Events of the Quarter.

MISCELLANEOUS.

We believe it is in contemplation to propose that the circuits of the judges be made four times in each year, one judge only performing the circuit and sitting simultaneously with the Quarter Sessions.

THE LAW OF PARTNERSHIP.-A Parliamentary blue book has been printed, containing the Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Law of Partnership. The committee are of opinion that the law of partnership, as at present existing, viewing its importance in reference to the commercial character and rapid increase of the population and property of the country, requires careful and immediate revision. The committee state: 66 By the existing law no person can advance any capital to any undertaking, public or private, in the profits of which he is to participate, nor become partner or shareholder in any enterprise for profit, without becoming liable to the whole amount of his fortune, as expressed by a great legal authority, to his last shilling and his last acre." The evidence printed forms a goodly-sized volume; and the actual matter might be usefully condensed into a fifty-paged pamphlet: and the recommendation and result in as many lines. A Bill we hear is in preparation, which is to be introduced at the beginning of the Session, and most probably smothered at the end of it.

THE ROLLS COURT.-The "Globe" says, that since Sir John Romily took his seat on the Rolls Court, on the 15th April last, he has cleared off every portion of the business of the court. He has disposed of 90 causes and rehearing, 101 further directions, pleas, demurrers and exceptions, 25 claims, 3 special cases, 160 petitions, besides short causes and consent petitions. Judgment has been given in every instance with a single exception, in which it was thought that by delaying a decision the parties may be brought to an amicable arrangement.

THE WOODS AND FORESTS AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS.-On the 18th of October, the act separating the management of the Woods and Forests from the direction of Public Works and Buildings came into force. The First Commissioner of the Woods becomes the First Commissioner of Public Works and Buildings, at a salary of 20007.

a year, and a Surveyor-General is appointed at a salary of 1500l. a year. The Surveyor-General is to have all the duties and powers of the Commissioners of the Woods and Forests.

ST. ALBAN'S BRIBERY COMMISSION.-The commissioners appointed in the last Session of Parliament to inquire into the manner in which the elections for the borough of St. Alban's have been conducted, with a view to arrive at the extent to which bribery and other corrupt practices have prevailed, commenced their sittings on the 27th ult. The court is not an open one, although it was originally intended by the commissioners that it should be. The ground alleged for hearing the evidence with closed doors is the usual one, that the commissioners believe the publication of the evidence would defeat the object the House of Commons had in view when the commission was proposed. A very large number of witnesses are being examined.

CAUSES AT THE LAST SPRING ASSIZES.-Among the papers lately printed, by order of the House of Lords, was one giving an account of the number of causes tried on all the circuits of England and Wales at the Spring and Summer Assizes for the last seven years, and also an account for the last Spring Assizes:-On the Home Circuit, it appears that there were on the last Spring Assizes, 111 causes; on the Midland Circuit, 41; on the Norfolk Circuit, 14; on the Northern Circuit, 75; on the Oxford Circuit, 63; on the Western Circuit, 53; and on the North Wales and Chester Circuit, 19-Total, 376. On the last Summer Assizes the business was further diminished.

DIMINUTION OF PAUPERISM.-A return to the House of Commons shows that on the 1st of July, 1850, there were 831,780 paupers in the receipt of relief, and on the 1st of July last 813,089, showing a decrease of 18,691. Of able-bodied paupers the decrease in the same period was 7,903.

;

COURT OF CHANCERY.-A return relative to the amount of cash and stock standing to different accounts in the AccountantGeneral's name, and not dealt with during a period of fifty years prior to the 1st of August, 1850, shows that the number of cash accounts so standing is 3,251, and amount to 247,4951. 5s. 10d. those for stock are 762 in number, and amount to 314,5431. 19s. 3d. BARON PLATT.-At the recent assizes at Liverpool a stabbing case from Manchester was heard before Baron Platt, who, in summing up to the jury, used these words: -" One of the witnesses tells that he said to the prisoner, If you use your you knife you are a damned coward;' I say also (continued the learned judge, apparently in deep thought) that he was a damned coward, and any man is a damned coward who will use a knife.”—Manchester Courier.

MR. ALDERMAN SALOMONS, M.P., AND THE VIOLATED RULES OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.-On the 11th instant Mr. Alderman

Salomons's solicitor received" notice of trial" in two separate actions, which will bring the question of the admission of Jews into parliament before the Court of Queen's Bench in the course of a few weeks. The notices of trial are for the sittings after Michaelmas Term; consequently the cases will come on early in December, as the term ends on the 25th of November. The actions are brought for "having voted in the House of Commons without having first taken the oaths required by law."

This is as it should be; the issue cannot be very doubtful.

MR. RAMSHAY.—An inquiry into the case of this judge will take place at Preston, on the 5th November, by the Earl of Carlisle.

APPOINTMENTS, CALLS, &c.

