Oliphant-The Law of Church Ornaments and Utensils; including Communion Tables, Vestures, Organs, Candles and Crosses. By G. H. H. Oliphant, Esq, Barrister. 12mo. 5s. boards.

Prideaux-The Act to amend the Law for the Registration of Voters, with an Analytical Introduction, a Reference to Cases, and other matters of Election Law. By C. G. Prideaux, Esq., Barrister. 12mo. Second Edition. 5s. boards.

Roscoe-A Digest of the Law of Evidence on the Trial of Actions at Nisi Prius. By H. Roscoe, Esq., Barrister. Eighth Edition, by E. Smirke, Esq., Barrister.

Royal 12mo. 25s. boards.

Stephen-Bar Etiquette (in reference to the Rule requiring the intermediary Agency of an Attorney between Counsel and Client): with an Analytical Account of the Alterations in Practice, proposed by the Common Law Commission. By J. Stephen, Esq., Barrister. 8vo. 1s. sewed.

Sugden-A Concise and Practical View of the Law of Vendors and Purchasers of Estates. By Sir Edward Sugden. 8vo. 21s. cloth.

Woolrych-A Treatise on the Law of Waters, including the Law relating to Rights in the Sea, and Rights concerning Rivers, Canals, Dock Companies, Fisheries, Mills, Water Courses, &c. By H. W. Woolrych, Esq., Barrister. 8vo. Second Edition. 18s. boards.

THE

LAW MAGAZINE;

OR,

QUARTERLY REVIEW

OF

Jurisprudence.

ART. I.-PUBLIC TRUSTEESHIPS.

YHANCERY Reform is the popular cry of the day; it has already worked some valuable amendments in the jurisdiction of equity, and promises wholesome alterations for the future. The abuses complained of are confessedly numerous and flagrant, but it is not wonderful, when litigation is instigated by some of the worst passions of the human heart, that its instruments, Law and Lawyers, should themselves be occasionally defiled by the contact. Where the source is so impure and the stream so polluted, some allowance must be made for the state of the channel through which it flows. Reformers have hitherto rather followed the rivulets than sought the fountain-head of abuses; consequently theirs has been a labour of cure rather than of prevention. Instead of directing their efforts to the diminution of the subject matter of equitable interference, they have laboured in the improvement of its administrative system. The object of the following proposal, on the contrary, is to ameliorate the Court of Chancery by removing from it altogether a vast amount of its most vexatious and merely formal business, instead of solely providing for its negotiation when there. The measure proposed not being retrospective or imperative, but only prospective and optional in its operation, propitiates in limine those "vested interests" generally so inimical to any innovation. It also possesses, as will be seen, the no mean recommendation of being self-supporting.

It is well known, that by far the greater portion of the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery is based on the system of trusts and that the definition and enforcement of the reciprocal rights and duties of trustees and cestuis que trusts form the most important item of its functions. The one branch alone of trusts by express declaration, without reference to the various ramifications of trusts by operation of law, is quite sufficient to justify this allegation. It is also equally notorious that the fiduciary relation of trustee or cestui que trust becomes applicable to almost every possessor of property at some period or other of

VOL. XV. NO. XXIX.

his life. It is a universal social compact, regulating our dearest interests, which all good citizens are obliged to enter into, and on the due performance of which depends the happiness of the whole community. The unthankfulness and danger of the office of trustee is proverbial, and it can scarcely be otherwise, when nothing less than the exact performance of the trust is expected, and no expectation can be more Utopian. This may easily be conceived, when it is understood, to adopt the language of Lord Bacon, that for the private conscience of the trustee the general conscience of the realm, which is Chancery, is required to be substituted, and when also the extent and profundity of the science of equitable jurisprudence, which constitutes that recorded conscience, is duly taken into account. Under the present method conventional requirement imposes an unsatisfactory obligation on all parties concerned. The testator or settlor is aware that he subjects his friend to an unremunerative and perilous burden, and that the representative of that friend in whom the trust may finally vest may be as unprincipled as the friend himself is honourable. Again, the friend, although perfectly satisfied of the good faith of his present cestuis que trusts, cannot ensure that of the next generation. And if mutual amity be not preserved, where is the administration of a trust in which some flaw may not be found? In a multitude of cases the trustee or executor has alone the invidious choice of throwing the estate into chancery, or fettering himself and family with liabilities. He is offered the melancholy alternative of ruining his own or his testator's family. Some idea may be formed of the effect of the paternal care of the court on a small property by the fact, that an estate now in chancery, worth 8000l. per annum, costs yearly about 2000l. for management. Altogether the subsisting system results in this, that a man whose days have been rendered weary and nights sleepless to obtain a provision for a helpless family, on his death-bed finds the enjoyment of his hard earnings secured to them on no greater certainty than the infallibility of friends, or the costly integrity of the Court of Chancery. Truly a happy reflection to smooth the pillow of one who would be at peace with himself and the world! The foregoing is merely a very cursory allusion to a few of the inconveniences which accompany that personal confidence termed a trust, as more especially annexed to the person and acts of the trustee himself. A ponderous volume might be written on the difficulties attending the very nature of trust property itself, as in its vesting and transition, difficulties which in a number of instances can only be remedied by the court. In evidence of this, we need only mention the Trustee Act of 1850 and its precursors, commonly known as Sir E. Sugden's Acts.

