CURATORS AND CAUTION.

In two recent petitions the factor or curator appointed ought to have found caution within one calendar month from the date of his appointment, in accordance with the Act of Sederunt 1849 (C.A.S., G, i.), unless on cause shewn and on application made before the month had expired the Court had prorogated the time for his finding caution.

In each of these cases, however, there was failure duly to find caution.

Accordingly, in terms of section 2 of the Pupils Protection Act 1849 (12 & 13 Vict. cap. 5), the appointment in each case fell.

In this connection Lord Ashmore's opinion is deserving of close attention, namely:

"Laxity in the due finding of caution is becoming too frequent; and, in order to ensure more careful observance of the statutory directions in future, I have come to the conclusion that I ought not as a matter of course to reappoint an officer whose appointment has fallen under the circumstances mentioned. Unless some reasonable explanation can be given of the failure to find caution within the proper time, I intend in future to consider in each case whether or not the officer who has neglected to find caution shall be reappointed. In the event of its being shewn that the failure has been caused by the delay on the part of an insurance company to issue the bond of caution within a reasonable time I may have to decide that that company shall not be continued on the list of such companies approved by the Court. In the event of no satisfactory explanation being given by the officer affording good excuse as regards him personally I may have to decide that his appointment should not be renewed and that another person should be appointed instead."

In the petitions under consideration, however, his Lordship reappointed the officers concerned without making enquiry as to the cause of failure to find caution.

THE LATE PROFESSOR HENRY GOUDY,
LATELY REGIUS PROFESSOR OF CIVIL LAW,
OXFORD UNIVERSITY.

Professor Goudy a few days ago.
We regret to record in this issue the death of

Professor Goudy succeeded Mr James Bryce at Oxford University as Regius Professor of Civil Law, and carried on the brilliant traditions of that important chair with much success. His father was the late Rev. Alexander Goudy, D.D., a Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland in 1857. Professor Goudy's school life was spent partly in Ireland and partly in Scotland. After studying at the Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh he graduated at the latter as M.A. in 1870 and LL.B. in 1871. Anxious to neglect no opportunity to further his knowledge, Professor Goudy then proceeded to Königsberg, where he passed a winter session. He was admitted to the Scottish Bar in 1872, and soon gathered a fair practice. A diligent searcher of reports will discover him engaged, amongst other important cases, in the trial of the City of Glasgow Bank Directors and also in Maloy v. Macadam, a well-known consistorial action. For a short time he acted as Sheriff Court Depute and Assistant Depute at Glasgow.

To follow Professor Goudy's activities into the realm of literature at once recalls his bestknown work, the important treatise on "Bankruptcy," published in 1886, the last edition of which was edited by Sheriff Fyfe in 1914. We do not need to make any eulogy of the merits of this well-known work, which is one of the most valuable additions to modern legal literature. He also published a small volume on "Local Government in Scotland," and wrote many contributions to various cyclopædias, magazines, and periodicals both legal and lay, and acted as editor-in-chief of the "Juridical Review" from its first appearance in 1889. In that year he was elected to the Chair of Civil Law, and, to quote a brother advocate at that time, "he has shewn a generous enthusiasm in devoting himself to its duties which has increased the respect entertained for him by his brethren of the Bar."

Mr Goudy was one of two practising advocates elected to chairs in an English University, and the Parliament House at the time of his selection for the important chair in Oxford appreciated fully the great distinction conferred on it by Professor Goudy's appointment—an appointment in which he carried on the best traditions of the Scottish Bar.

THE LATE LORD MOULTON.

It is with much regret that we record in these columns the death of John Fletcher Moulton, Baron Moulton, Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and Member of the Judicial Committee of the

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Privy Council. Lord Moulton busily engaged in an important taxation case in the House of Lords on Tuesday, but on Wednesday morning it was found that he had passed quietly away in his sleep.

