tions. The cases are numerous and complicated, but they turn as a rule on this, that a duty to qualify is not a contract to qualify. We have now at last, as Lindley L.J. observes, got a form of article which will suffice to fix directors who act without qualification (Isaacs' Case, '92, 2 Ch. (C. A.) 158). If the director does not qualify within a month of his appointment he is by this article to be deemed to have agreed to take the said shares from the company and the same shall be forthwith allotted to him accordingly.' This turns the duty into a contract, for the director takes office on the terms of the articles. A share qualification is a very efficient, perhaps the best, guarantee for the bona fides of directors, and it ought to be a reality. By the severe logic of Roman law, children, until the 'senatus consultum Tertullianum,' had no right of succession to their own mother, not being her 'sui heredes.' The Married Women's Property Act does not go so far as to render a wife a stranger to her husband, but it has made her a feme sole, and Stirling J. has had to seriously consider whether in doing so it has not disentitled the husband to an estate by the curtesy in her undisposed of realty (Hope v. Hope, '92, 2 Ch. 336). If this had been the result of our halting legislation it would not be surprising; nothing now in relation to married women, their property and contracts, could be, for, in Burns' words 'Common sense has ta'en the road The key to the difficulty is in the term separate property. Separate property has no meaning apart from coverture and ends with it. While the coverture lasts the wife may hold the separate property or sell it or give it away or will it, 'invito marito,' but if she does none of these things, the husband has his chance at last under the old doctrine of unity. But Lord,' as Mr. Pepys would say, 'to see what this once flourishing doctrine is come to.' This decision, which, strange to say, does not appear to be reported elsewhere, seems to me to be one of great importance upon the law of conversion,' says Collins J., referring to National Mercantile Bank v. Rymill (C. A.), 44 L. T. 767: Consolidated Co. v. Curtis, '92, 1 Q. B. at p. 501. Subscribers to the Law Reports ought not to be driven to another set of reports for decisions in the Court of Appeal which the judges think of great importance. In Elkington & Co. v. Hürter, '92, 2 Ch. 452, Romer J. took, in our opinion, the sound view. The Courts have gone quite as far as it is safe to go in the way of treating general terms of promise or expectation as being or including representations or warranties of specific matters of fact. To decide this case otherwise would have been in effect to set up again the now exploded doctrine of 'making representations good' which, about a generation ago, was current in the Courts of certain Vice-Chancellors. Shortly after Cochrane v. Moore was reported, 25 Q. B. Div. 57, it was submitted in this REVIEW (vi. 449) that the Court of Appeal did not mean to lay down that formal manual delivery is needed to perfect a gift of chattels in cases where a real delivery is not practicable, by reason e.g. of the donee already having possession or custody. The view so propounded as the result of principle and of the older authorities appears to be confirmed by Kilpin v. Ratley, '92, 1 Q. B. 582, which indeed may be said to go a little farther, for the custody of the goods was with the donee's husband. The Water Companies (Regulation of Powers) Act, 50 & 51 Vict. c. 21, is duly noted in the separate Appendix to Elphinstone and Clark on Searches (p. 117) as adding to the possible terrors of a purchaser within the Metropolis. The case of East London Waterworks Co. v. Kellerman, '92, 2 Q. B. 72, shows that the purchaser is personally liable for water-rates in arrear, so that the caution of the learned writers is more than justified. The important cases of Companhia de Mocambique and De Sousa v. British South Africa Co., '92, 2 Q. B. 358, C. A., will be the subject of an article in our next number. At present we will merely say that the judgment delivered by Wright J. appears to have been, at all events, the judgment which a Court of first instance was bound by the existing authorities to give. That well-worn maxim of both the common and the civil law, quidquid plantatur solo solo cedit, has received its latest application at the Antipodes. In the New Zealand case of Masefield & Rotana (10 N. Z. L. R. 169) the plaintiff Masefield sold a steam engine and other chattels to one Park, and took from Park a bill of sale by way of mortgage over the same. Park intended to erect the machinery on land he had leased from Himiona (a Maori), but by mistake he put it up on, and affixed it to, land of the defendant Rotana (another Maori), to which he had no title. He did not discover his error until the machinery had been erected and was working. Park became bankrupt, and after his bankruptcy was sent by Masefield to demand possession from Rotana. The astute aboriginal, however, by this time had made himself aware of the law of fixtures, and refused to deliver up the machinery-alleging in effect that it now formed part of his freehold. And so found Mr. Justice Conolly, and the majority of the Court of Appeal (N. Z.) regretfully adhered to his decision. Mr. Justice Denniston, indeed, in an elaborate dissenting judgment refused to do so, declining to be bound by the rigid and logical application of an ancient maxim, especially when such application admittedly leads to consequences revolting to sense and justice.' The learned Judge appears to have been much influenced by the American cases, which go far to support his view. Meantime the Maori has triumphed, and the white man is left lamenting the loss of his goods and chattels. We regret that we were accidentally prevented from noticing in our last issue the loss of our esteemed