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The other four grounds recommended by the Commission are in a different category from desertion. If one may say so without presumption, they are much more susceptible of attack and much more difficult of definition. Lord Birkenhead declared, in regard to cruelty, that when the law was called upon to provide a definition, it never failed to find one, and he intimated that the Courts would be a great deal more rigid in their requirements, were it once enacted that cruelty would entitle a petitioner not merely to a judicial separation but to a decree of divorce. Lord Phillimore, on the other hand, told some apocryphal tales of the procedure adopted in the United States. During a voyage to America he had met an American judge, and the conversation turned upon divorce. The American deplored the laxity of his country. He himself was very strict he would grant one divorce without much trouble; but if the same party came back within twelve months, he took a serious view of it, and refused the application unless good cause were shewn. Probably the classical case of cruelty is that of the American husband who obtained a decree on the ground of his wife's refusal to prepare his breakfast in the morning. Lord Phillimore also referred to that other illustration of "cruelty," which may be termed the technical box on the ear. However, as the divorce laws in the United States vary from State to State, some being lax and others (for example, in the State of New York) very strict, these general and floating criticisms are scarcely fair. The question must always be whether all remedy is to be denied in cases of great and admitted hardship only because the assistance of the law may also be invoked by the unworthy. The Church, plunging into the labyrinths of medieval superstition, has set its face against reform and striven to maintain | unchanged a law which penalises the miserable but is easily evaded by the less scrupulous. The adherents of reform prefer to concentrate on the miserable and the unhappy, and have complete confidence in the ability of the judges of England to dismiss petitions, founded on alleged cruelty, that are obviously frivolous. The remaining grounds

be difficulty in framing the necessary definitions does not absolve the country from its duty of doing justice to those who resort to its Courts. So far as the Church is concerned, marriage may be a sacrament, and it is for the Church to determine the nature of that sacrament. But marriage is also a civil contract, recognised as such under certain conditions by the State and imposing obligations, moral and financial, on the parties to it. The case made by those who support reform is that this contract is effected by the free consent of both parties, is intended to be for the benefit of both, and that, where one party deliberately evades the obligations he or she knowingly undertook, it is unfair that they should remain binding on the other. Human life is short, uncertain, hazardous. In the words of Diderot: Man has the flickering light of reason, as a candle, to guide him and the theologian comes and blows it out. It is possible that the light of that candle, however vacillating and uncertain, is nowhere more needed than in the medieval twilight of the divorce laws, and one hopes that the entrenched army of Bishops will not be permitted to extinguish it.

However this may be, the man in the street will be able to derive a certain interest, if not satisfaction, from watching the future development of this movement. Looking to the work of the Commission, and the patient and careful examination given to it by the House of Lords, one can hardly imagine that the problem will be left where it stands. On the other hand, as Lord Buckmaster has pointed out, a comprehensive measure of divorce reform will probably settle the law for, at the very least, a period of fifty years. It seems then essential that the reformers should not be content with any half-hearted measure, but should aim at a Bill which adequately fulfils the objects of the Commission. I am reminded, in conclusion, that the authors of "Williams on Property" point out the necessity of skilled and timely reform of the law by those who have the necessary competence, in order to escape foolish and disastrous change by the mob. The divorce law yields nothing in point of imdrunkenness, in-portance to the law of real property, so far as sanity, imprisonment for life under a com- the urgency of reform is concerned.

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muted death sentence-do not require much comment here. They were considered and approved by the Commission: they were passed by the House of Lords. The last of these presents no difficulty of any kind. It affects a trifling percentage of the population, and its enactment would be a bare act of justice. Insanity and drunkenness are questions of evidence and proof, to be determined in accordance with the ordinary procedure of the law Courts. The mere fact that there may

Real

C. de B. M.

INCOME TAX ON "CASUAL

INTEREST.

An exhaustive article on this subject appeared in our issue of 28th April 1923, and one of the conclusions arrived at by the writer was that interest on an award of damages was not taxable in respect that it was not taxable income under the statutes. The decision of the First Division in the Exchequer case-Inland Revenue v. Robert Forrest's Factor-which is reported in our columns this week confirms that view. The Court, however, were obviously disinclined to lay down any broad proposition, and it would appear that in the judgments of Lord Clyde and Lord Sands an endeavour is made to restrict the effect of the decision to the circumstances of the particular case before them. At the same time the salient features of the arbitration award in question are common to the majority of judicial and arbitral decisions, namely, a lump sum found due at a particular date and interest awarded as from that date. The Lord President indicates that it would have been open to the arbiter to award the whole sum as

principal instead of fixing the principal sum at an anterior date and awarding interest therefrom. This, however, is no specialty and the course indicated would be open to the tribunal in most disputes. The decision, therefore, may be regarded as definitely fixing the immunity of such interest from taxation, but the authority of Schulze's case (1916 S.C. 188) is not impugned and will still apply to support the taxation of interest on sums due in respect of legitim or jura relictorum where the adjustment of the amount due has resulted in a delayed payment. M. J.