John Fletcher Moulton was born in 1844, and, after a distinguished scholastic career, during which he achieved the double honours of First Smith Prizeman and Senior Wrangler, he was called to the Bar of the Middle Temple in 1874. His early progress at the Bar was slow, but in due time his great talents and detailed knowledge, especially in scientific matters, brought him to the forefront. In 1885 Mr Moulton took silk and rapidly achieved a wide senior practice in the realms of patent and commercial law. In 1885 he had been returned as Liberal candidate for the Clapham Division of Battersea, but the following year lost his seat. Again, in 1894, he was member for South Hackney, but again lost his seat the following year. In 1896, however, he was elected for the Launceston Division of Cornwall, and held the seat till he was raised to the Bench in 1906. In that year he was made a Lord Justice of the Court of Appeal, and since 1912 was Lord of Appeal in Ordinary and a member of the Judicial Court of the Privy Council with a life peerage.

Lord Moulton's public activities were manifold. He was a member of the Royal Commissions on Civil Service Superannuation and on Gas; he was the first chairman of the Medical Research Committee under the National Insurance Act, and of the Advisory Committee of the Home Office for the administration of the Cruelty to Animals Acts. He was a Fellow and member of the Senate of the University of London; Edinburgh made him an LL.D. in 1911, and Cambridge University conferred a similar honour in 1914. He was President of the Institution of Gas Engineers in 1917-18. The foreign honours he possessed were numerous-among others, those of Commander of the Legion of Honour and Grand Officer of the Order of L'Etoile Noire, Commander of the Order of Leopold of Belgium, and Grand Cordon of the Order of the White Eagle of Russia.

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Ministry of Munitions, Lord Moulton became Director-General of Explosives, in which capacity his untiring energy and vast knowledge combined to render inestimable service.

Lord Moulton was twice married, first to Clara, widow of Mr R. W. Thompson, of Edinburgh, by whom he has left a son, Captain (Acting Major) Hugh Fletcher Moulton, of the R.G.A., barrister-at-law; secondly, to Mary May, daughter of Major Henry Davis, who, with a daughter, survives him.

THE BAR'S TRIBUTE.

While arguing a case in the Prize Court on Wednesday before the President (Sir Henry Duke),

The Attorney-General (Sir Gordon Hewart, K.C., M.P.) announced that news had just reached him that that great and distinguished lawyer, Lord Moulton, had passed away that morning.

The President: The news has just reached me, and I heard it with the greatest possible grief. He had been a friend of mine at the Bar, while he was on the Bench and I was at the Bar, for a great many years. A very great loss it is to the public. Few people knew of the inestimable value of his services during the war. I fear the shortening of his days was due to the way he spent himself in the public service.

At the sitting of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council on Wednesday morning Lord Haldane said that the news of the death of Lord Moulton had distressed their Lordships very much. "The loss is one the extent of which it is not easy to express," Lord Haldane observed, "and, more than that, all of us, and I think the Bar, no less than the Bench, were deeply attached to him."

We feel sure that the Scottish Bar and profession will unite with their English brethren in recording their deep sense of loss to the legal profession sustained by the sudden death of Lord Moulton.

ACT OF SEDERUNT

THE

Appeals to the Sheriff under section 1 (4) or section 8 (4) of the said Firearms Act 1920 shall be by initial writ under the Sheriff Courts

MR J. N. MORTON, writer, 58 Bath Street, Glasgow, intimates that he has joined Mr David H. Kay, solicitor, in business, and has removed to 224 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, where the joint businesses will be carried on under the name of David H. Kay & Morton, solicitors and notaries public.

MR LEONARD C. BOYD, solicitor, Ayr, intimates that on 1st inst. he assumed Mr Robert G. Cochrane, solicitor, Ayr, as a partner. Mr Cochrane served his apprenticeship in Ayr and Glasgow, and qualified as a law agent in 1909. He was engaged in the conveyancing and trust department of Messrs J. M. Taylor, Nelson, Walker & Co., writers, Glasgow, for four years, and thereafter was managing clerk to Messrs Andersons & Pattison, writers, Glasgow, for three years. Except during his absence on voluntary military service, Mr Cochrane has acted as depute to Mr P. A. Thomson, town-clerk, Ayr, since August 1914. The business is now being carried on under the firm name of Leonard C. Boyd & Cochrane.

