In 1892 Dr Trail married a daughter of the late Rev. William Anderson, minister of the parish of Walls and Flotta, Orkney, and since his wife's death a few months ago Dr Trail had been in poor health. Dr Trail will be much missed, especially in the Church circles to which he gave so much of his time and valuable ability.

WE regret to record the death, last week, of a former editor of this publication-Mr John Selby Mackay, advocate. Mr Mackay was accident ally drowned at Granton, and the news of his sudden death was a great shock to his colleagues at the Bar, as he had been in Parliament House on the afternoon of the day before the news of the accident was received. We hope to publish a portrait biography in our next issue.

NEW LEGAL APPOINTMENTS. The Lord Advocate has appointed Mr John Charles Fenton, advocate, at present Extra Depute on the Western Circuit, to be an Advocate-Depute in order to fill the vacancy caused by the appoint ment of Mr J. L. Wark to be Sheriff of Argyll.

His Lordship has also appointed the Right Honourable Lord Kinross, advocate, to be Extra Depute on the Western Circuit in succession to Mr Fenton.

Mr J. C. Fenton was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1904. He enlisted as a private in the Sportsman's Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers in 1914, and afterwards obtained a commission in that regiment. Subsequently he was employed in the Ministry of National Service. He was appointed Advocate-Depute in the Sheriff Court in January 1919.

Lord Kinross is the eldest son of the late Lord Justice-General Kinross, and was admitted to the Bar in 1897.

GLASGOW UNIVERSITY CHAIR OF MERCANTILE LAW. The University Court of the University of Glasgow have appointed Mr Thomas G. Wright, LL.B., to the recently constituted chair of Mer-, cantile Law. Mr Wright, who is a member of the firm of Messrs Wright, Johnston & M'Kenzie, 150 St Vincent Street, Glasgow, has held the position of lecturer in the subject at the university for many years.

LORD ASHMORE'S CLERK.-Lord Ashmore, the recently appointed judge, has appointed Mr George Watson, M.C., 4 Almond Bank Terrace, Edinburgh, his clerk. Mr Watson was trained in the office of Messrs Mackenzie, Innes & Logan, W.S.

S.S.C. SOCIETY. - Mr Ernest Traill Skae, solicitor, 4 Wemyss Place, Edinburgh, was, at a special general meeting of the Society held on Tuesday last, admitted a member of the Society.

MR JAMES D. MACKIE, advocate, Aberdeen, has assumed as a partner Mr David Dewar, M.A., B.L, solicitor, who has been his assistant for the past twenty-four years. The business will in future be carried on at 18 Bon-Accord Square, Aberdeen, under the firm name of J. D. Mackie & Dewar, advocates and notaries.

INCORPORATED SOCIETY OF LAW AGENTS IN SCOTLAND.-A meeting of the council of this society was held at Edinburgh on 3rd June, Mr Patrick Cooper, Aberdeen (president), in the chair. The president reported that a meeting of representatives of the leading legal societies had been held the previous day with reference to the fees for law agents in the Supreme Courts, and that the meeting had approved of a proposal that the table of fees as revised in 1912 should now be approved with the addition of one-third of each of the charges, and should be issued with an Act of Sederunt, and had resolved to communicate this to the Court. The council approved of this course, and resolved that consideration should now be given to the revisal of the present table of fees for conveyancing and general business, and they remitted to the Table of Fees Committee to consider as to such revisal and to report thereon to the council.

The secretary submitted the annual account for the year 1919, showing a balance in hand of £331. The membership of the society had increased during 1919 to 787 members.

A letter was read from Mr James Duff, S.S.C., tendering his resignation as a member of council, which was accepted with much regret as at next annual meeting. The council appointed Mr Mactavish in Mr Duff's place on the Law of Diligence Committee, Mr Robert Husband being appointed convener. A letter from Messrs P. Morison & Son, W.S., Edinburgh, as to expense of founding jurisdiction by arrestment was remitted to the Law of Diligence Committee for consideration.

