Bankrupts.

88

Prices of Stocks.-Parliamentary Proceedings-Letter Box.

ways, Manchester, Rope Makers. Stanway,
Off. Ass.; Makinson, Market Place, Manches-
ter; Gregory & Co., Bedford Row. May 16.
Taylor, William James, 82, High Street, Camden
Town, Grocer. Bell, Off. Ass.; Burton,
Powes Place, Great Ormond Street. May 6.
Terry, Henry, now or late of Old Swan Public
House, Battersea, Victualler. Green, Off. Ass.;
Fisher & Co., 162, Aldersgate Street. May

20.
Thackrey, John, Leeds, Dyer. Freeman, Off.
Ass.; Milton & Co., Southampton Buildings;
Dunning & Co., Leeds. May 23.
Thurnell, William, Leadenhall Street, and Great
Windmill Street, Coventry Street, Upholsterer.
Alsager, Off. Ass.; Pain & Co., Basinghall
Street, and Great Marlborough Street. May 6.
Tottem, George Grafton, Crescent Place, Fulham
Place, Jeweller and Watch Maker. Graham,
Off. Ass.; Spyer, Broad Street Buildings.
April 25.

Tupper, William, Chalcroft, Catherington, Hants,
Grocer. Green, Off. Ass.; Ivimey, Chancery
Lane; Puffard, Portsea. May 2.
Walker, William, late of Bottleslow, Stafford, Mil-
ler, now of Eastwood, Stafford, Dealer in Pot-
ters' Materials. Whitmore, Off. Ass.; Chaloner,
Hanley; Harrison & Co., Edmund Street,
Birmingham. April 25.

Warr, Harry, Bridport, Dorset, Currier. Herna-
man, Off. Ass.; Temple & Co., Bridport; Clowes
& Co., Temple; Terrell, St. Martin's, Exeter.
May 2.
Warren, James Urmston, Wellington Crescent,
Ramsgate, Hotel Keeper. Follett, Off. Ass.;
Lawrance & Co., Bucklersbury. April 25.
Warriner, George, Lloyd's Coffee House, Royal
Exchange, Tavern Keeper. Alsager, Off. Ass.;
Kiss & Co., 139, Fenchurch Street. May 6.
Watson, William, Wakefield, York, Victualler.
Fearne, Off. Ass.; Clarke, Chancery Lane;
Watson, Wakefield. May 20.

India Stock, 10 per Cent,
Ditto Bonds under 1000l.
South Sea Old Annuities.

3 per Cent. Cons. for opening, 18th July
Commissioners for the Reduction of the National
Debt, purchased at 981, 3 per Cent Reduced.
Exchequer Bills, 1000l., 1d. 64s. a 3s, a 58. pm.
Do.
5001. small
66s. a 4s. pm.
advertised.

Do.

62s. a 4s. pm.

PARLIAMENTARY PROCEEDINGS RE-
LATING TO THE LAW

House of Lords.

To the nine bills of Lord Brougham, of which we gave a list last week, we have to add the General Register of Deeds Bill, which has been brought in by Lord Campbell, but not yet printed,

Lord Cottenham's Bill for consolidating the Ecclesiastical Courts and establishing one general Court of Probate in London, has been read a second time, with the approval of both sides of the house.

The amendment of the Imprisonment for Debt Bill is expected soon to be brought forward.

The Charitable Trusts Bill is now vehemently opposed. The first opinion of its limited scope is changed, and it is looked upon as the small end of a wedge, which once introduced, would split off a large limb of the Court of Chancery.

House of Commons.

Webb, William Henry, Stratford-upon-Avon, Whar- The bill for the service of Common Law Profinger. Christie, Off, Ass.; Hobbes & Co., cess Abroad still lingers in its progress. This Stratford-upon-Avon; Harrison & Co., Bir-is one of the few useful bills, and ought to be mingham. May 13. passed without further delay. The New Chancery Orders regulate the service of equity process out of the jurisdiction.

White, John, Market Place, Warminster, Wilts,
Currier and Leather Seller. Johnson, Off. Ass.;
Galsworthy & Co., Carey Street. May 23.
Wilcock, Sarah, Bridge Street, Warrington, Lan-
caster, Innkeeper. Stanway, Off. Ass.; Norris
& Co., 19, Bartlett's Buildings, Holborn;
Bayley, Warrington, Lancaster. April 22.
Williams, Thomas Holyland, and William Clachar,
Stanes, Chelmsford, Essex, Auctioneers and
Wine and Spirit Merchants. Edwards, Off.
Ass.; Brisley, 5, Verulam Buildings, Gray's
Inn. April 22.

Wood, Thomas, Little Queen Street, Holborn, Wine
Merchant. Groom, Off. Ass.; Collins & Co.,
Crescent Place, Bridge Street, Blackfriars.
May 23.

We understand that the government will consent to a committee for inquiring into the question of a fit site for the Courts of Law and Equity.

The Clerks af the Peace and Magistrates' Bill makes but little progress.

THE EDITOR'S LETTER BOX.

WE must defer our notes on the Chancery Orders until another week.

The letter of P. A. B. on Imprisonment for Debt and on the Examination of Articled Clerks, shall be attended to at the first opportunity.

E. R. B. is informed, that an articled clerk under age cannot pass his examination at the Law Institution, without a special order of court, which is very rarely granted.

The Legal Observer,

OR,

JOURNAL OF JURISPRUDENCE.

SATURDAY, JUNE 7, 1845.

"Quod magis ad Nos

Pertinet, et nescire malum est, agitamus."

HORAT.