The Queen has been pleased to direct letters-patent to be passed under the Great Seal of the united kingdom appointing the Right Hon. Sir James Lewis Knight Bruce, and the Right Hon. Robert Monsey Lord Cranworth, to be judges of the Court of Appeal in Chancery.

Mr. Kindersley, Master in Chancery, and Mr. James Parker, Q. C., are appointed Vice-Chancellors.

There never has been any intention of conferring a peerage on Sir J. L. K. Bruce.

The office of Professor of English Law in the Queen's College, Cork, has been conferred upon Mr. O'Donnell. This gentleman is the son of a Fellow of Trinity College, who was married to the daughter of the late Mr. Denis Creagh Moylan, of that city.

OBITUARY.

On the 9th October, Charles Frith, Esq, of Park Village West, Regent's Park, and the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-law, at Dover. Mr. Frith was called to the Bar in June, 1847, and practised as a conveyancer and equity draftsman.

On October 12th, by his own act, Richard Ellison, Esq., Solicitor, and chief resident of Tickhill, Yorkshire. During the previous week the unfortunate gentleman had been labouring under deep depression of mind, which at length assumed such an appearance that it was deemed necessary to place a watch on his movements. On Sunday morning, after taking exercise for some time, he contrived to elude his watchers' vigilance, and returned to the house unnoticed and alone. The unfortunate gentleman appears to have gone direct to his room, and there cut his throat. A gloom

has been cast over the neighbourhood by this untoward event, as the deceased (who was the eldest son of John Ellison, Esq., estate steward to the Earl of Scarborough) was highly esteemed for his kindness and generosity to the neighbouring poor.

On the 14th October, Armorer Donkin, Esq., for many years an eminent solicitor in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and an alderman of the corporation, at Jesmond, aged 72.

GRAY'S INN.

The Lectures on Law will be resumed in the Hall of this Society, by the Lecturer, Mr. W. D. Lewis, in the ensuing Michaelmas Term, commencing on Monday, the 3rd of November, at half-past seven o'clock, when an Introductory Lecture will be delivered on "The general Advantages of a Study of the English Statute Law." This will be followed by a course of Lectures on the Statutes relating to Property on every Monday and Thursday Evening. The "Mootings" of the Students will take place on every alternate Thursday evening, after the Lecture. Tickets of admission may be had by any Member of an Inn of Court, on application at the Steward's Office.

Sir,

Correspondence.

THE NEW YORK IDEA.

To the Editor of the Law Magazine.

I HAVE read the speculations on law reform, which have lately appeared in the Law Magazine and other publications, with much interest, and, with great deference to the Times, to Lord Brougham, the Law Amendment Society, and Mr. Dudley Field, I would respectfully suggest that the law of England is capable of being sufficiently reformed and improved by the enlightenment of her own spirit and genius, and without reference to the peculiarities of any foreign system. Fully admitting the great attainments and professional merits of the American lawyers, I cannot, after all the fuss and talk we have had, see what we have gained or are likely to gain by running to New York in search of ideas for legal change. As to the union of law and equity we can discuss that question among ourselves and in our own way; and if we want any information on the subject, which we cannot find at home, our neighbours and fellow countrymen the Scotch can tell us all about it. It appears that this united jurisdiction, the flourish about which by Mr. Dudley Field before the surprised gaze of the Law Amendment Society has so unaccountably stirred us all, has actually, without our knowing it, been the practice of the Courts of Scotland for upwards of 300 years, and is at this moment in full vigour there! On the subject of law and equity therefore we need no advice from the recent inspiration of the New York Bar. And with regard to pleading aud legal procedure allow me space for an extract from a short treatise by the late Mr. Justice Story, on which it might be well for some of our new-light jurists to reflect; and when they have done so, perhaps they may be of opinion that American experience of English pleading is hardly a fair criterion of its juridical character. In his "Discourse on the Past History, Present State, and Future Prospects of the Law," this very learned and able American judge thus candidly expresses himself (pp. 42, 44):

"In looking to the future prospects of the jurisprudence of our country, it appears to me that the principal improvements must arise from a more thorough "and deep laid juridical education, a more exact preparatory discipline, and a more methodical and extensive range of studies.

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"In the first place it cannot be disguised that we are far behind the English "Bar in our knowledge of the practice, and of the elementary forms and doc"trines of special pleading. I do not speak here of the technical refinements of "the old law in special pleading, which the good sense of modern times has suppressed; but of those general principles which constitute the foundation of actions, and of those forms by which alone rights and remedies are successfully "pursued. There is a looseness and inartificial structure in our declarations, "and other pleadings, which betray an imperfect knowledge both of principles "and forms; an aberration from settled and technical phraseology, and a neglect "of appropriate averments, which not only deprive our pleadings of just preten"sions to elegance and symmetry, but subject them to the coarser imputation of