lore of England, with her utmost intellectual eminence and national interest in the question, so that the result must be crucial as a sample and an instruction. For I propose it but in illustration of the ignorance of Law in England, and by consequence in any country which should look to England as an authority, I would not for the present offer any systematic judgment upon either the Alabama claims or Washington treaty, as they must, I think, be still very far from a serious settlement, if I know any thing of the great instincts and destinies of our republic.

This motion of Earl Russell has too been pending for several weeks back; suspended doubtless, in terrorem, to scare the Yankees into moderation, but also giving time for cramming to the pundits who would take part in it. The bolt then was at last hurled by this micromegas of British statesmanship, who made as narrow an escape from dwarfish stature in mind as in body. He opened with the thesis that this England of his is the equal of any country on the face of the earth. And equal she may be, no doubt, in superficial area, in length of money bags, in depth of appetite, both animal and acquisitive. But the speaker's own second position was, that in intellect, in law, and the art of using both, she is no match for the Americans.

This strange phenomenon he then accounts for by a sage remark of Edmund Burke-who is a sort of Solomon in Parliamentary tradition-to the effect that the educated men of America' are in diplomacy full of subtlety. The power of calling up new views of things, through what his lordship thinks the necromancy called "the science of the law," the notion of your jural eminence is universal in this country, and proves to me that its Bar and Law can be reformed but through the Americans. However, the pair of premises which I have thus recited fairly out, line the cohesion of his lordship's speech, which was downright drivelling; nor were the other lay lords, I dare say, better, for I did not read them, and so I hasten to the two Law lords, who talked with some degree of intelligence. They were Westbury and Cairns, a Welshman and an Irishman, both of them well-pensioned exchancellors of England.

Of the former, however, but one or two points seem worth notice, as his strictures took a bias in exculpation of the assailed ministry. In one he said that the Washington treaty might in point of composition have been surpassed by "three charity boys of ten years old," but this though vulgar when spoken of, the literary execution was no exaggeration if applied to what escaped his lordship, to wit, the jural conception and logical construction. The other point alluded to was less unworthy of a lawyer. It urged that the Supplemental article of the treaty in precluding the obnoxious damages between the countries for the future, would not at all cancel the claim for the past or actual, but on the contrary, confirm it, as all negation implies affirmation; and that even this negative pregnant,' though acute enough professionally, did not sound the matter to the bottom, will become evident before I close.

But Cairns, who is a leader in the Opposition, had no restraint, and is looked to in this subject by both parties as an oracle. He is in fact sagacious, and what is loosely termed solid, also; but has nothing of the legal compass or logical culture of the jurist. Though he passes, like the word-bag Gladstone, for a great logician in this country, the authority he cites at this solemn juncture is our schoolday Whately, reducing

those famous three Rules of Neutrality, with which the Anglo Saxon race were to endow the law of Nations to import nothing more than the insane formula of "due diligence." He vouches for it to their lordships by the great archbishop as follows: "There is nothing so valueless in argument as the use of a sentence in which you define one expression by its equivalent." I do not know if this be taken with due fidelity from the prelate, with whose book I never refreshed the acquaintance of my boyhood; but I hope the ex-lord chancellor has cited rather from memory than gone to cog or cram from him upon this grave occasion.

Be that, however, as it may, the proper use of a sentence' has not at all to do with 'argument,' but simply with expression. Nor do we define in a sentence, but rather by it and in part, for there must be more than one of them to circumscribe the subject. Moreover, to transform an expression into its equivalent, so far from being valueless, is definition itself. The conversion of the name with the definition is a school boy truism. I beg your reader's pardon for this school boy commentation, but I am playing the pedagogue to the Senate of the British empire. What the learned lord intended was not at all a definition, but an identical proposition, as shown by his own example. A neutral, says he, is obliged to use due diligence, because it is obligatory on him, or is due by him. This is obviously no effort to define, or even to express, but simply to argue or authenticate, which is quite different. But those logical distinctions, it is plain, were Greek to the learned lord, though doubtless meant as a parade of his specialité in the House.

