titled. A simpler way would have been to have authorized the fi. fa. to issue against both goods and lands at once, with a stay of proceedings against lands till the goods were exhausted; in which case no difficulty of any kind would ever arise, and one execution would answer in every case instead of two:" Gleason v. Gleason, 4 Prac. R. 117. This is partially remedied by 31 Vict. cap. 25, (Ont.)

CONCERNING STATUTE LAW. The Province of Ontario seems to be in a fair way of being governed overmuch. It is not only subject to the supreme legislative sovereignty of the Queen and the English Parliament, but also to the subordinate power of the Legislature of the Dominion of Canada, and, third in gradation, to the local authority of its own Provincial Assembly. Then, from one or more of these sources, we have sundry delegated functions of legislation entrusted to the judiciary and municipal bodies, which have their outcome in by-laws, rules of Court, and general orders. The law is now in a constant state of flux and change, not so much, as in former days, by the result of judicial decisions, as from the effects of legislative interference. Modern ideas bave shot far ahead of the quiet wisdom which obtained in the days of Mr. Justice Fortescue Aland who, in the preface to his reports, tells us that the grand division of law is into the Divine Law and the Law of Nature, so that the study of the law in general is the business of men and angels. He says, "Angels may desire to look into both the one and the other, but they will never be able to fathom the depths of either," and he then goes on to give his opinion, modestly but firmly, that "of all the laws by which the kingdoms of the earth are governed, no law comes so near this Law of Nature and the Divine Pattern as the Law of England."

But the wonderful progress of modern times has produced a corresponding growth in the statute law of the realm and of the colonies, so that one may almost be tempted to say that the law of England and of Canada is now regarded as being chiefly of value because of its interminable capacity of amendment. There is a story recorded of Lord Coke, which Sir John Coleridge referred to the other day in the House of Commons. His lordship was one day playing at bowls with the Bishop of Norwich, when this dignitary, thinking he had hit upon one of the mollia tempora fundi, told his companion that he wished to ask him a question of law. Whereupon the great commentator observed: "If it be a question of the common law, I should be ashamed if I could not answer it; but if it be a question of the statute law, I should be ashamed if I could answer it." At that time all the volumes of the Statutes could have been carried easily in a wheelbarrow, yet such was Lord Coke's opinion as to the possibility of recollecting what Lord Thurlow afterwards emphatically called "the damned Statute Law!" We suppose it is quite useless to call the attention of the young law-makers of Ontario in Parliament assembled to these words, which we have penned more in sorrow than in anger. There is a rage for legislation abroad, and like other infectious disorders it will run its day in spite of pills and potions.

Yet there are three kinds of legislation wherein the Parliament of Ontario is exposed to special risks. The first we choose to indicate in the words of Mr. Markby, when speaking of the dangers which may attend subordinate legislation: "Where "the power of legislation is loosely con"ferred on a variety of [bodies] it is cer"tain there will be great confusion of "laws, and there is also great danger of "the worst of all evils, namely, of doubts being raised as to whether the legisla

"tive authority of some of the subor"dinate bodies has not been exceeded. "For the supreme sovereign authority is "always obliged to allow the authority of "its subordinates to be questioned, in "some form or other, by judicial authority, "in order to keep up a check on their "usurpation of power; though sometimes "it resorts to that highly unsatisfactory "expedient for getting out of the diffi"culty-an ex post facto ratification of "acts which are admittedly illegal."

The second arises from that dangerous kind of private legislation which is exemplified in the famous Goodhue case. The opinions of the learned judges in appeal, particularly that of Draper, C. J., the head of the Court, fully illustrate the evil of intermeddling with the testamentary dispositions of persons deceased regarding their property. It was but lately that we noticed one of the sprightliest judgments ever delivered by Baron Bramwell, wherein he makes a shrewd thrust at the Court of Chancery. He observes: " Originally the common law "treated the penalty of a bond as the "debt to be recovered, construing the "document on the principle that the "obligor in all probability meant what "he said. The Court of Chancery, how

