That all other candidates for admission shall pass a satisfactory examination upon the following subjects, namely, (Latin) Horace, Odes Book 3; Virgil, Eneid, Book 6; Cæsar, Commentaries Books 5 and 6; Cicero, Pro Milone. (Mathematics) Arithmetic, Algebra to the end of Quadratic Equations; Euclid, Books 1, 2, and 3. Outlines of Modern Geography, History of England (W. Douglas Hamilton's) English Grammar and Composition

That Articled Clerks shall pass a preliminary examin ation upon the following subjects:-Cæsar, Commentaries Books 5 and 6; Arithmetic; Euclid, Books 1, 2, and 3; Outlines of Modern Geography, History of England (W. Douglas Hamilton's) English Grammar and Composition, Elements of Book-keeping.

That the subjects and books for the first Intermediate Examination shall be :-Real Property, Williams; Equity, Smith's Manual; Common Law, Smith's Manual; Aet respecting the Court of Chancery (C. S. U. C. c. 12), (C. S. U. S. caps. 42 and 44).

That the subjects and books for the second Intermediate Examination be as follows:-Real Property, Leith's Blackstone, Greenwood on the Practice of Conveyancing (chapters on Agreements, Sales, Purchases, Leases, Mortgages, and Wills); Equity, Snell's Treatise; Common Law, Broom's Common Law, C. S. U. C. c. 88, Statutes of Canada, 29 Vic. c. 28, Insolvency Act.

That the books for the final examination for students at law, shall be as follows:

1. For Call.-Blackstone Vol. i., Leake on Contracts, Watkins on Conveyancing, Story's Equity Jurisprudence, Stephen on Pleading, Lewis' Equity Pleading, Dart on Vendors and Purchasers, Taylor on Evidence, Byles on Bills, the Statute Law, the Pleadings and Practice of the Courts.

2. For Call with Honours, in addition to the preceding. -Russell on Crimes, Broom's Legal Maxims, Lindley on Partnership, Fisher on Mortgages, Benjamin on Sales, Jarman on Wills. Von Savigny's Private International Law (Guthrie's Edition), Maine's Ancient Law.

That the subjects for the final examination of Articled Clerks shall be as follows :-Leith's Blackstone, Watkins on Conveyancing (9th ed.), Smith's Mercantile Law, Story's Equity Jurisprudence, Leake on Contracts, the Statute Law, the Pleadings and Practice of the Courts.

Candidates for the final examinations are subject to reexamination on the subjects of the Intermediate Examinations. All other requisites for obtaining certificates of fitness and for call are continued.

That the Books for the Scholarship Examinations shall be as follows:

1st year. Stephen's Blackstone, Vol. i., Stephen on Pleading, Williams on Personal Property, Griffith's Institutes of Equity, C. S. U. S. c. 12, C. S. U. C. c. 43.

2nd year. Williams on Real Property, Best on Evidence, Smith on Contracts, Snell's Treatise on Equity, the Registry Acts.

3rd year.-Real Property Statutes relating to Ontario, Stephen's Blackstone, Book V., Byles on Bills, Broom's Legal Maxims, Story's Equity Jurisprudence, Fisher on Mortgages, Vol. 1, and Vol. 2, chaps. 10, 11 and 12.

4th year.-Smith's Real and Personal Property, Russell on Crimes, Common Law Pleading and Practice, Benjamin on Sales, Dart on Vendors and Purchasers, Lewis' Equity Pleading, Equity Pleading and Practice in this Province. That no one who has been admitted, on the books of the Society as a Student shall be required to pass preliminary examination as an Articled Clerk.

J. HILLYARD CAMERON,
Treasurer.

THE

Canada Law Journal.

Toronto, June, 1873.

We call attention to the judgment of Mr. Dalton, on page 193 in a case of Dain v. Gossage. The point decided, that no County Court should be held in the County of York in May of this year, is not of very general interest, but the judgment is well worthy of careful perusal as a masterly and logical analysis of apparently conflicting clauses in a statute. The opinion of Mr. Dalton has been confirmed by the two Chiefs.