The proposition hereby offered as a reparation of the majority of these evils is simply as follows. Let district public trustees and executors be named throughout the country. The commissioners of bankruptcy or county court judges afford exponents convenient of adaptation for the purposes of the experiment. Let every cautious man making a will or settlement have the option of appointing the district officer trustee and executor, or trustee thereof. By virtue of this appointment, the property might then either vest absolutely in the appointee as effectually as a bankrupt's assets now vest in his official assignee, with all requisite powers of management, or be left to the ordinary alienation and limitation of the will or conveyance. It is opined, that the latter course would be most practical and least subversive of established custom. The public trustee would then be invested with certain powers and liable to certain duties, in the same manner as a common trustee. Discretions might be given and reserved to third persons, as to the wife, the protector of the settlement, just as is now done; but the public officer should not be embarrassed with a co-trustee in estate. It would be very desirable however, from abundance of caution, that some person should be appointed, whose signature with that of the public trustee should be indispensable to make a title to any species of trust property which passes by mere delivery. Thus in variations of investments such a joint receipt would be clearly a beneficial preservative from the unrestrained disposal of the public trustee. But where the trust was of realty there could be no reason for such a precaution; for to make away with a landed estate surreptitiously by a successful fraud would be next to impossible, since the hands it came from would be primâ facie evidence of notice against the purchaser. This protective trustee, as he might be called, would be no further concerned in the administration of the trust, than in seeing that the trust personalty was received or invested. Beyond that, he would not acquire the slightest authority or incur the least responsibility. His function would be purely ministerial and controlled by the will of the public trustee. As a matter of course there should be an adequate power limited for the change and new appointment of these protective trustees. When a public trustee died or was removed from his office, his successor should stand possessed of the trust property upon the then remaining trusts of the original instrument in as full and ample a manner as his predecessor, without the expensive formalities of a new set of conveyances. An indorsement officially stamped on the first deed or deeds, stating the new appointment, should be deemed sufficient to carry on the title. The public trustee would be an officer of the court who would be regularly accredited and empowered as

tee's professional adviser. Lord Eldon there said, "My opinion is, that if a person who is appointed co-trustee by any instrument, executes no other act than a conveyance to his co-trustees, when the meaning and intent of that conveyance is disclaimer, the distinction is not sufficiently broad for the court to act upon. I can find no case which has decided, nor can I find any reason for deciding, that where the intent of the release is disclaimer, the inference that the releasor has accepted the estate shall prevent the effect of it." An unlearned person would naturally imagine that a chancellor was not obliged to stand on logical or legal exactness, and that although in strictness a conveyance implied an estate to convey, yet that the expressed intention would have had primary weight in a court of conscience.

Suppose the pons assinorum crossed, and the trustee and executor in full undoubted possession of all the dignity of his newly assumed capacity. His first duty will be to get in as expeditiously as possible the assets of his testator; a duty sometimes modified by special directions. An omission in the due realization of the property; ignorance of what securities should be left outstanding and what called in, will be treated as crimes, and visited severely with equitable pains and penalties. Should there be a power of sale, to ensure a valid execution, its terms must be pursued with the greatest exactitude. Some powers of sale will be lost by the disclaimer or death of a co-trustee; and questions on the ability of a trustee to give good receipts for the purchase money, may be determined by the intention of the testator, presumed from minute circumstances of the state of the cestuis que trusts, or the specialty of the trust itself. The trustee will next perhaps have to grapple with the legal niceties of marshalling assets, of repetition of legacies, or of satisfaction. In the latter he will perchance learn to discriminate between a testator's regard for his child and his creditor. He will find that trifling difference in the debt and legacy will, in favour of a creditor, rebut the presumption of satisfaction, but that the most palpable distinctions between a portion and legacy will not suffice to give the child the benefit of the testator's bounty. He will be told that the perfection of reason imputes to the parent a ridiculous act of supererogation, a double donation of the same subject, rather than admit the possibility of his wishing to be more generous to one child than to another. To quicken the trustee's inspiration in his new study, he will be also informed that the smallest mistake in the distribution of the estate will be at his own peril. Assumed that he is prudent and has engaged professional assistance at the outset. Still, solicitors are not omniscient, cases for counsel do not always contain an impartial exposition of facts, nor are counsel themselves infallible.