correspondent, Dr. K. G. König, for many years legal adviser to the British Legation at Bern. Dr. König's knowledge of English law and its literature was extraordinary, and few English law-books of importance failed to be noticed by him in the Centralblatt der Rechtswissenschaft or elsewhere. As a critic he was both discerning and generous. It seems convenient to repeat in a conspicuous place that it is not desirable to send MS. on approval without previous communication with the Editor, except in very special circumstances; and that the Editor, except as aforesaid, cannot be in any way answerable for MSS. so sent. AT WANTED-A LAW DICTIONARY 1. T our last meeting Mr. Ilbert called attention to the need for an historical edition of the Statutes. I hope the subject will not be allowed to drop, and that some means may be found of giving practical effect to his suggestion. This evening I want to call attention to another missing law-book, which ought, but is not, to be found on our book shelves. We have no such thing as a Law Dictionary, worthy of the name. Wharton's Law Lexicon is a work of great learning and research —but it is not a dictionary. It is an imperfectly developed encyclopædia. It no doubt explains a great many legal terms, antiquated and modern, but it is mainly devoted to little treatises on various points of law, arranged in alphabetical order. But the true function of a dictionary is to deal with what one may call the nominal, as opposed to the real, value of legal terms. When a term is ambiguous, you want its various meanings to be clearly explained, and illustrated if possible by apt quotations. You do not want to know merely its ordinary meaning or what, in the opinion of the writer, may be its proper meaning, but you require to have pointed out all the senses in which it is used. Take for instance the term 'indorsement.' Primarily it means any writing on the back of a written instrument, but when the term is applied to a bill of exchange it has a triple derivative sense. The custom was for the holder of a bill to write his name on the back, and hand it over to another person, thereby signifying that he transferred the property in the bill, and gave his personal guarantee for its due payment. All those elements were formerly connoted by the term indorsement of a bill.' But now it has been held that an indorsement on the face of the bill is as good as an indorsement on the back. It may be an abuse of language to call a writing on the face of a bill an indorsement, but that is not to the point, if in fact the term has been judicially applied to such a writing. Again, you may have an indorsement which transfers the property in a bill, but which contains no guarantee by the indorser that the bill shall be honoured; as for example when a bill is indorsed without recourse. Further, if a person who is not the holder of a bill backs it with his signature, he thereby incurs the liability of an indorser, 1 Paper read at the Oxford Law Club, 21 May, 1892. and his signature is commonly called an indorsement, as we have no term corresponding to the French term 'aval.' But such a signature obviously in no way affects the transfer of the instrument. Here then we have one original, and three distinct derivative meanings attached to the term 'indorsement,' that is to say: 1. A writing on the back of a written instrument. 2. A signed writing by the holder of a bill or note transferring the property therein, and guaranteeing the due payment thereof. 3. A signed writing by the holder of a bill or note, transferring the property therein, though not guaranteeing its payment. 4. A signed writing on a bill or note, whether the signer be the holder or not, which guarantees the due payment of the instrument. But I am not aware of any book where a student would find these different meanings discriminated and illustrated. Wharton certainly throws no light on the subject. I think a dictionary such as I am suggesting should (inter alia) collect definitions from standard authors of different periods; and it would be important that citations either from authors or cases should be dated. As law developes and changes, so the meanings of the terms used develope and change. Let me take another illustration from bills of exchange. A bill of exchange in its origin was an instrument by which a merchant who lived in one place, could pay his debt to a creditor who lived in another place without the transmission of cash. It was in fact a device to avoid the necessity of transmitting cash from place to place. The definition given in Comyn's Digest brings this theory out clearly. A bill of exchange,' he says, 'is when a man takes money in one country or city upon exchange, and draws a bill whereby he directs another person in another country or city to pay so much to 4 or order for value received of B and subscribes it.' The French Code de Commerce, it may be noted, still keeps up the rule of distantia loci as it is called, which is embodied in Comyn's definition. It is still part of the French definition of a bill that it should be drawn in one place on another (Code de Commerce, s. 110). But in England the theory and rule of law concerning bills has altered. The banking or currency theory has succeeded to the mercantile theory. A bill now is a substitute for cash, and not merely a means of avoiding the transmission of it. Bills now are simply a flexible paper currency, and in accordance with modern decisions a bill is defined by sect. 3 of the Bills of Exchange Act, 1882, as 'an unconditional order in writing, addressed by one person to another, signed by the person giving it, requiring the person to whom it is addressed to pay on demand or at a determinable future time, a sum certain in money, to or to the order of a specified person or to bearer.' Turning to sect. 32 of the Stamp Act, 1891, we find a much wider definition of |