We notice the death of a well-known legal author who created no small stir in his own day. Charles Purton Cooper died last month at Boulogne, in his eightieth year. His works number near ly forty volumes of the most diversified character. He was an earnest advocate of law reform, and, by his letters on the Court of Chancery, did much to forward the amendment of many abuses in that Court. In this country, he is best known by his reports (Cooper, C. P., "Chancery Reports, with Notes and Appendix,) and his edition of Lord Brougham's decisions, which has, however, failed to supersede the regular reports of Milne and Keen,

We note that it is proposed in England to let the offices of Registrar and of Record and Writ Clerk follow that of the Master into oblivion. It is proposed that a judge's secretary shall discharge all the essential parts of the duties of these functionaries. Decrees and orders will then be no longer entered of record, but will be drawn up by the solicitors, settled by counsel, and signed by the secretary. The filing of pleadings, affidavits, and the like will then be dispensed with, and all

purposes will be answered by the service of copies upon the opposite party. It is extremely probable that Ontario will in due course follow the example of England in all measures which tend to simplify and assimilate the practice of law and equity.

In Erskine v. Deans, the Master of the Rolls recently laid down a doctrine which will be somewhat startling to persons who own and rent farming land. The question arose upon the application of a tenant of a farm to recover compensation from the executors of his deceased landlord, for the loss of sheep alleged to be poisoned through browsing on yew trees growing on the demised premises. The Court held that the claimant was entitled to succeed, on the broad ground that as between landlord and tenant there is an implied warranty on the part of the former that the trees and shrubs which he plants or suffers to be on the land demised shall not be noxious or injurious to the tenant. One can hardly believe that this decision will be sustained, if appealed from.

We have before advertised the merits of Mr. Justice Ludlow, who graces the Pennsylvania Bench, as an admirable specimen of a "highfalutin" Judge. His Honour has been lately indulging in some judicial grandiloquence upon the English Marriage Law of George II. c. 13, relating to the marriages of Papists and Protestants. We are not seeking to defend this law, but it well becomes any Judge of the Republic where the law of divorce legalizes adultery to talk fustian after this fashion:

"If this nation, in the strength of its manhood, is to be respected; if it has achieved the right to speak and to be heard, its policy upon this subject ought to be marked and understood: and it surely will entitle itself to the grateful consideration of the civilized world, if it emphatically declares that upon the subject of

marriage, and especially its destruction, it will determine every case by its own enlightened principles of morals and of public policy, and upon the policy of universal toleration."

An old friend has courteously handed us a copy of the judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, in the case The Town of Dundas v. The Hamilton and Milton Road Coy., delivered recently by Sir Barnes Peacock, Sir Montague Smith and Sir Robert P. Collier. Their Lordships concurred in the conclusions arrived at by the Court of Appeal, in several places quoting with approbation the language of the learned Chief Justice of that Court. The case in appeal is reported in 18 Grant 311. At p. 325, Chief Justice Draper says; "It, (the argument of the Road Company who built the obnoxious bridge), amounts to this-that, to abate a nuisance of omission in a place where it injures them, they may erect a nuisance in another place where it injures the party guilty of the first nuisance." Their Lordships thought he might have added "and where it injures the public who are not guilty of the nuisance intended to be abated", This point however, though not referred to in this place was not overlooked by the Chief Justice, for he says, on the next page, “I presume it will not be seriously contended that a fixed bridge which would prevent masted vessels, sloops, schooners &c., from navigating this canal would not be indict

able as a nuisance."

LAW SOCIETY.

EASTER TERM, 1873.

The examinations for Call to the Bar resulted as follows:

Out of a maximum of 600 marks, Mr. Geo. A. Mackenzie obtained 451, and passed without an oral examination. The following were passed after an oral :

Of the many Acts which engaged the attention of the Ontario Legislature during the past session, there are but few of more importance than "the Wills Act, 1873." The nature and extent of the changes effected by this statute can only be perfectly understood by comparing the present law, on those points in which alterations have been effected, with the provisions of the new Act.

By the Statute 32, Geo. 3, c. 1, (see Con. Stat. U. C., cap. 9, s. 1.), it was enacted, that in all matters of controversy relative to property and civil rights, resort shall continue to be had to the laws of

England, as they stood on the fifteenth day of October, 1792, as the rule for the decision of the same. The effect of this statute as connected with our present subject, was to make the law of England on the subject of wills (as it stood at the date mentioned in the Act) the law of this Province.