AT the recent Annual General Meeting of the Society of Procurators and Solicitors in the City and County of Perth, held in terms of the Royal Charter in favour of the Society, the following office-bearers were elected for the ensuing year.

President, Mr Duncan Macnab, Perth; VicePresident, Mr James M'Beth, Auchterarder; Hon. Secretary, Mr A. C. Campbell, Perth; Hon. Treasurer, Mr James Mitchell, Perth; Hon. Librarian, Mr Thomas Logan, Perth; Members of Committee, Messrs J. W. Wyllie, David Mackay, A. G. Forrest, Robert Stewart, and John Little, all of Perth; Auditors, Messrs Walter Anderson and C. P. Campbell, Perth.

The treasurer submitted the financial Report shewing the finances of the Society to be in a satisfactory state.

EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY GRADUATION CEREMONIAL.

A graduation ceremonial took place in the Library of Edinburgh University on 20th March. Principal Sir Alfred Ewing presided. The majority of the new graduates, who numbered about seventy, were students in the Faculties of Law and Science.

Among the graduates in the Faculty of Law who received the degree of Bachelor of Laws were Mr J. L. M'D. Clyde, B.A. (Oxon.), son of Lord Clyde, Lord President of the Court of Session; Mr T. P. M'Donald, M.A., a former senior president of the Students' Representative Council, and president of the University Celtic Society and Liberal Association.

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WE regret to record the death, in an Edinburgh nursing home, of Mr George Badger, Sheriff-Clerk of Perthshire. Mr Badger, who was between fifty and sixty years of age, succeeded the late Mr John Ritchie as SheriffClerk of Perthshire only some five months ago, and a tragic coincidence is that he died in the same nursing home as his predecessor. In 1886 Mr Badger was appointed Depute Sheriff-Clerk of Haddington, and in 1918 Sheriff-Clerk at Selkirk. Mr Badger was a native of Haddington, and while residing there he was for over thirty years secretary and treasurer of the Haddington Gas Co., and in his early days was a keen Volunteer. Mr Badger is survived by a widow and two daughters.

at least being employers to a very limited extent.

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If Mr Taylor desires to see the Law Clerk's salary raised, his course is clear: let him found a Law Clerks' Union, on the lines of the Unions of lesser calling.' From his letter, however, he has evidently no such intention. His admiration of Trades Unions proper appears to be as limited as his knowledge thereof.

As regards the London dustman with £5 per week, and "no need to dress a part," I certainly would not do a dustman's most disagreeable job for the sum mentioned. However, as Mr Taylor's letter seems to be the elevation of money upon a pedestal, and as he considers the dustman better off than he is, his remedy is obvious.-Yours faithfully,

MR ALEXANDER DUFFUS, advocate, senior partner of the firm of Wilson & Duffus, advocates, has died at his residence, 11 Queen's Gardens, Aberdeen. Mr Duffus, who was in his sixty-fifth year, was a native of Aberdeen. He began business on his own account in 1884, and in 1892 joined the late Mr Thomas Wilsone, of Messrs Reid & Wilsone, under the firm name of Messrs Wilsone & Duffus. Since 1896 Mr Duffus had been law agent for the North of Scotland Bank through the changes which led to its amalgamation with the Town and County Bank, and more recently with the Midland Bank. In 1915 he joined the directorate of the Great North of Scotland Railway Co. and became chairman in February of last year, and subsequently a director of the London and North-Eastern Railway Co., in which the Great North Co. was grouped. Mr Duffus also held the position of law agent to the P.S.-Although Mr Taylor lives in London, City of Aberdeen Parish Council and the he evidently has not taken the trouble to Board of Control, clerk to the Dee and Don verify his statement re dustmen's wages; he Fishery Boards, director of the North British should refer to the case of Rex v. Roberts, and Mercantile Insurance Co., the Ellon Castle ex parte Scurr and Others, recently decided in Estates Ltd., and the Northern Agricultural the King's Bench Division. By this judgment Co. Ltd., while he very efficiently discharged the Poplar Local Authority were surcharged on the duties of chairman of the Aberdeen Royal account of paying dustmen £4 per week. Infirmary, and chairman of the Aberdeen Employment Committee of the Employment Exchange.

C. C. LEARMONTH.

Letter to the Editor.

TOWN CHAMBERS,
AYR, 24th March 1924.

Dear Sir,-While Mr E. R. M. Taylor's letter in your issue of 22nd inst. is really delightful, I fear that your space is too valuable for any reply long enough to point out all the flaws therein.

