more immediately concerns are satisfied either with its principles or details, we think they should be left alone. The Bill has three objects in view:-The first is, when a minister has been libelled, and the libel found relevant, the Presbytery may prohibit him from exercising his functions. But the grounds on which so seemingly prejudicial a step is to be adopted are two-immorality, and error in doctrine. It is right, however, to say, that a division of opinion exists among lawyers and in the church as to the inherent power of the church on this point, some maintaining that she has already the power of suspension, while others hold that she has not. There underlics this the germ of the ever-recurring question of the limit of the power of a church in connection with the state; and to settle the question in this instance, the church has agreed to support the Commissioners' Bill. Theoretically it looks like injustice to the inculpated incumbent, but the interests of the parishioners cannot be overlooked, and we think their interest has rightly been made superior to those of the clergyman. The second object is to provide for the unhappy case where the clergyman shall have become insane. It does seem strange that such an event should remain unprovided for in a church which has existed for 300 years, and no one seems to question the propriety of remedying such a want of power in church courts. But the fourth section of the Bill seems to have excited the greatest opposition. The church seeks the power of citing witnesses and havers by an application to the Sheriff, under the same penalties as witnesses are now bound to appear before his own courts. The opposition takes its stand on this principle, that no religious sect should have the aid of the civil power in enforcing its orders; and because, if conceded, it may exercise it in a wanton and oppressive manner. The last is not, we think, to be uncharitably assumed, and the first, we think, with deference, is already conceded in principle when a church, or party, or sect, call it which you will, has been recognised and endowed by the state. Be the opinions on these high and constitutional points what they may in Scotland, the English portion of our legislators will scarcely take the trouble of understanding the nice theological controversies which may be raised out of such texts. But the real question is, Does the church require the powers asked, and would their being granted save controversy, save litigation, and not infringe any of the rights and privileges of any other portion of the lieges? The Education Bill, after undergoing animated discussion in and out of Parliament-rather on the whole adverse to its principles and many of its details-has been withdrawn for the present by the Government. A new Bill is to be introduced-not for the purpose of being discussed or passed this Session, but to be printed and laid before Parliament and the country for further consideration and discussion, preparatory to its introduction next Session. From the difficulties with which the subject is surrounded, and the number, influence, and variety of the opposition, strong fears are entertained whether we are yet ripe for any legislative action on the subjest of education. All wish something were done, if each party's views could be met and gratified; but as that is impossible, and few are disposed to make concessions, it is much to be feared that we are as far off as ever from a measure so much wanted as a comprehensive scheme of National Education. Mr Mure's Public Houses Bill has reached the House of Lords, where it has suffered some curtailments, which, in the opinion of some of its friends, will weaken its usefulness. The clauses erecting the limited Court of Appeal in place of the Quarter Sessions has been struck out-we think rightly. The fluctuating body which constitutes the Quarter Sessions may be a bad Court of Appeal, and open to improper influences, but we don't think the matter is mended by concentrating the power, by limiting the Court chosen from the same body. The mode of managing the Scottish legislative business in Parliament would appear not to be placed on a better footing than it has been for years. The Lord Advocate's multifarious duties, public and private, render it quite impossible for him to attend to them personally; and the appointment of Sir William Dunbar, as a kind of Under-Secretary of State for Scotland, practically the Lord Advocate's legislative assistant, does not seem to have improved matters. Scottish business is huddled into corners, hurriedly and unsatisfactorily debated, pushed into discussion at two or three in the morning, to Saturday forenoon and other mid-day sederunts, to anticipatory discussions at Gwydr House-where a kind of Scottish Parliament is sometimes held; and yet, with all these makeshifts, everybody knows, who cares about it, that Scottish business is all done in a manner which is eminently unsatisfactory to all concerned-to the Advocate himself, we are sure, not less than to others. Such a mode of conducting the parliamentary