfully aware of the poverty of English authors, whilst the catalogue of any French, German, or Italian library supplies numerous works, as well for the elementary as the more mature student in jurisprudence."

This was uttered ten years ago, at the inauguration of a society, "the Juridical," which it was hoped by the very

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man whose Bill we have above referred to, and who was the originator of the society, would, many-handed, set about the work of adapting to the manners and wants of the day a mass of law, grown up through centuries of disputed successions, religious struggles, jealousies between layman and priest, and rivalry between territorial and municipal powers, into conflict with itself and incongruity with reason and common sense. There will be many lawyers, or perhaps we ought to say law practitioners, in the new Parliament. Let some one of them try whether his skill in amending this branch of the law be not equal to so important and yet so simple a task.

ART. IX.-LAW AND LAWYERS IN BRITISH

BURMAH.

То a judicial officer, returning to England after nearly

a quarter of a century's service in India, few things appear more striking than the very general want of information subsisting among professional men at the Bar, and indeed on the Bench, as to the status both of the law and of lawyers in the East. On the other hand, few things are more gratifying than the evident interest with which reminiscences of service are received, and questions asked which show that India has—at any rate in the Inns of Court, if not in the Houses of Parliament -points of interest and inquiry. It is indeed startling to be asked, as the writer has been, whether trial by jury is known East of the Cape-whether any professional costume is worn by the judges and Bar in the Superior Courts of Law, and whether it was true that there were no law books "out there," "as the white ants ate them all up as fast as they were exported ?"

Of India Proper-meaning thereby the great continent of Hindostan, the three Presidencies of Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras-the writer is not qualified to speak, his residence at

the Presidency Towns having been very short; but it has occurred to the writer that a few notes on Law and Lawyers in British Burmah and Ceylon (with the administration of justice in both of which settlements he has long been officially connected) would not be unacceptable to the readers of the Law Magazine. British Burmah especially, as the most recent of English acquisitions in the East, with its enormous trade in teak, rice, and the thousand other products of the tropics, is most interesting. Through British Burmah, in a few years, down the magnificent Irawaddy in Pegu, and down the noble and beautiful Salween in Tenasserim, will pour all the trade of Western China, all her silks and teas, all her gold leaf and cutch, all her hlapet (picked tea) and lacquered ware; while up the same streams will flow in an unbroken tide the cotton manufactured piece goods of Manchester, and every other description of the products of British industry. This trade is in a great measure already existing, but within the last two years enormous advances in development have been made. A treaty of commerce has been concluded between His Majesty the King of Ava (Upper Burmah) and the Governor-General of India; large mercantile firms are already in existence at Rangoon, and more are entering the field every day; more capital is being daily invested, and more openings for mutual commerce between Britons and Burmese are being investigated. In such a country as British Burmah, where contracts involving lakhs of rupees are of ordinary occurrence, and where there is often in the two ports of Rangoon and Maulmain, at one time, as much as 30,000 tons of shipping, it must be evident to any reflecting mind that there are charter-parties to be drawn and construed, questions of shipping and mercantile law constantly arising, and matters of international jurisprudence to be decided between the foreign consuls resident at both ports to protect and look after the foreign seamen of all nations-American, Russian, Belgic, French and Dutch-who swarm on the wharves, and who have constant "difficulties" with their commanders and ship

ping masters. Business such as this (not to speak of practice in the courts, of which more hereafter), abounds, and pays well. It may therefore be worth the while of those at the Bar who have no strong local ties or attachments, and who desire to fill their brief-bags earlier and more rapidly than at home, to accompany the writer in a brief review of British Burmah and its courts of law.

If the reader will take a map of Asia, and cast his eye along the east side of the Bay of Bengal, a little below the Sunderbunds (close to Calcutta), or rather below the port of Chittagong, he will find that British Burmah commences with the province of Aracan, of which the capital (political and commercial) is Akyab: south of Aracan, but immediately adjoining it, lies the large and important province of Pegu, with its capital Rangoon, the head-quarters of the Government of British Burmah, and the principal focus of trade and commerce. Still further south, but still adjoining Pegu, are the contiguous provinces of Martaban and Tenasserim, with their thriving commercial capital, Maulmain. These three provinces, Aracan, Pegu, and Tenasserim, constitute the Grand Province of British Burmah, which is governed by a Chief Commissioner and Agent of the Governor-General, as a dependency of the Government of India. It is wholly distinct and separate from the Governorship of Bengal, both financially and politically, and communicates with the Foreign Office in Calcutta. British Burmah has a sea-coast line of not less than 600 miles in length, from north to south, with a width or depth of country inland from east to west, varying from 200 miles in Pegu, where we abut on the King of Ava's territories, in Burmah Proper, to 30 miles, or even less, in South Tenasserim, where we abut on the territories of the gentlemanly and intelligent King of Siam, our staunch ally and most worthy friend. This sovereign corresponds in English with the Commissioner, (Deputy-Governor) of Tenasserim, who is an English officer of rank in the army, and who resides at Maulmain. The writer has seen many of His Majesty's letters. They display