Reports were submitted by the Bills Committee on several Bills, and the council remitted to the committee to frame amendments to the Indemnity Bill with the view of securing a right of recourse to the Court on the part of claimants.

Messrs David H. Kay and H. B. Spens, Glasgow, and Mr Robert Gilbert, Inverness, were admitted members of the society.

TENANT AND LANDLORD'S TAX.-The Court of Appeal, composed of Lords Justices Bankes, Warrington, and Scrutton, on Tuesday last held that a tenant who had paid landlord's property tax, and had not deducted it from the next payment of rent, could not recover the amount from future rent. Thus their Lordships affirmed the decision of Mr Justice Darling, who gave judgment in favour of the landlords upon a claim for rent, and dismissed a counterclaim by

NOVEL POINT IN HOUSE-LETTING.-An interesting judgment has been given by SheriffSubstitute Orr in Edinburgh Sheriff Court in an action brought by George Hyslop, retired builder, Marchmont Road, Edinburgh, against Miss Mary Y. Moodie, asking that the defender be ordered to remove from the house she occupies in Marchmont Road. Pursuer is proprietor of the house, which he let to Miss Mary Moodie, aunt of defender, fourteen years ago. Miss Moodie died in February 1920, bequeathing everything to the defender, who continued in Occupancy of the house. Pursuer asked that defender be removed, as there was no let between him and her, and that defender's right in the premises was merely that of an executrix, extending only from the date of her aunt's death till Whitsunday last. The Sheriff dismissed the action, with expenses to the defender, holding that if the lease of the late Miss Moodie was carried by the assignation in her will the defender became tenant in her individual right, and was entitled to plead the Rent Restriction Acts. The will ought to be read as including the lease in question.

NURSE SUES LOCAL COUNCIL: IMPORTANT COUNTY COURT DECISION :-A case of general interest to employees of local authorities was decided by Judge Crawford at Edmonton County Court last week. Mr Cannot, counsel for the plaintiff, said that his client, Nurse Hillier, was appointed in April 1916 as health visitor by the Tottenham District Council, and in November 1918, by resolution of the council, she was transferred to work under the Maternity and Child Welfare Committee, who in May 1919 gave her one month's notice to leave. She, however, always contended that she remained a servant of the council, and in that view the judge concurred.

Judge Crawford pointed out that under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1894, the action of committees was to be submitted to the council for their approval. This was not done in the present instance, the defendants' view being that the committee by delegation had full powers to act. It was argued that the defendant council had the right to dismiss the plaintiff at pleasure under section 189 of the Public Health Act 1875. Such a determination, the judge remarked, had to be communicated in writing, but no such notice was given in this case. There was no effective ratification by the council of the action of the committee, and judgment would be for the plaintiff for £82, 158. (six months' salary) and bonus.

Notice of appeal was given.

VALUATION APPEAL COURT.-Lords Salvesen, Cullen and Hunter. Valuation of Lands (Scotland) Act. Tuesday, 22nd, and Wednesday, 23rd June 1920, at 10.30 A.M., in No. 8 Court Room. 1. The Assessor for City of Glasgow (Clyde Shipping Co. Ltd.)-City of Glasgow; Agents, Simpson & Marwick; Webster, Will & Co. 2. The Assessor for City of Glasgow (Edward Watson's case)-City of Glasgow; Agents, Simpson & Marwick; Patrick & James.