Still more curious than his Law and Logic was the party inadvertence that he was thus assailing, not the English government but the American. The Rules he stigmatized as futile were the vaunted "concessions" wrung from England by America in the interest of the Law of Nations, so to show them to be worthless, was to praise, not censure, the Gladstone government. And so the House, through its selfish instincts, received the exposure with a tacit chuckling. Descending, however, from your learned formulas to legal facts, his lordship well enough expounded the breadth of difference between the countries in their interpretation of the phrase of 'due diligence.' The Americans, he said, conceive it as commensurate with the emergency and with the magnitude of the results of negligence." The English take it for "the kind of diligence which a neutral government can bestow consistently with its own municipal laws and constitution." And this latter was hear hear-ed by the sympathetic House, as claiming for the law of England to override the Law of Nations.

66

The speaker also flouted, properly, the original notion of submitting these silly Rules for the acceptance of foreign governments. "I should like," he exclaimed, "to see the face of the foreign government to whom you presented them for adoption." But his reasons, much as usual, are neither law nor logic. He supposes the foreign government merely to object: "I do not understand the English language; you both, at least, speak it. So, when you have agreed between yourselves, you may then come to me and I will consider it." As if Treaties were to be deemed a matter of languages merely, and not mainly of principle, law and logic, which pervade all languages.

But what seems curious about these Rules is, that his lordship, in his supreme criticism, forgets wholly the grand objection to them which he furnished at the out

set, and which had, after him, been decanted by the heads of his party, including Disraeli himself, at the opening of the present session. They were, it was cried contemptuously, retroactive or ex post facto. Yet, not a word have we heard for weeks back, in those debates, of this fatal formula. And you will pardon if I guess the reason of the strange disappearance. Some time last March your Correspondent made a summary exposure of the blunders of the Washington treaty, in the Anglo-American Times. Among the topics was this ex post facto, of which he noted to the grand new chancellor, that so far from being an absolute objection to Law in general, it forms the special eminence of that description of it he dispensed in office, and which deals out Equity but to a party who does it first, and thereby ex post facto. This retort must have jogged the ex-chancellor with the vis a tergo in every sense. And accordingly neither he, nɔr I think his following, have since touched the formula. He did not profit equally by my hints on Arbitration. Here is his idea of it: "I believe that if you refer any breach of duty to the decision of a tribunal, that tribunal, unless you tie up its hands, will have the right to say what are the extent and amount of damages done." Unless you tie up its hands! And so the parties to the cause may, either severally or jointly, tie up the hands, or more properly the tongue of the judge, and deprive him of the right and duty of pronouncing justly in the case. It is the parties who may guide the arbitrator or the judge-not as at Rome, the Prætor! Good, heavens, what a notion for a judge of judges, an English Prætor! How should the parties have the right to present more or less to a tribunal than the subjectmatter in dispute, and the rival forms of the claims to it? That is, in logical language, the genus and the difference; while the judge has to pronounce, by the guidance of their conflict, on an object different from both of them, I mean the species or essence. This besides is what the judge owes to the parties and the public, and therefore neither could deprive him of the proper means of reaching it. Qui vent le but, vent les moyens. Yet this 'great lawyer' says further: "Such is the nature of a difference between two nations, that no one can decide the point between them." What he would no doubt say was, that there is no constituted judge; but this mere accident of history he makes a crotchet of absolute nature. But are there likewise no principles, or laws of justice and of reason? And is it not to measure and to minister those supreme laws, that the parties are allowed to constitute tribunals of arbitration on the presumption that this personal concert of their opposite interests must tend toward justice even as the species must lie between the difference and genus.