sibility, designed to cure some special case of hardship that has come under their own notice. The motive is laudable, no doubt, but it may prove disastrous. It was Lord Redesdale who said: "Re"formers are too apt to look to one "grievance, and propose a remedy which "would produce a thousand." It is all very well when we find such a judge as Wilson, J., calling attention to the state of the law of evidence as regards husband and wife in the pointed observations already cited by us-it is right, in such a case, to bring in a bill, as has been done, to amend the law of evidence in that particular. It is time to legislate for the attachment of equitable debts, as is being done this session of the Ontario House, when we find a judge so careful and conscientious as the Chancellor thus expressing himself: "It is unfortunate in "the interests of justice, that the remedy "given by the Common Law Procedure "Act in case of garnishee proceedings "should not in terms apply to an equit"able debt. The principle upon which "the Act proceeds applies to an equitable "debt as much as to a legal debt; and I

can see no reason why the creditor "should not have a remedy in the one 66 case as well as the other. As the law "stands it is an anomaly-but the remedy "is with the Legislature not with the "Court:" Blake v. Jarvis, 17 Grant, p. 204. But how many of the law measures of the Session find a foundation upon judicial utterances ? The stand taken by the Hon. E. B. Wood against the experimental legislation of young members of the House has been most commendable, and we trust that the experience of the older heads may secure the withdrawal of all crude attempts at an amendment of the laws.

MARRIED WOMEN-THEIR

RIGHTS.

The legal status of a married woman has been a subject of anxiety to Legislators of England. In our Ontario House there is a perfect craze on the subject, as evidenced by the Bills introduced this session. The old Common Law notion, that husband and wife are one person, is being rapidly destroyed. Legislation is now tending in the direction of making the wife "the best man of the two."

The first innovation was made by Courts of Equity, holding that a married woman possessed of separate property, and acting with respect to it, is compelled to act in all respects as if she were unmarried. But until recently there was no legislation of any kind, either in England or in Canada, altering her status because of her separate property.

It was in 1859 that the first act of the kind was passed, by the Legislature of the late Province of Canada. It recited that the law of Upper Canada, relating to the property of married women, was frequently productive of great injustice, and that it was highly desirable that amendments should be made therein for the better protection of their rights (22 Vict. eap. 34). It accordingly enacted that married women having separate property real or personal might hold the same free from the control or obligations of their husbands, and provided for the granting of orders for protection of separate earnings in certain cases, but it in no manner interfered with the estate of the husband or his wife's land, commonly called a tenancy by courtesy. It enabled married women to devise their separate property, but gave them no power to contract.

It was reserved for the legislature of Ontario in its wisdom to pass an act abolishing tenancy by courtesy, enabling a married woman to contract, enabling a wife to insure the life of her husband,

enabling her to hold stocks in banks, insurance and other joint stock companies, to maintain actions in her own name, and generally do whatever she thinks good in her own eyes, (35 Vict. cap. 16). This act is carelessly drawn and leaves room for doubt on various points, and is an endless trouble to those upon whom it devolves to apply and interpret it.

The minor idea of separate estate is now merged in the larger idea of separate existence. The cld idea of unity of interest and unity of purpose, producing domestic bliss, is exploded. It is now supposed that families can be better brought up by having two heads to the house, and two houses also if thought desirable. Dependence of the wife on the husband is a thing of the past. Wives must be taught to depend on their separate estates, and if that be found insufficient the ability to insure the lives of their husbands and collect the insurance money,

however sudden or mysterious the deaths of the husbands, will be all that is necessary to replenish the purse of the sorrowing widow. All that now is required to cap such legislation is to declare that every woman shall be a man, the provisions of nature to the contrary notwithstanding.

Sometimes we labour under the hallucination that legislation is needed to remedy some grievance or remove some abuse. Our fathers acted on some such principle, but now without grievance and without abuse it would seem that there must be legislation for the sake of legislation. Submission to endless and needless legislation seems to be the doom of man. Members of Parliament now we fear legislate not so much to meet the necessities of the people as to gratify their own vanity. With legislation for the sake of legislation we have no patience, and against it, as against all change for the sake of change, every lover of his country must strongly protest.

The Bills which have so far been introduced are only five in number; how many more are coming we do not know. Four of them are respecting conveyances by married women, and one is to amend the act to secure to wives and children the benefit of assurance on the lives of their husbands and parents. The most comprehensive and logical of the first batch would, by its first section, give a married woman full power to convey her real estate or chattels by any form of conveyance by which, if she were a femme sole, she could convey the same without the consent of her husband, and without any examination before any judge, or any other man, in the same way as if she were sole and unmarried. (It is perhaps defective in not providing that the would be grantor should, before executing any conveyance, obtain the consent in writing of at least two of her female bosom friends, with their coinciding reasons appended thereto. We throw out this suggestion as likely to prevent undue haste.) The second section simply abolishes tenancy by the courtesy. Another Bill would render the concurrence of the husband unnecessary in the case of his being a lunatic, idiot, in prison, beyond seas, living apart from his wife by mutual consent, or incapable of executing a deed from any other cause whatever, provided only that the county judge must dispense with such concurrence. Another Bill would make a somewhat similar provision, requiring however the consent of a judge of one of the superior courts. The remaining provisions in these and other Bills are intended to get rid of any possible objection to conveyances by married women, where there may have been defective execution under previous, statutes. Such measures as these, if careful provision be made to prevent injustice, are in the main unobjectionable.