business of this part of the Empire is deserving of serious attention; its effects are patent in our statute book, especially for the last thirty years, and every year it is becoming more and more apparent. Will our active Members of Parliament, who have no more exciting subject than the Public Houses Bill of the Member for Bute, take the mode of conducting Scottish business into their serious consideration, and apply some efficient remedy? It would confer more good on the country, and entail more lasting fame on the Member who should carry it, than a dozen such Bills as that of the honourable and learned Member for Bute. Of local and personal Bills, we have not space to speak at present. The most notable measures are the new General Consolidation Police Bill of the Provost of Leith, and the monster Police Bill of the Provost and Magistrates of Glasgow. This last seems a very remarkable piece of legislation; and the mode in which it has lately been "improved" in the room "up stairs," and more recently by Lord Redesdale in the House of Lords, and the anxious secrecy with which these changes, or alterations, or improvements, or disfigurements, has been spoken of by the Lord Provost and his coadjutors, is something novel in a popu lar assembly, and worthy of attention, at least, by the citizens of the Western Metropolis, UNDECIDED POINTS IN PRACTICE. COMPETITION-ARRESTEE-TRUSTEE. A B obtains a Small Debt decree against C D, in virtue SALE-BANKRUPTCY. See By missive of sale entered into between A B and CD, A B sells a property to C D at a certain price. A B acknowledges in the missive to have received payment of the price. No price, however, is really paid, but two days after the date of the missive, C D pays a sum to account. Within sixty days from the date of the missive, A B becomes bankrupt. Query, Is the missive of sale valid in a question with A B's creditors, so as to give C D a right to demand a disposition to the property? IS THE WORD DISPONE ESSENTIAL IN A CONVEYANCE MOVEABLE PROPERTY (SCOTLAND) BILL. THE following Bill to facilitate the transmission of moveable property in Scotland has been prepared and brought into the House of Commons by the Lord Advocate and Sir G. Grey: of moveable estate in Scotland: Be it enacted by the Whereas it is expedient to facilitate the transmission Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same as follows: 1. From and after the passing of this Act, it shall be competent to any party, in right of a personal bond or of a conveyance of moveable estate, to assign such bond in the form set forth in schedule A hereto annexed; and or conveyance by assignation in or as nearly as may be it shall be competent to write the assignation or assignations on the bond or conveyance itself in or as nearly as may be in the form set forth in schedule B hereto annexed; which assignation shall be registrable in the books of any court, in terms of any clause of registration contained in the bond or conveyance so assigned; and such assignation, upon being duly stamped and duly intimated, shall have the same force and effect as a duly stamped and duly intimated assignation according to the forms at present in use. 2. An assignation shall be validly intimated (1) by a notary public delivering a copy thereof, certified as correct, to the person or persons to whom intimation may in any case be requisite; or (2) by the holder of such assignation, or any person authorised by him, transmitting a copy thereof certified as correct by post to such person; and (in the first case) a certificate by such notary public in or as nearly as may be in the form set forth in schedule Chercto annexed, and (in the second case) a written acknowledgment by the person to whom such copy may have been transmitted by post as aforesaid of the receipt of the сору, tion having been duly made: Provided always, that if the deed or instrument containing such assignation shall likewise contain other conveyances or declarations of trust purposes, it shall not be necessary to deliver or transmit a full copy thereof, but only a copy of such part thereof as respects the subject-matter of such assig nation. shall be sufficient evidence of such intima 3. Nothing in this Act contained shall prevent the transmission of any personal bond or conveyance of moveable estate, or the intimation of any assignation according to the forms at present in use. This is a question which has frequently been raised, and on which differences of opinion exist. We give a case here, arising out of the terms of a postnuptial contract, with the opinion of a counsel of considerable standing, in the negative. The clause in the deed bears that "the said spouses do, with mutual "advice and consent, by these presents GIVE, GRANT, "ASSIGN, and MAKE over to, and in favour of, them'selves in life-rent, and to the survivor of them, and "to their heirs and assignees of the survivor, heri"tably and irredeemably, all and sundry lands," etc.; a special subject was conveyed by the same deed. 4. The following words in this Act, and in the schedules Infeftment