SCOTTISH BURGH OFFICIALS.-The question of affiliation with the National Association of Local Government Officers was raised at the annual meeting of the Association of Burgh Officials of Scotland in the Religious Institution Rooms, Glasgow, last week. Mr David Patrick, town clerk, Kirkintilloch, vice-president, presided. Mr J. A. Houston, secretary, said the objects of the Association of Burgh Officials of Scotland were the attainment and diffusion of sound knowledge of the laws affecting burghs in Scotland, the consideration of subjects relating to the administration of those laws and to the management of burghal affairs, and the initiation where necessary of amendments and improvements. The National Association of Local Government Officers concerned itself more immediately with the status and conditions of service of its members. Before affiliation could take place the rules of the Association of Burgh Officials of Scotland would require alteration, which could be done only by notice of motion. Mr William Shaw, town clerk, Prestwick, gave notice of motion for the autumn meeting of the association that the necessary alteration of the rules should be made and that the association should then discuss the whole question of affiliation and come to a decision. Mr James Burns, town clerk, Motherwell, president, and the other office-bearers were re-elected. Mr P. A. Thomson, town clerk, Ayr, was elected a vice-president in room of the late Mr James Donaldson, ex-town clerk, Partick, and Mr James F. Johnstone, town clerk, Paisley, was added to the committee in place of Mr Thomson. The membership of the association now stands at 276.

INTOXICATION IN RELATION TO CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY.

J. ROBERTON CHRISTIE, K.C.

(Continued from p. 76.)

The uncompromising attitude of the common law was not unnaturally accepted without much cavil by a society which regarded the punishment of death for what are now treated as comparatively trivial crimes with equanimity as a means of removing the criminal from further opportunity of troubling, and at the same time of striking terror into others who might be inclined to commit the like crimes. But as humaner views began to gain acceptance in regard to criminals and the appropriate objects and scope of punishment, the sternness of the older doctrine as to intoxication as a plea in mitigation tended to become somewhat relaxed.

This tendency towards relaxation was encouraged by the results of scientific study of the pathology of intoxication. Specialists in the study of disease of the mind insisted that the mental condition of the intoxicated person was pathologically, for the time being, an insane condition. And with growing knowledge, they did so with increasing confidence. Writing in 1877, Sir Arthur Mitchell put the matter thus: "It should be at once understood that alcoholic intoxication, i.e. ordinary drunkenness, is really a state of insanity. The person labouring under it can legally and scientifically be certified to be a lunatic. . . . . It is nothing but the known transitoriness of his condition which prevents him being sent to an asylum." Moreover, alienists taught that the effect of indulgence in drink was cumulative, and that "the artificially produced insanity of one bout" is liable to become "the chronic insanity of many." Such teaching was not indeed altogether new. The language of the institutionalists indicates that they regarded drunkenness as a "phrenzy" analogous at least to insanity proper. And the civilians referred to in the passage from Hale carried this to its logical conclusion by punishing the drunkard not for the specific crime to which his insanity led, but for that for which they assumed he was responsible, viz. the drunkenness which they regarded as voluntary-apportioning the punishment to the degree of hurt which had resulted from the drunkenness. Less logically, perhaps, the English and Scots jurists treated him as responsible for the crime committed while under the dementia on the view that having voluntarily incurred the dementia he must be held to have had in view all its possible results; or at least that the public safety required that he should be so regarded.

But as against this, the alienists carried their case a step further. In very few instances indeed,

they maintained, is the drunkenness or the insanity attendant on it really voluntarily produced. The man intends to drink, but he does not intend to get drunk, still less to commit crime. It is when he has already lost his sanity from the scientific standpoint and his powers of inhibition are impaired that the mischief begins. Heredity and personal peculiarity of temperament and not deliberate volition are in most instances the explanation of the intoxication.

These views did not all at once so commend themselves to judicial approval as to affect the development of the criminal law. Indeed it cannot be said that even yet the alienist and the lawyer see quite eye to eye on the matter. But from an early date the teachings of the former have had their influence on the actions of the latter, an influence which was strengthened by the humanitarian tendencies already adverted to, and probably also (with judges of a certain bent of mind and experience) by consideration of the indulgence which the civil (as distinct from the criminal) law accords to the man contracting under the influence of drink. (Cf. per Lord Haldane, 14 Crim. Ap. Cas. 173.)