Mr Taylor has evidently a very limited knowledge of Trades Unionism when he likens the Legal Societies to Trades Unions, to quote his letter," of lesser calling. of lesser calling." (Why "lesser

I am at a loss to know.)

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DECISIONS IN THE ENGLISH
COURTS.

Prager v. Blatspiel Stamp & Heacock Ltd.

PRINCIPAL AND AGENT- —AGENCY OF NECESSITY.

-The plaintiff, a fur dealer, lived in Bucharest. The defendants were fur merchants in London, who acted as agents in the buying and dressing of skins. For some years before the war they had been agents for the plaintiff, and had continued so to act after the outbreak of war. In 1915 and in 1916 they bought for the plaintiff a large number of skins at a cost of nearly £1900. In substance the plaintiff had paid the whole of that amount, and in 1916 he was due about £380 on account of certain skins which If Mr Taylor considered the matter he would had been dressed for him after purchase. The realise that the Legal Societies stand more or defendants were bound, when required, to less in the same light towards the Law Clerk dispatch the goods to Roumania according as, say, the Coal Owners' Association to the to the plaintiff's directions. Owing to war miner; the demands of each are diametrically conditions it became gradually impossible to opposed. Is it likely that any of the Legal send the skins to Roumania, though the Societies would intervene to inform a public defendants made attempts until, with the body that a certain salary is too low? It German occupation in December 1916, would merely form a precedent against the Roumania became virtually an enemy members when advertising for assistants them-state. In the autumn of 1917 the defendants selves. The British Medical Association is in began to sell the plaintiff's skins, and by a different position, not being employers; or | November 1918 all had been sold except a few

silver fox skins. On 21st January 1919 the plaintiff, being now able once more to communicate with London, wrote asking for delivery of his goods. To his request the defendants replied as follows: "We thought it best to realise your goods as they were getting stale, and there was no knowing how long these troublous times might last." The plaintiff thereafter repudiated the action of the defendants, and demanded back his goods, finally raising this action. It was admitted that the defendants had no contractual right to sell the goods, but they pleaded agency of necessity. Held that, while the doctrine of agency of necessity was not confined to cases of carriage of goods by land or sea and to the acceptor of a bill of exchange for the honour of the drawer, and so could be applied in circumstances such as those of this case, the agent must prove an actual and definite commercial necessity for the sale, and this the defendants had in fact failed to do.-K.B. Div. (M'Cardie J.). 23rd January 1924.

drawn in favour of the company, mostly crossed.
The total value of these cheques was £8502, 4s.
The appellants collected the amounts due on
these cheques and credited the proceeds to
Underwood's account. Underwood died in
November 1922, when a receiver and manager
of the company was appointed by the debenture
holders. As a result of his investigations this
action for conversion of these cheques was
brought. Appellants claimed that they were
protected by Bills of Exchange Act, 1882,
section 82, seeing that they had relied on the
ostensible authority of the sole director of the
company to act as he did, and that they had
received payment for the cheques in good faith
and without negligence. Held that the peculiar
behaviour of the sole director should have put
the bank on their guard and caused them to
make some enquiry and that, as they were
negligent in failing to make such enquiry, the
company was entitled to recover. Decision
of Roche J. affirmed.-Court of Appeal (Bankes,
Scrutton, and Atkin L.JJ.).—30th January
1924.

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A. L. Underwood Ltd. v. Bank of Liverpool and Martins Ltd.

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CURRENT LAW LITERATURE.

Stone's Justices' Manual, 1924. Fifty-sixth Edition.
Edited by F. B. Dingle, Solicitor. Butterworth
& Co.; Shaw & Sons Ltd. Price 32s. 6d. net.
Digest of Equity. By J. A. Strahan, of the
Middle Temple. Fourth Edition. Butterworth
& Co..
Price 22s. 6d. net.
The Doctrine of Res Judicata. By George Spencer
Bower, K.C. Butterworth & Co. Price 35s. net.
Famous Crimes and Criminals. By C. L. M'Cluer
Stevens. Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd.
Price 12s. 6d.

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BANK CHEQUE NEGLIGENCE PAYMENT INTO PRIVATE ACCOUNT OF SOLE DIRECTOR OF A COMPANY OF CHEQUES CROSSED IN FAVOUR OF THE COMPANY.-BILLS OF EXCHANGE ACT, 1882 (45 & 46 VICT. CAP. 61), SECTION 82.-A. L. Underwood carried on business as an engineer- A ing and machinery merchant, which business he converted into a limited company in 1919, he and one Callow being the subscribers, each for one share, to the memorandum of association. By the articles Underwood was appointed sole director, and at a meeting of the company held on 15th July 1919, at which Underwood was the only person present, the two shares subscribed for were allotted, as well as ten A Short Treatise on the Law of Bills of Exchange, thousand shares to Underwood. No other shares were ever allotted, and Callow's share was, in June 1921, transferred to Underwood's wife. At the time of the flotation of the company Underwood had a banking account with Messrs King & Co. as well as one with the appellants. The account with Messrs King & Co. was heavily overdrawn, and in security for the overdraft a debenture in the form of a floating charge over the assets of the company was issued to Messrs King & Co., with whom the company's bank account was kept. Underwood continued to keep his private account with the appellants, to whom he was well known as a customer of long standing. Between 20th December 1919 and February 1922 Underwood paid into his private account forty-five cheques

An

Cheques, Promissory Notes, and Negotiable
Instruments and generally. By Bertram Jacobs,
LL.B. (London). Second Edition. Sweet &
Price 10s. 6d. net.