followed, and was recorded. The deed annexed to this Act, shall have the several meanings contained a precept of sasine, authorising infeftment hereby assigned to them, unless there be something in "in conjunct fee and life-rent, and to the survivor of the subject or context repugnant to such construction; them in fee," but there was neither a tenendas that is to say, the word "bond" and the word "conveyance" shall extend to and include personal bonds for clause, nor a clause of resignation. The husband pre-payment or performance, bonds of caution, bonds of deceased the wife, and she having sold the subjects guarantee, bonds of relief, bonds and assignations in conveyed by the post-nuptial contract, the purchaser security of every kind, decreets of any court, policies of objected to the title, because of the omission of the assurance of any assurance company or association in word dispone, and the clauses of tenenandas and Scotland, whether held by parties resident in Scotland resignation. or elsewhere, protests of bills or of promissory notes, dispositions, assignations, or other conveyances of moveable or personal property or effects, assignations, translations, and retrocessions, and also probative extracts of all such deeds from the books of any competent court; the word "assignation" shall also include translations and retrocessions, and probative extracts thereof; the words, "moveable estate" shall extend to and include all personal debts and obligations, and moveable or personal property or effects of every kind. On these facts the counsel consulted gave the following opinion:-"I am of opinion that, notwithstanding the absence of the word dispone, the me"morialist is validly infeft in the subjects meant to "be conveyed. The precept of sasine itself, accord"ing to Stair, implies a disposition whether in pre"cepts of Clare Constat, or in other precepts of "Sasine, 2, 3, 11; and as the disposition in this case "contained a precept, and infeftment followed, I am "of opinion that the memorialist's title is good," 5. This Act may be cited for all purposes as the "Transmission of Moveable Property (Scotland) Act, 1862." COURTS OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. AN Act for removing doubts as to the powers of the Courts of the Church of Scotland, and extending the powers of the said Courts: 1. Whenever any Presbytery or other Court of the Church of Scotland shall have found a libel relevant, charging the minister of any parish with immoral conduct or with error in doctrine, and shall have resolved to proceed to a proof of the said libel, it shall be lawful for the said Presbytery to pronounce a deliverance prohibiting such minister from the exercise and discharge of all ministerial functions of his office as minister of the parish until the libel shall have been fully investigated and finally disposed of; and in the event of an appeal against such deliverance, the said prohibition shall continue until the same shall have been recalled by the Court of Appeal; and the ordinances of religion in the said parish shall, so long as such prohibition remains in force, be administered in the same way as if the parish were vacant by the decease of the minister thereof: Provided always that such prohibition shall not affect the right of such minister to his stipend. 2. When, in the course of any judicial process affecting the status of a minister, or on the representation of any party having interest, it has been established to the satisfaction of a Presbytery, or other superior Court of the Church, that the minister of any parish is insane, and thereby disabled from discharging the duties of his office, the Presbytery shall be entitled, and is hereby authorised, to appoint a qualified assistant to perform the duties of the charge, until the said minister shall be enabled to resume the same, or until the parish shall be declared vacant; and the Presbytery shall be entitled, and are hereby authorised, to apportion and fix, by their deliverance appointing such assistant, an allowance out of the stipend not exceeding one-half of the whole proceeds of the benefice, and which shall be payable so long as such assistant shall hold and continue to act on his appointment by the Presbytery; and such deliverance, when duly intimated to the heritors or others liable in payment of the stipend, shall be equivalent to a legal and completed assignation by the minister to such assistant of the portion of the stipend specified in the deliverance. 3. When, by their final sentence upon a libel, a Presbytery or other Church Court shall suspend a minister from the discharge of the duties of his office for a term specified in the said sentence, the Presbytery shall be entitled, and is hereby authorised, to appoint a qualified assistant to discharge the said duties, and to apportion and fix an allowance to such assistant out of the stipend not exceeding one-half of the whole proceeds of the benefice, and which shall be payable so long as such assistant shall hold and continue to act on his appointment by the Presbytery; and such sentence, when duly intimated to the heritors or others liable in payment of the stipend, shall be equivalent to a legal and completed assignation by the minister to such assistant of the proportion of the stipend specified in the sentence. 