Be this as it may, we find, commencing in England about the second quarter of last century and in Scotland somewhat later, a certain relaxation by judges in criminal causes of the primitive sternness of the common law rule. Carried into effect in both countries for the most part by individual judges sitting at assize or circuit, the degree of this relaxation was not uniform, nor was it even steadily progressive. It is easy to find instances of one judge giving directions in terms more accordant with the rigid common law rule than those given in an earlier case by a learned brother. The evervarying circumstances of cases and the fact that the decision of one judge is not in strictness binding on another no doubt account for this. But the result was that confusion arose as to the true state of the current law, a confusion which it was the object of the appeal in Beard's case to endeavour to resolve into order. How far it has succeded in this we shall go on to consider.

This

The first reported instance in which drunkenness put forward as a defence to a charge of crime was judicially recognised as "a circumstance proper to be taken into consideration was in 1819, in the case of R. v. Grindley, tried at Worcester Assizes before Holroyd J. learned justice then laid down that though voluntary drunkenness cannot excuse from the commission of a crime, "Yet where as upon a charge of murder the material question is whether an Act was premeditated or done under sudden heat and impulse, the fact of the party being intoxicated has been held to be a circumstance proper to be taken into consideration."

(To be continued.)

THE LATE MR JOHN SELBY MACKAY,

M.A., LL.B., ADVOCATE.

For many years the late Mr J. S. Mackay, advocate, acted as the editor of this journal. Many memorials of his contemporaries were contributed by him to its pages. His notices, necessarily brief, of men passing out of the fighting line were faithful and just. Sorrowing relatives and friends were comforted by his tribute, rightly regarded as the tribute of the legal profession to those they loved. To his memory these insufficient lines are now indited in the pages his pen so often filled. By an unfortunate accident the faithful recorder has been withdrawn from our midst and a unique career brought to untimely

an

end.

and afterwards

proceeded to Edinburgh University,

where he gradu-wolle anothe ated as Master of

Arts in 1899 and Bachelor of Laws in 1901.

An extreme delicacy of constitution prevented him from taking part in the physical exercises of school and college, but no weakness daunted him in the pursuit of his studies, in which he gained considerable distinction. Probably no one had more reason for avoiding military service, yet he enlisted under the Derby Scheme. He was not called up, but in civilian life did a great deal of valuable war work for the Government. Called to the Bar in 1903, he became engaged in reporting for the "Scots Law Times" and ultimately was appointed editor.

Everyone familiar with the Parliament House knows the quality of Mr Mackay's work as a

reporter, in which he made a reputation second to none. During the War his post of editor made a considerable call upon his reserve of strength and he resigned to become one of the reporters of the "Session Cases." In this sphere he found congenial employment. His great experience and profound knowledge of case law were always most generously placed at the disposal of his colleagues and friends.

His reputation for ability and sound learning had begun to receive recognition in considerable employment in the Courts. As an Honorary

Sheriff of Stirlingshire he occasionally acted as deputy for the Sheriff-Substitute at Falkirk and elsewhere and performed his functions admirably. Behind a shy and retiring manner Mr Mackay had a personality that had great individuality and charm. Truly simple and sincere at all times, he was beloved by his intimate friends, who extend their sympathy to his bereaved brother and sisters.

THE LATE MR JOHN HILL.-We

regret to announce the death last week of Mr John Hill, ex-Superintendent of the Court of Session Buildings, Edinburgh. Mr Hill was at one time employed with Sir James Montgomery at Stobo Castle, after which he received an appointment at Somerset House, London, whence he was transferred to Edinburgh to take chargeof the Exchequer Office. Subsequently he was promoted to be Superintendent of the Court of Session Buildings, and it is only a year since he retired from that position. By all who frequented the Parliament House Mr Hill will be remembered as a courteous and efficient official.

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