THE INNS OF COURT.

who shall have the privilege of using it? Accordingly, every day has brought its rumours,-sometimes good, sometimes evil We have heard various rumours of late report. One day it has been said that of proposed alterations in the inns of court, lectures were forthwith to be delivered,and the system of education there pursued. and this we certainly hope will turn out to The gentlemen who are pursuing their be true; the next, it has been declared way to eminence with patient perseverance, that an examination, both legal and classiby eating a prescribed number of dinners, cal, was to be instituted,-and this, though have been alarmed by all sorts of reports, perhaps open to more doubt, deserves at giving some of them reason to suppose any rate much consideration; a third that the mutton which they were in the rumour tells us that all persons connected act of consuming was, or would be shortly, with the press, although they may find deprived of all virtue to confer a right to a admittance to Lincoln's Inn and Gray's call to the bar. It has been broadly Inn, are to be excluded from the Temples. asserted that Lincoln's Inn has dined with It is well that this is not to have a retrothe Middle Temple; that Gray's Inn has spective operation, as we apprehend it been seen arm-in-arm with the Inner would deprive both bench and bar of some Temple; and the conjunctions of these of its most distinguished members; but great luminaries are thought to portend we cannot believe that a project of this some events of importance. Arguing from nature has been seriously entertained at what the benchers have recently done, any inn of court. If it were, or if by any nothing is thought to be impossible. A society instituted for the benefit of the beautiful structure has sprung up with a public any absurd and unjust rule of this rapidity only surpassed by Aladdin's palace; an arid, dusty, asphaltic space has been in one day turned into a beautiful garden, waving with trees and bespangled with flowers. If the benchers can do this, it is said, what can they not do? If they have thus the genii of the lamp to do their bidding, what next may we not expect? If they have thus erected a hall second only to one for size, good taste, and splendour, (if indeed it even be surpassed in all these qualities by Westminster Hall,) have they not the right to be particular as to

sort were propounded, it would indeed be full time to consider by what right such society attempted to exercise authority of this kind, and we would not give a year's purchase for its retaining it. The inns of court just stand in this position, that if they act with the judgment and attention to public feeling which some of them are showing, they may not only keep their present absolute power, but all reflecting men will be desirous that they should keep it; if, on the other hand, they begin to lay down new rules in the wrong direction,

90

:

The Inns of Court.-Practical Points of General Interest.

and to suppose they may use the authority unreasonable to extend it to persons who which has been conferred on them as if have entered the inns of court on the faith they had it for their own use, and were of the old regulations. It appears to us enabled by it to gratify their own feelings, that in fairness it should only apply to and likings, and dislikings, why then the persons who shall enter after its promulgasooner they are taught the real tenure and tion. purposes by and for which they hold it, the better and parliament, or for what rumours on this subject which have reached We need not notice any of the other we know, the crown, by its own authority, us. would not be very slow, we apprehend, in cannot but congratulate both ourselves and We may observe, however, that we teaching them it. This publication is not our readers as to the change which has a newspaper; it has neither its advantages, taken place in professional feeling on the nor has it, as we conceive, its disadvan- subject of legal education since we first tages; but if any such rule were to be adverted to the subject twelve years ago. attempted, we would at once make com- We now find many of the rules which we mon cause with the press, and beg to be consider to be the correct ones very geneincluded in any disability which might rally admitted to be so. affect it. But we do not believe that it subject of a law university gravely disWe find the has ever been seriously contemplated by cussed in high quarters; and we have any one. We know, indeed, that men little doubt that we shall live to see the sitting at a common table, or mixing at a foundation of an institution of this nature. common board, sometimes conceive pro- At all events, of this the inns of court may jects which, sitting singly and alone, they be sure,-that the innovating hand, which would have shrunk from with horror and has spared no other institution in the contempt; but as to this particular notion, country, will fall upon them, unless by we do not believe that any three men can wise and timely alterations they anticipate be found who would have the hardihood to the wished-for measures; and that, so far own to the exclusion of a whole class of from this being a time when they can men as intelligent and respectable as strain the powers of exclusion which they themselves. Another new regulation which has been them for the public advantage, and to hold possess, they must be prepared to exercise said to be in contemplation appears to us them as a trust for the benefit of the of a different kind; it is that by which it general body of the profession: and far is proposed to exclude persons holding of- be it from us to say, that as they have the ficial situations from the right to be called, undoubted power to do this, the will is in unless they previously resign them. This any way wanting. appears to us only fair, and indeed necessary for the independence of the bar. The already pointed out the importance and One other word in conclusion. We have great rule here is, "a free stage and no necessity of having the rules of the inns favour." It is to this that the bar owes of court, as to admission and call to the its present position in this country, inferior bar, uniform; and we cannot too often to none; it is this rule which entitles the repeat an observation which must strike humblest member of the bar to meet on every one who considers the subject to be terms of equality the first noble of the land. proper and reasonable. Now it seems obvious to us that you cannot more effectually weaken this rule than by allowing a race of men to come to PRACTICAL POINTS OF GENERAL

INTEREST.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

the bar with an income, greater or less, derived, not from their merit or industry at the bar, but from this other source. This, we think, would place the other members of the bar at a disadvantage, and with necessaries by law, as much as himself, A HUSBAND is bound to provide his wife it would no longer be a free stage and and if she contracts debts for them he is no favour." Besides, in most of the offices obliged to pay them; but for anything besides to which we allude there are facilities for necessaries he is not chargeable. Also, if a forming professional connection, which wife elopes and lives with another man, the may also give an undue advantage. We are therefore inclined to think that a new Tollet, 1 Car. & Marsh, 112. In a very late husband is not chargeable even for necessaries. 1 Bla. Com. by Stewart, 478; and see Reg. v. rule might be here laid down with advan-case the law was laid down at Nisi Prius as to tage. But then we think it would be how far a husband living separate from his