4. When, in any judicial process depending before a Presbytery or other superior Church Court, such Court shall have allowed a proof, it shall be competent to the parties in the cause, or any of them to whom such proof shall have been allowed, to apply to the Sheriff or Sheriff-Substitute of the county within the bounds of which any witnesses or havers, whom such party or parties may propose to examine, shall be resident, for warrant to cite such witnesses and havers to appear before such Presbytery or other Church Court at a time and place to be specified in the application; and the Sheriff, on production to him, along with the said application, of a duly certified extract of the doliverance allowing a proof, skall graut warrant of citation as craved, which warrant and citation following thereon shall be held a legal warrant and citation to compel the shall apply, in terms of such warrant and citation, and shall be enforceable by the said remedies as are competent in the case of a warrant granted by the Sheriff for citation of witnesses or havers to appear before his own Court. attendance of the witnesses or havers to whom the same Review. NOTES ON THE MARRIAGE LAWS OF ENGLAND, ScorLAND, AND IRELAND, WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR THEIR AMENDMENT AND ASSIMILATION. In a Letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Chancellor. By JAMES MUIRHEAD, Advocate, and of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. Edinburgh: Blackwood & Sons. IIE must be a very bigoted native of any one of the three divisions of the United Kingdon who cannot acquiesce in a portion of the last paragraph of Mr Muirhead's Letter, "That the marriage laws of England, Scotland, and Ireland are, one and all of them, more or less faulty and susceptible of improvement." And Mr Muirhead's object is to suggest a mode in which these faults may be remedied, and the marriage laws of the three kingdoms assimilated. To do this satisfactorily, the first part of his Letter is taken up by a historical resume of the marriage laws of the three kingdoms, tracing them very clearly from the Roman and Canon laws, down to the Reformation and the Council of Trent, and proving beyond question that, with a few unimportant distinctions, they were identical. The diversities of the Irish marriage laws seem wholly indefensible, and bear strong traces of the Protestant domination. Yet there are difficulties against their removal which it may take some time ere they can be altered. We are afraid that the people of Scotland may be as difficult to deal with as their Irish cousins, as they seem to have a particular attachment to the peculiarities of their own law, the legitimation per subsequens matrimonium, and marriage per verba de presenti, oral or written, cum copula subsequente. Mr Muirhead thinks the present marriage laws of England the best of the three, and by some few changes in them, he proposes to assimilate the laws of Ireland and Scotland. Generally, his proposal is simplification, and the imposition "of such regulations as are necessary to secure the freedom and publicity of marriage, yet these should make them so simple, inoffensive, and easy of observance, as to justify the presumption that persons refusing or neglecting to comply with them, do not wish society to regard their consortium as marriage, or as implying either its natural or civil duties, obligations, or results." The only conditions, the non-observance of which he thinks a State ought to impose under penalty of nullity of marriage, are two:-"(1) That the purpose of the parties be duly published for a certain time beforehand; and (2) That the celebration be in the presence of at least two witnesses, besides the celebrator." The Letter is well deserving of the attention of law reformers, as an able and learned exposition of a difficult branch of international law; and whatever may be thought of Mr Muirhead's proposals for assimilation, a careful perusal will dispel many prejudices and much ignorance as to the foundations of the respective marriage laws of the three kingdoms; and it will make this at least clear, that our own marriage laws are not that mass of absurdity and inducement to immorality which some fervid Irish orators and English lawyers would fain have them to be; at least, if they are so unfortunate as to possess these unhappy characteristics, Scotsmen do not feel the evils or inconveniences, and they have this consolation, that if they are in error, it is one which was shared in by the greater part of Europe, and claims an antiquity as old as Constantine, THE SCOTTISH LAW MAGAZINE AND SHERIFF COURT REPORTER. EXTRA-JUDICIAL ARRANGEMENTS BY INSOLVENTS. THE expense attendant on Sequestrations in Bank- | whereby arrangements between insolvents and their ruptcy is too well known, and has justly