We do not pretend to deny that there has been much cause for some provision

to emancipate a woman from a husband who reduces his wife and children to beggary and starvation, and squanders his and their earnings in drink, or for a measure which, if possible, might protect the wife from a husband's brutality. But we must implore a little caution before crude Bills are rushed through the House with breakneck speed: resulting in acts which tend not only to loosen the matrimonial tie, but which disarrange the laws of property, open the door to all sorts of fraud, and make those very married. women whom it is designed to protect the prey of designing wolves in sheeps' clothing.

Looking at the remedial clauses in some of the Acts and Bills we have referred to, one is apt to exclaim how was it possible for married women to have existed before such legislation. fore such legislation. If the provisions therein contained are really necessary to do justice to the rights of married women in the past, they must have been indeed a downtrodden race. But modern history fails to show that such was their condition, except in peculiar cases which have been guarded against as fully as would seem possible in such a delicate matter. The danger of speculative legislation is that abuses will be created where none now exist, and this is a danger which "prentice hands

look.

at legislation seem to over

In many respects the old Common Law under which our mothers, grandmothers, and great grandmothers lived and died was the perfection of reason. Legislation of a social character where no such legislation is needed is the perfection of folly, not to say madness. We think there has already been too much sentimentalism on legislation as to married women. We doubt much if their happiness is at all likely to be promoted by legislation which they do not want, which they have not asked, and which when obtained will be but little used, except for purposes of fraud.

It is just possible that such a state of things may arise as will enable the wife who owns all the property to make all the profit, while the husband who owns nothing will make all the losses. Division of responsibility in such matters is detri mental to the public good. It is the interest of the public that men should honestly pay their debts and not be en-couraged to live in affluence in defiance of their creditors, upon the so called separate estates of their wives. We shall be greatly mistaken if the tendency of such legislation as we have noticed, is not to promote domestic uuhappiness, and encourage widespread fraud.

LAW SOCIETY.

HILARY TERM, 1873.

CALLS TO THE BAR.

The following gentlemen passed the necessary examinations this term, for call to the Bar :-Messrs. John G. Killmaster, (Simcoe), without an oral examination; Robert Heber Bowes, (Toronto), having passed last term as an Attorney, also without an oral; Messrs. Isaac Baldwin McQuesten, (Hamilton); James Richardson Roaf, (Toronto); and Allan J. Lloyd, (Barrie), after an oral examina

tion.

ATTORNEYS ADMITTED.

The following gentlemen were admitted to practice as Attorneys:-Mr. R. J. Wicksteed, of the Quebec Bar; Messrs. Robert McMillan Fleming, (Toronto), James Bruce Smith, (Lindsay), and John G. Killmaster, (Simcoe), without an oral examination, having obtained more than three-fourths of the maximum number of marks. Messrs. Allan J. Lloyd, (Barrie), Peter Cameron, (Kingston), Isaac Baldwin McQuesten, (Hamilton), and James Richardson Roaf, (Toronto), also without an oral, having already been called to the

RULES OF THE LAW SCHOOL.

We have published in another place a short advertisement on this subject; and in last month's issue we alluded to the objects and Constitution of the Law School. We now publish in extenso the "Rules for the establishment of a Law School." This will probably give all the information which students can want on the subject; if not, we shall be happy to do what we can to put right any of the cautious ones who may be in doubt. Before asking any questions, however, we should recommend our young friends, as a matter of practice, carefully to read the rules, and fully discuss the doubtful point in their own minds, or among themselves. The result will probably be that the trouble of a letter may be saved, and themselves be certainly much benefitted.

The Rules are as follows:

1. The Law Society hereby establish a Law School.

2. The staff of the Law School shall consist of Four Lecturers, who shall be Barristers-atLaw, and hold office for three years, and one of them shall be appointed by the Benchers, President of the Law School.