Maxwell Ltd.

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Outline of the Rules of Evidence. By L. V.
Holt, Solicitor. Stevens & Sons Ltd.

EDITOR'S NOTE.

Price 2s. net.

The General Editor will be pleased to consider Articles of Legal Interest, and if accepted for publication these will be paid for, but no responsibility is undertaken for the safe custody and return of MSS.

THE NEW CONVEYANCING BILL.

The second edition of the Conveyancing Amendment Bill has now been tabled. Those responsible for its production have had the very ample period of about four years in which to study, assimilate, and adjudicate upon the various and varying pronouncements of the different legal bodies and of this and other legal journals upon the Bill as it first appeared. We dealt fully at the time with the criticisms on the Bill contained in the reports prepared by the different legal bodies. Those criticisms were of an adverse nature to an extent to which one is not accustomed in the case of purely legal Bills, and some of them were expressed with unusual strength of language. They have certainly borne fruit, but not to such a degree as to please all the critics, if indeed that were possible. The most refreshing vigour of phraseology hailed from the Society of Advocates of Aberdeen, and it is quite certain that their criticism has not been met. It might or might not be possible to say that, in terms of their advice, "the measure as framed has been dropped," meaning that the first Bill has in reality and substance disappeared, and that this second edition is really a new Bill. But, however that may be, it is certain that this Bill does not present the Advocates of Aberdeen, not to speak of the legal profession and the people of Scotland, with what those Advocates desiderated as the essential connotation of any Conveyancing Bill worth having, namely, a clarified, selfcontained, cohesive system "; nor is it comprehensive and consolidating measure of Conveyancing reform," and the same might be said even if the conjunctive and' were replaced by a disjunctive "or"; nor is it less self-exposed, or exposed by its authors, than was the first Bill, to the charges of being calculated to produce "bewilderment to the student, doubt and difficulty to even even the experienced practitioner," or of being "so vague as to be almost grotesque," or of amounting to nothing more or less than "tinkering," always assuming, that is to say, that the Advocates of Aberdeen were correct, even if not unduly polite, in preferring those grave charges against the first Bill.

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2. Conversion of ground-annuals to personalty as regards succession.

3. Inclusion of heritable securities, real burdens, and ground-annuals in the funds which contribute to legal rights of spouses and children.

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On the whole we accept the view that all those proposals are better out than in. This is entirely apart from the question whether they are in themselves desirable or the reverse. The proposed recognition of destinations of heritage to executors (which by the way are competent at present, though without all the results somewhat obscurely sketched in the first Bill) was open to the serious criticism that it was what the Advocates of Aberdeen would call a call a "tinkering" at the abolition of primogeniture. That institution is merely the law's non-obligatory presumption of how heritage ought to descend if the owner has not chosen by deed or will to prescribe otherwise. Subject to the confusing fetter of legal rights if extended to such cases, as was proposed in the first Bill, the statutory abolition of primogeniture does not mean that the oldest male branch shall not exclude all others if the owner has so willed it, whether by technical will or by deed. In that sense we have no doubt whatever that primogeniture ought to be abolished, for it sometimes works great injustice, and that ought not to be the characteristic of the will which the State implies for intestate persons. change of that nature and magnitude is far better made by an enactment which shall be of universal scope, and which shall hold whether the property be destined to heirs, or to executors, or to neither. Under the proposal in the first Bill the intended beneficial reform would have applied to no purchases made before the commencement of the Act, and to no property acquired by succession even after the Act, without the owner going to the expense of executing a new deed, and if he were to do that he might just as well, and much more cheaply, have his will made. But then comes the question whether we shall soon have a general Succession Bill for Scotland. The thing has, however, been managed in England, and it is therefore difficult to see why there should be any serious difficulty or delay in our case. No doubt there are objectors to everything, and indeed it may even be that some of the rather purist opposition to the succession proposals in the first Bill was due to the fact that at the back of their minds the objectors disliked the ideas themselves apart from the place where they were found. But it is not really possible that such principles as primogeniture and the preference of males can be longer defended, always holding to the true principle of liberty of testamentary power.

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