been made creditors, when concurred in by the majority in the subject of frequent complaint and inquiry, both number and three-fourths in value, of the creditors, in Scotland and England. In the systems of Bank- are made binding on all the creditors, are correct in ruptcy Law in both parts of the island, attempts have principle and have proved effectual and satisfactory been made to find a remedy for this in giving autho- in practice, any measure having for its object the rity to a certain number of the creditors to bind the introduction of similar provisions into the law of remainder to an offer made by the bankrupt after Scotland is entitled to the support of this Chamber." sequestration. By our present Bankrupt Act, a The difficulties are no doubt many, though chiefly in sequestration may be superseded by a deed of arrange- detail, to this being enacted as part of our law. We ment, provided that a majority in number, and four- are not sure if three-fourths is not too small an fifths in value, of the creditors present or represented amount in value to bind the minority. The rights at a meeting should resolve that the estate should be of the minority should also be in some way protected; wound up in that manner; and thereon an applica- and especially foreign creditors, with whom it might tion is to be made to the Lord Ordinary or the require a considerable time to communicate. From Sheriff; and elaborate and expensive proceedings a mercantile point of view, there can be little doubt require still to be adopted before the deed can be of the beneficial effects of such an enactment; but held as binding the whole of the creditors. That there can be as little doubt that it would have the this is an unsatisfactory, and often tedious and ex- effect of carrying a great deal of the bankruptcy pensive mode of arrangement is well known; and it business out of the hands of legal practitioners into has been suggested that a similar mode of private those of accountants. As it is, that quasi legal body arrangement might, with safety to the rights of credi- have already in their hands the whole initiatory steps tors, be adopted previous to sequestration. We notice towards a sequestration, and that is often reluctantly that the subject has recently engaged the attention of resorted to, after laborious exertions have been made the Institute of Accountants in Glasgow, at whose to effect a private arrangement by a trust deed. That suggestion the Chamber of Commerce has taken up the new proposal, if adopted, would have the effect the subject, and have adopted the following resolu- we anticipate, may be assumed when we know the tions, and appointed a Committee to bring them quarter from which it has emanated; but, as it would under the notice of the Lord Advocate, and to seek be a beneficial enactment-especially to the creditors the concurrence and support of other Chambers:- on small estates, the legal profession will not, we hope, "First-That it is of the greatest importance to throw any obstacle in the way. We have formerly commercial communities that provision should be said that the day has gone by when any portion made for carrying out voluntary arrangements between of the community should stand in the way of a insolvents and their creditors, by means of trust reform, especially in law, and when that is clearly deeds, deeds of inspection, or composition contracts, intended as a benefit to the community, on the sole without the necessity of resorting to sequestration in ground that it may probably entail a diminution of cases where the large majority of creditors concur in professional emoluments. With the safeguards we such arrangement. Second-That in such a matter have suggested, and others which will easily recur to it is of importance, as far as possible, to assimilate those familiar with the Bankruptcy Law, we think the laws of England and Scotland; and believing the resolutions of this Chamber would be a useful that the provisions of the English Bankrupt Act, addition to our present code. G LEGAL EDUCATION. WE understand the Glasgow Faculty have, by a large majority, agreed to hold attendance on the prelections of Professor Galbraith, of the Andersonian University, as part of the course of study which they will accept for applicants for admission to their body. This was a step which we hardly expected the Faculty would take; not that it was by any means inexpedient or without use, but that, being a direct challenge to the University and an attack on one of its chairs, the rights of the University and the special interests of the present incumbent would seem to have been a barrier to such a step. The difficulty was the greater, when we remember that the Dean of Faculty is assessor to the University, and so, in some sense, bound up with it. It was a mockery for the Faculty to go on raising their standard of legal education while our University only furnished one chair for Roman Law, for Scots Law, for Conveyancing, and for Commercial Law. No one man could do justice to these: if he had the knowledge, he could not have