on the practice of the court by Mr. Daniel, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Grant. "There is now a vast body of cases decided on the construction of these orders, of the most vital importance to the practitioner, which have not yet found their way into any book of practice; these cases are cited in the notes to each order, as they are in any manner appli cable thereto. "The author has endeavoured to embody such cases decided upon the abrogated orders as are applicable to the portions of such orders introduced in the existing orders. "Reference is made in the notes to each order to such other orders as affect in any manner the particular order. In following out this plan an apparent prolixity may suggest itself to the reader, but the intention to give the practitioner an immediate reference was the object of the author." The Practice of Conveyancing; comprising every usual Deed, analytically and synthetically arranged. By James Stewart, of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, and Harris Prendergast, of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Third Edition. London: W. Benning & Co., Law Booksellers, 43, Fleet Street. 1847. THIS is the second part of the same work of which we formerly reviewed the first part. It appears to be revised and augmented with great care and industry. The Law and Practice of Marine Insurance, deduced from a critical Examination of the adjudged Cases, the Nature and Analogies of the Subject, and the general Usage of Commercial Nations. By John Duer, LL.D., one of the late Revisers of the Statute Laws of New York. Second vol. New York: John S. Poorhies. 1846. THIS is the work of a very able American lawyer. It exhibits great research and ability. Draft of an Act of Parliament, consolidating the whole Statute Law in one Act. London: Butterworth. 1847. WE are in some doubt whether this is intended as a burlesque on legislation, or whether it is an honest effusion of some simple hearted marvellously puzzle-headed man. The Act contains 494 sections on every conceivable subject of legislation from the Admiralty to the Poor Laws. It begins with the following comprehensive clause: "1. At the expiration of six months after the passing of this act, unless hereby otherwise provided for, all the public general statutes which were in force within the realm at the end of the year 1846 shall be repealed, except so far as they repeal other statutes or abolish any custom or practice, and except also as any statutes are hereby expressly excepted." Yet in a multitude of the succeeding enacting clauses we find things directed to be done according to the law in force before the passing of this Act. How those regulations are to be ascertained or enforced, after all the statutes providing for them are repealed, it is impossible to guess. Here is an instance. "92. Prelates shall have like remedies for injuries done in the time of their predecessors, as they might have had before the passing of this act." Thus the Act proposed would perpetuate in most cases all the old machinery and cumbrous legislative provisions, merely depriving them of all power of being worked or taking effect. The author's notions of public liberty may be gathered from sections 72 and 73. They are really entertaining. We give them verbatim. "72. No meeting of any number of persons for any public purpose, whether held in any house or in the open air, shall be deemed lawful, unless it be presided over by some duly authorized person, and the same shall be convened by such person in pursuance of a requisition signed by not less than twelve persons of honest repute." "73. If any person attempt either by speech or writing to inflame the public in any manner or on any matter of public interest whatever, he shall at the instance of any person be taken before a justice, and on proof of the fact, the said justice may require him to give security for his good behaviour; and if he have offended by means of any written or printed matter he shall be compelled to deliver up all copies of the same, to be destroyed under the direction of such justice, and in case of default shall be committed to prison until he has complied with the requisition." Events of the Quarter. DANIEL O'CONNELL, Esquire, died on Saturday, the 15th of May last, at Genoa. In our next Number a Memoir of him will be published. It is a singular circumstance that two gentlemen, one in Dublin the other in London, who were to have written the Memoirs, were both successively seized with severe illness. The paper was half finished in the latter case. Sir David Pollock, Chief Justice of Bombay, has fallen a victim to the climate. His death is announced by the last Indian mail. He was the eldest brother of Sir Frederick, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and Sir George, the Indian General. He was born in 1780, and was educated at Edinburgh College. He was called to the bar in 1802; attained to considerable practice; was appointed a Commissioner of Insolvents about four years ago, and Chief Justice of Bombay in 1846. He was much esteemed for his personal worth, and was a man of kind heart and of exemplary morals, revered for his domestic virtues, and universally respected alike by the profession and a wide circle of private friends. Death has already removed one of the new County Court Judges. Mr. David Leahy died on Monday, the 21st of June last. He was a man of great ability, but not of an order which fitted him for success at the bar, or for judicial functions. He is succeeded by Mr. Chilton, Q. C., in the judgeship of the Greenwich and Lambeth Courts, whose mode of exercising judicial powers is illustrated in the Law Times of July 24th last. We shall have to make further comment on this matter. Mr. Rawlinson, the Police Magistrate of Marylebone, is dead, and is succeeded by Mr. Hammell, who has, we believe, held some judicial office in the colonies. Parliament was dissolved on the 23rd of July, 1847, having lasted nearly seven years. The new parliament will meet earlier than usual. The Commissioners on the Law of Marriage have intimated that they are willing to receive communications relative to marriages within the prohibited degrees, and that communications shall be deemed confidential if the parties so wish. We shall discuss this subject in our next number. A broil at the Chancery Bar between Mr. Bethell and Mr. Cooper took place a fortnight ago. A pamphlet was published, the topic became public, and the Attorney General, having been appealed to, with great propriety and judgment convened a Bar Meeting, and the matter was arranged by qualified apology and retractation of the pamphlet. Correspondence. THE REAL PROPERTY AMENDMENT ACT, In our article on this act, vol. 3, N. S. p. 252, we stated the effect of the section requiring leases, &c. to be by deed, to be that "any instrument not under seal, though in terms which would hitherto have amounted to an undoubted lease, will for the future operate only as an agreement for a lease." This is not strictly the effect of the clause: there is yet a class of leases which will be valid whether in writing or not, and therefore derive no extra validity from being under seal. The class of leases which the section makes void unless by deed is such as by law are required to be in writing. The effect will be to comprise all leases except those which by the statute of frauds were allowed to exist by parol, that is to say, all leases not exceeding the term of three years from the making thereof at two-thirds of the full improved value of the thing demised." As such leases were clearly not required by law to be in writing, the late act will not interfere with them; and as they could exist without writing before the act they may of course still be effected, if desired, by simple contract. Our attention has also been called to the terms of the same section, which declares that the instruments referred to shall be "void at law" unless by deed. It is suggested that the words at law, if they have no meaning, exemplify the mischievous surplusage and redundancy of acts at the present day. If the instruments had simply been en acted to be void, all the presumed purposes in view would have been answered. We question whether it will not require a decision on the point as to an instrument, though void at law, being or not valid in equity. To justify the doubt the statute of frauds may be referred to as showing that the relief which equity can give against law should have been specially excluded (if intended), as it is by the first section of that act as to leases, &c. not in writing. C A It is also suggested that the learning which has accumulated on the question as to what should be deemed an actual demise, or only Part an agreement to demise, cannot yet be laid aside, and the case is put in the words of our article of an instrument not under seal, which before the act would have amounted to an undoubted lease, say for seven years. Now if it be an undoubted lease, it is void at law by the terms of the act, and being void, can any effect be given to it under colour of its being an agreement to lease? If it cannot, then the great point will be, in cases where the instrument is not so clearly a lease, to contend, with the help of the numerous decisions on the subject, that it is only an agreement for a lease. Of course as to leases which we have shown may still exist without deed, the vexata quæstio, as to the distinction between agreements and actual demises, remains in full force. The fourth section of the repealed act 7 & 8 Vict. c. 76, seemed on this head more clear than its successor. It is noted as a curious instance of the legislative language of these times, that an act to simplify the transfer of property should have required a formal deed in lieu of a simple writing under hand. G. H. |