By the Imperial Act of 1 Vict., c. 26, from which our new Act has been mainly taken, many important changes were effected in the English law regarding the execution and revocation of wills and the testamentary power; but though the old law was in many respects strongly condemned by the real property commissioners, on whose report the English statute was chiefly based, and though the reasons for this condemnation were undoubtedly applicable to this Province, it was not until the year 1868 (by 32 Vict., c. 8,) that any of the provisions of the English Act were adopted by our Legislature. It was no doubt considered that the statute, 4 Wm. 4, c. 1, ss. 49-51, (Con. Stat. U. C., c. 82, ss. 11-13) sufficiently cured the most obvious defects of the old law, so far at least as wills affecting real estate were concerned, and, in regard to wills of personal estate, the impression which it is well known has. generally prevailed outside of the profession, that such wills required signature and attestation, and could not be made by any person under 21 years of age, has, to a great extent, secured in actual practice a compliance with the requisites now prescribed by statutory enactment.

The construction put by the Court of Chancery, in the case of Whately v. Whately, 14 Grant, 430, on the 49th section of 4 Wm. 4, c. 1, (Con. Stat. U. C., c. 82, s. 11,) called attention, in a marked manner, to the defects of that Act as compared with the provisions of the English statute; and the subsequent case of Loughead v. Knott, 15 Grant, 34, served as a reminder that one of the most

indefensible doctrines of the English law, the doctrine of the revocation of a devise by a subsequent conveyance which created no substantial change in the interest of the devisor, was in force in this Province to the full extent to which it had been carried by the English decisions. The hope expressed by the learned judge who decided that case, "that the anomaly which compels this decision may soon be removed by the Legislature," was realized by the passing of the statute, 32 Vict., c. 8, by which the provisions of the English Act regarding the revocation of wills and the time at which they should be construed to speak and take effect, (as if executed immediately before death of the testator,) were made part of our law.

The provisions of the new statute are by the 2nd section limited to wills made after 31st December, 1873, unless otherwise expressly provided in the Act. All wills made before that date will therefore be governed by the present law. The same section provides, however, that every will re-executed or re-published, (whatever that may mean), or revived by any codicil, shall, for the purposes of the Act, be deemed to have been made at the time at which the same shall be so reexecuted, re-published or revived.

The fourth section is devoted to the interpretation of the terms "will," "real estate," "personal estate," "person," person," "testator," and "mortgage." This interpretation clause requires careful consideration. Associated with the other provisions of the Act, it effects some important changes in the law in so indirect a manner that they might escape the notice of a casual reader. Thus the inclusion in the term "will" of "a disposition by will or testament, or a devise of the custody and tuition of any child made under the provisions of the Act of Charles the Second regarding wards, liveries, and tenures," taken in connection with the sixth section disenabling

an infant to make a will, has the effect of abolishing the power which infants now possess, under the statute of Charles, of appointing guardians to their children; and the inclusion in the words " person and "testator" of "a married woman," taken in connection with the words of the enabling clause of the Act (section 5), has the important effect of completely emancipating married women from the testamentary disability to which they have been hitherto subjected.

The provisions of the enabling clause of the statute do not materially extend the present power of testamentary disposition.

The power of devising real estate acquired after the making of the testator's will has existed in this Province for nearly forty years. It did not exist in England when the statute 32; Geo. 3, c. 1, was passed. The old doctrine was that a devise operated as a conveyance or appointment by will, and that therefore a man could not devise lands of which he was not seized at the time he made his will. "It resulted from this state of the law that whenever a man acquired real estate which he wished to dispose of by will it was necessary that he should make a fresh will, if he had made one before, and so from time to time as often as he acquired real estate, or it would go to his heirs" (per Spragge, V. C., in Whately v. Whately, 14 Grant, 433.)

66

To remedy this inconvenience, it was provided by the 49th section of 4 Wm. 4, c. 1, (Con. Stat. U. C., c. 82, s. 11,) that "When the will of any person who shall die after the sixth day of March, 1834, contains a devise in any form of all such real estate as the testator shall die seized or possessed of, or of any part or proportion thereof, such will shall be valid and effectual to pass any land that may have been, or may be acquired by the devisor after the making of such will in the same manner as if the title thereto