ing a conference between two judges, Lords Craighill and Adam, and Messrs. Mathew Anderson, J. A. Spens, and the writer, the revised table was submitted to the late auditor of the Court of Session, Mr. Edmund Baxter, who was one of the best auditors known to the profession. He had a decided leaning towards the Supreme Court solicitors, and made serious. reductions on the draft table. It was reckoned a great improvement to secure a fee of £3 for a debate in actions exceeding £100. The original proposal was a more elastic one, “rising to £10 10s. in cases of importance." It is wholly absurd to give a fee of £3 to an agent who has perused several hundred pages of proof and correspondence, and may have to refer to twenty legal authorities. The rule is too much on cast-iron lines, and far more discretion should be given to the judge, who best knows the trouble. The rate of remuneration for a sixhours' proof in no case exceeds £2, a sum which a copying clerk would earn sitting at the mechanical work of transcribing. At the above negotiations the judges showed no desire to satisfy the legitimate aims of the agents who had charge of important Sheriff Court cases. The writer once conducted a debate in an action involving £1500, where the evidence extended to over 700 pages, and his opponent, a Glasgow agent specially retained to debate the case for a couple of days before Sheriff Bell, was paid by the firm acting for the pursuers the very moderate fee of £10 10s. The successful defenders' agent recovered £2 for the same work! Let us hope that under a new table of fees the Sheriff Court practitioner will secure better results. The present table is only fairly remunerative when the work is routine and easy; for substantially important cases the fees are ridiculously small. Gentlemen of, say, fifteen years' experience at the Sheriff Court now withdraw from practice in Court on account of lost time and inadequate remuneration. When on this subject we must advert to the clamant necessity for a new Sheriff Court consolidation statute. The Acts now applicable to procedure amount to over twenty, and they require very careful consideration. The draft bill prepared by Sheriff Fyfe after the report of the Departmental Commission under Lord Advocate Dickson is a useful practical measure. Our law officers, having lost their prestige by the creation of the Secretaryship for Scotland, have surely gone to sleep. It is time that useful legislation, and not experimental bills framed to catch ignorant voters, should be promoted. The Lord Advocate is becoming a machine for answering questions rather than the holder of an office which means practical legislative work. After Sheriff Dickson's death on 13th October, 1876, the Crown followed precedent by promoting one of the Sheriff's-Substitute, Mr. Francis William Clark, who had been appointed by Sheriff Bell in 1867. Sheriff Murray, with his usual modesty, preferred to stand aside. Mr. Clark was the author of a work on Partnership, and possessed considerable power in public speaking. As an appeal judge he was not a success, being weighed down with a certain vis inertia. He was well read, a cyclopædia of literature, the only man we ever met who had read Calvin's Institutes, a pleasant conversationalist, but by no means active in hearing and disposing of appeals. Latterly his interlocutors were nearly stereotyped, "For the reasons stated by the Sheriff-Substitute, adheres to the interlocutor appealed against, and decerns." During the last two years of his career many litigations were settled upon the Substitutes' judgments or appealed direct to the Court of Session, a practice then new to the Sheriff Court. The best gift which Sheriff Clark conferred on the Court was the recommendation of Mr. David Davidson Balfour to the Lord Advocate as a Sheriff-Substitute. This was in December, 1876; he acted at Airdrie for several years. Mr. Balfour was trained under Dr. Adam Paterson, and for a number of years practised at the local bar when he was a partner with Mr. George Paterson in the firm of Balfour & Paterson. A thoroughly well-trained lawyer, active in the discharge of his duties, not tied down to red-tape rule, and easily accessible to agents, Sheriff Balfour has deservedly attained to a leading position. His pointed remarks to criminals for assaults on their wives and his sentences on "hooligans" are distinctly apposite. On the death of Sheriff Clark, towards the end of 1886, the Crown authorities broke through their practice and ignored the Sheriffs-Substitute. Lord Advocate Macdonald, now Lord Kingsburgh, saw fit to appoint Mr. Robert Berry, advocate, who had been Scots Law professor in Glasgow University for nigh twenty years. Great dissatisfaction was expressed at this appointment, as, contrary to the legal axiom, the Crown did wrong. The statutory qualification of a Sheriff was that he should be an advocate, "who was at the time of his appointment in practice before and in habitual attendance upon the Court of Session, or acting as a Sheriff-Substitute." Sheriff Berry had long ceased to have these qualifications, and the Lord Advocate discovered a few months afterwards that the appointment was illegal. This had to be remedied, and the Act 50 & 51 Vict. cap. 41, was accordingly passed to legalise Sheriff Berry's appointment. The choice did not prove altogether satisfactory. Mr. Berry was more of an expositor of the law than an active administrator. While somewhat mechanical in working, as a public man he was conventional and had not the facility of any of his predecessors in public speaking. Sheriff Berry died somewhat suddenly in January, 1903. Mr. William Guthrie, LL.D. Edinburgh University, the present Sheriff-Principal of Lanarkshire, who was born at Culhorn, Stranraer, in 1835, son of the late George Guthrie, Esq., of Appleby and Ernambrie, has served the county of Lanark and the city of Glasgow for the long period of nearly thirty-three years. He passed the Faculty of Advocates in 1861, the same year with the late Lord Kinross, the Lord President, and also with the late Alexander Asher, so long known as the Solicitor-General under the Gladstone Ministries. While at the Edinburgh bar Mr. Guthrie did useful work in his early years, being one of the reporters from 1871 to 1874 and