found time within a reasonable course. The Uni SMALL DEBT FEES. THE following observations, recently made by Mr Sheriff Guthrie Smith, of Forfar, on a custom prevalent in Forfarshire, are deserving of attention, not more from the sound reasoning on which they are based, and the point with which they are expressed, than from the principle which they involve; and if the inculpated practice exists anywhere else, we have no doubt that these remarks of the Sheriff will at once correct it : It "It was with considerable surprise I lately discovered that there exists in this Court, in the matter of the fees charged by the Clerk under the Small Debt Act, a practice different from that which prevails in Perthshire, I allude to the fee of one shilling levied by the Clerk as and I know not how many other counties in Scotland. the price of the judgment pronounced in every case. appears to me, after a very careful examination of the subject, that for this there is no warrant whatever. The Small Debt Act is an amendment of an Act of Geo. IV., under which parties were required, in the course of the hearing of the cause, to pay certain fees across the Clerk's table as the dues on certain steps of the process, including even a sum for the oath of each witness examined. The pay itself; but it looked so uncommonly like the buying and selling of justice, that when the present Small Debt Act was passed into law, the opportunity was taken to sweep away the whole system. It was provided instead, by section 32 of the statute now in force, that the fees therein specified, and no other,' shall be allowed to be in any cause or prosecution arising under the authority taken by the Clerk and the officers 'for any matters done of the Act.' versity Commissioners have only erected a separate justification of a practice so offensive, was that it was chair for Conveyancing, leaving Scots Law and Com-designed to make the mechanical machinery of the Court mercial Law, as well as the Civil Law, still to be taught from one chair; Roman Law is not taught at all, nor has it been for many years, though that is not the fault of the professor. All feel the necessity of having separate chairs of Scots Law and Commercial Law; but as the University Commissioners have not yet thought it right to do this, the Faculty, by their recent vote, have virtually taken it out of their hands, by having given their sanction to the chair of Commercial Law, so ably filled by Professor Galbraith, in the Andersonian University. Some may be disposed to consider this as derogatory to the University, and some may even have the superstitious idea that learning got within the walls of a recognised College is superior, in some way, to that to be obtained outside. Whatever view the University may take of the question, this is certain, that it is the Senatus, or whoever had the proper teaching of the faculty of law in their hands, who are to blame. They saw the rising desire for more extensive and more accurate knowledge of law than they furnished; they did not profit by what they saw, and the result is that, outside their walls, rivals have arisen, which will do more, we hope, than quicken the movements of our professors, if they are to remain as our chief teachers, whether in law or other faculties. It is sufficient to have noticed the notion of the comparative value of teaching in a College and outside; what we want, wherever taught, is sound law, ably and accurately expounded, and such a division of the subject as may give both professor and pupil an opportunity of closely studying and accurately acquiring every branch of law." including extract, if demanded, one shilling.' It has One of the fees specified is-'Decree, been hitherto held in this county, erroneously I conceive, that this entitles the Clerk to a payment of one shilling for every expression of judicial opinion, whether the judgment be for pursuer or defender, absolvitor or dismissal, and that whether diligence is or is not necessary, and notwithstanding neither decree nor extract, nor any sion in the Act of Parliament is, it must be conceded, thing whatever is demanded of the Clerk. The expresnot remarkably well chosen; but I think it clear that the interpretation I have referred to was never intended by the legislature. In the first place, the Clerk is to be paid only for matters done' by himself—for issuing the summons, entering in the procedure book, and so onand the table seems to be expressly framed so that the payment for every matter may be coincident with the doing of it, and that in the place appropriated for the transaction of such business-the office of the SheriffClerk. But the giving of decree is not a matter done by the Clerk, and for which, therefore, he has no right to a fee. In the second place, what does the grammatical construction of the words impart? The difficulty is to find sense for the expression 'if demanded'-does it apply to the decree or the extract? To the 'extract' it cannot apply, because, from the beginning to the end of the statute, the word extract, save in this one instance, |