WE regret to record the death at Forter, Glenisla, on Saturday last, of Mr David Shaw, W.S., Edinburgh, in his eighty-sixth year. He began his legal career in Dundee, and after serving for a time in Perth, and also in the office of the town-clerk of Glasgow, settled in Edinburgh. He was one of the oldest members of the W.S. and S.S.C. Societies, and in religious work in Edinburgh he took a deep interest. For over sixty years he was clerk to the Deacons' Court of Barclay United Free Church, Edinburgh, and for about fifty years superintendent of the Sunday School. He took a deep and active interest in the Y.M.C.A., and for a time held office as president of the Edinburgh centre. He was proprietor of the lands of Auchenleish, Glenisla, and farmed Forter, on the Airlie estates. He was the oldest tenant in age and occupancy of Lord Airlie's estate. Mr Shaw was unmarried.

WE observe with regret the death of Mr Alexander F. Morrison, of Messrs Beckett & Morrison, writers, 145 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, the last surviving son of the late Dr Donald Morrison, Rector of the Glasgow Academy. Mr Morrison graduated M. A. of Glasgow University, and acquired his legal training in the offices of Messrs Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie, and Bannatynes, Kirkwood & M'Jannet. Prior to annexation by Glasgow he acted as assessor in the Partick Burgh Police Court, and for a long term of years was session clerk to the Kelvinside Free Church. Mr Morrison was a careful and well-read lawyer, and highly esteemed in his profession for his probity and genial disposition. He had been in indifferent health for the last three years. Mr Morrison's only son,

a lecturer in Higher Mathematics in Glasgow University, was killed in action in France.

LONDON LETTER.

TEMPLE, 12th March 1921. On looking back at the session now rapidly drawing to a close, the main features seem undoubtedly to be the introduction of women to the administration of justice, and the acceptance of the post of Viceroy of India by a Lord Chief Justice of England.

There cannot be the slightest doubt that Lord Reading will carry away with him to India the admiration and affection of the Bench and Bar of England: admiration for the man because of his inspiring career, his intellectual abilities, and his untold services to his country, and affection for the judge because of his unfailing kindness and consideration to all members of the Bar, however junior, who have had to plead their case before him. The sincerity of the regard in which he is held by his brother lawyers was clearly shewn on 11th January when, in his Court packed to its utmost capacity, the Attorney-General, as leader of the Bar, congratulated him on his appointment. His reply will not be forgotten by those who were privileged to hear it; it was delivered with that dignity which has always graced his demeanour on the Bench, but with occasional hesitations that shewed the strong emotion under which he laboured.

Although it is now three months since Lord Reading's appointment was announced, his successor is still unknown. There has been a fierce controversy in the papers as to whether the Attorney-General has a prescriptive right to the post, and some have written of Sir Gordon Hewart as Lord Reading's certain successor. There is no doubt that the present AttorneyGeneral would fill the position most ably, but in the absence of definite information I had better refrain from any further comment.

The empanelling of women as jurors under the Sex Disqualification Removal Act has necessarily caused strong expressions of opinion to be uttered as to the desirability of women serving in those cases that are euphemistically called "unpleasant." On the one hand there are those who say, "Women have demanded equality: now they shall have it and no nonsense about it"; on the other there stands the sentimental school, which persists in regarding woman as a creature too transcendental to be contaminated by knowledge of the ordinary facts of life. The curious thing is that both parties consist of men, the opinion of women themselves being totally disregarded. In a notorious divorce case, which would have been uninteresting in its dreary sordidness but for the fact that it was the first