the editor of the Journal of Jurisprudence from 1866 to 1874. He, in December, 1871, was appointed one of the commissioners under the Truck Act, and he was Registrar of Friendly Societies in Scotland from October, 1869, to July, 1874. He has also edited several standard works, his notes on and revision of which have shown a most. thorough knowledge of legal principles and of case law. We may instance Hunter on Landlord and Tenant, the 4th edition; two volumes of Select Cases decided in the Sheriff Courts of Scotland from 1854 to 1892; the Law of Trades Unions in England and Scotland, published in 1873; Savigny's Private International Law, translated and published in 1869, and again in 1880; Erskine's Principles, the 14th and the 15th editions; the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th editions of Bell's Principles, the last, being his most important contribution to legal literature, was published in 1899. It is a standard work of reference, and bears evidence of an intimate knowledge of commercial law and of the decisions which have interpreted the principles and practice. Mr. Guthrie was appointed SheriffSubstitute at Glasgow in January, 1874. At the time of Sheriff Clark's death, as above noted, there was a very widespread feeling among lawyers that Sheriff Guthrie had the first claim to the vacant office, and the profession in Glasgow indicated this in a memorial which was sent to the Lord Advocate. But other influences were brought to bear, and Sheriff Berry was selected. On the office again becoming vacant in 1903, there was but one opinion as to с the gentleman who merited the promotion, and it was matter of congratulation that, however tardily, the Crown authorities had come to a sound decision. Sheriff Guthrie was installed in office 16th February, 1903. During all the thirty-two years he has held office in Glasgow, Sheriff Guthrie has adorned the bench, and carried out the best traditions of the sheriffship and its former respected occupants. His knowledge of law is, without doubt, extensive, and his application of its principles to the many and varied interests which are daily and yearly presented for interpretation have made him a jurist deservedly held in high estimation. Sheriff Guthrie is possessed of an equable temper, and is always courteous and painstaking; his attention to detail is praiseworthy; in zeal for the public interests which he is called upon to protect, and in the discharge of the executive duties of the sheriffship he has proved a thoroughly sound judge and county magistrate. We trust that the office will continue to be adorned by gentlemen of like learning, legal erudition, and sound judgment-hitherto it has been so. The sheriffship of Lanarkshire is an office requiring of its holder diverse qualifications and gifts, and, among the many we have known and respected, none can be named who have attained a higher professional status than the present Sheriff of the county. G. B. Y. Literature. THE LAW RELATING TO RAILWAY TRAFFIC. By Thomas Waghorn, The law relating to railway traffic is intricate, and in many instances complicated to the ordinary business man. Being to a large extent based on statutory enactments which stand in need of codification, it is difficult to reach the rule of law applicable to a particular case without careful reference to statute and decision. The handbook now under notice in a very large measure supplies a felt want by rendering this unnecessary. It explains the principles of railway legislation and deals with the obligations of railway companies as common carriers of goods and their liabilities in the case of goods sent by passenger and goods trains and carried as passengers' luggage. The leading decisions are briefly referred to and extracts are given from the judges' opinions therein. The subject of rates and charges is also dealt with and the varied questions which arise in connection with this subject are referred to. The work is written in a clear and concise style and the points stated in a manner that can be easily grasped. The handbook is one which will prove extremely useful to the business man as well as to the legal practitioner, as it affords a ready source of information regarding the law of railway traffic. THE LAW CONCERNING NAMES AND CHANGES OF NAMES. By A. C. Fox Davies, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-law, and P. W. P. Carlyon Britton, F.S.A. London: Elliot Stock. (3s. 6d.) Judging by the frequent queries which appear in the popular weeklies, this is a subject of wide interest; and, as the work is the work of men who have had special experience in this particular, as well as in cognate matters, it deserves, and is likely to command, a wide circulation. The book is not only informing, but practical, though the part dealing with procedure is confined to procedure under English law. Though only two names appear on the title page, the volume has really as many authors as a musical comedy, there having been four writers concerned in its production. This in the present instance makes for completeness and freedom from errors. PRINCIPLES OF THE LAW OF PERSONAL PROPERTY INTENDED FOR THE A new edition of Williams on Personal Property does not need to be more than announced. This edition is not merely a reprint of the last with a few verbal alterations and a few references to recent cases. On the contrary, it has been largely re-cast and re-written, and well upholds the reputation of the editor, whose fifth edition of the work this is. Obituary. On 5th December, Mr. Robert D. Leslie, advocate, Aberdeen, was found dead in a berth in a sleeping saloon of the East Coast train from London, due in Aberdeen at 7.40. He had been in London since the previous Friday, and was returning home. Before retiring to rest for the night Mr. Leslie had instructed the car attendant to call him about three-quarters of an hour before arrival in Aberdeen, and to bring him a cup of tea. This the attendant was doing the train at the time passing Montrose when he found Mr. Leslie had expired, the body being cold. Mr. Leslie, who was a native of Aberdeen, served his apprenticeship in the offices of Messrs. Robertson & Lumsden. Afterwards he went to Edinburgh, where he gained further experience in one of the large offices there; and he |