Our Law lord comes at last to the 'consideration,' as he formally announced it, of the Indirect damages, and he was the sole speaker in the whole debate who even proposed it. I might say the sole person, whether speaker, writer or diplomat, throughout this vast transaction, and, I think, in both the countries, who has not studiously evaded all explanation of these mystic damages. Professor Bernard seems the sole exception, in his late lecture at Oxford; and how he fared in the attempt I will exhibit at another time. Returning, therefore, to Lord Cairns, how was it he 'considered' them? By saying that he himself "believed them to be absolutely preposterous;" that the English never meant to ratify them in the Treaty; and that no judge would listen to any claims of the kind. But of what

this kind may be, or its jural reasons, he breathes no syllable! If worth an answer, he might be asked, does his belief' prove them preposterous? or the refusal of the English, conclude them to be illegitimate? Or even the exclusion by a Civil judge, apply to International arbitrators? And all this the more especially in one who urged, as we observed, that the Geneva tribunal has, on the contrary, the right to act upon them! The right to award claims that are 'absolutely preposterous', and which no judge or arbitrator would at all entertain! But no one thinks of reasoning or giving reasons in the British Parliament. Its debates are a mere medley of beliefs, opinions or other crotchets, strung together but by the doctrines, from day to day of the morning papers,' and supported by the money or the muscle of the men who utter them.

Descending again to particulars, where his lordship was more at home, he asks why, after offering to pay the losses of private Americans they should be called on for the government expenses in pursuing cruisers? Why, for the reason that the government was bound to protect its citizens, and had, in striving to discharge this duty, been put, through England, to those expenses. Moreover, the offer to pay private sufferers these Direct damages, or deal with them at all, was an impertinence in England, and on the other hand an uncouth blunder in your early American negotiations. For good or ill they could be reached by a foreign government but through their own, as its national co-equal, and thereby indirectly. What would this personage say if told, that to damage at all a government by other ways than Indirect and Consequential ones, is even impossible, and therefore that the flouted damages are alone proper in the case?

With this effort of Lord Cairns, the debate closed for the night and by adjournment of a day's interval to mark the effect on the Yankees. And sure enough, the resumption of the piece was opened scenically with a letter from your minister, countersigned by Mr. Fish, and which was handed exultingly to Earl Russell who controlled the motion. The scene that followed in the House, was utterly grotesque. It forthwith again adjourned, but now with the hilarity of an Irish hedge-school that has got a holiday. The chuckling murmur ran about that the Americans had caved in.' The House of lords was, after all, not yet defunct, but could send a scare across the Atlantic. The Consequential damages were both abandoned in the case and had disappeared for ever from the law of nations, or it was "the immunity of neutrals from liability for indirect damages in the future," as the Times next day described it with newspaper dignity.

But what was really the American note that gave occasion to these rejoicings? The General merely stated with the pragmatism of an attorney, that "those indirect claims put forth in the case at Geneva," and he says, after "those same claims" would be foregone by his government, or rather exchanged for the "consideration" of England's acceding to the Supplemental article. Thus so far from being abandoned as 'preposterous' or disingenuous, the damages in question would, by England herself, be received as the consideration, that is, cause or substance of the whole Treaty; and be moreover so accepted in the particular case and quantum, and not all on principle, nor for the future, save between these parties. Did the sudden relief from terror ever before breed such hallucinations? "Heaven help the country that is served by such negotiators," was a bitter exclamation of Lord Cairns toward the

Ministry. And I say, Heaven help the country that has such Law lords and statesmen; for if England has been tolerably well helped hitherto in history, it must, I fear, be from a region accounted opposite to Heaven.

Mr. Fish then, whatever newspaper ignorance may splutter, seems to me to have here and hitherto, behaved with firmness and intelligence; we need not thus far be ashamed of him as a fellow New Yorker; a down-east secretary, or up-south one would be long since wheedled into a settlement. No doubt the country is discredited by at all sharing in such a traversity. But the American part is seen to be that of a well-fed cat, which sets demurely to divert itself by baffling a huge water-rat, that, caught aloof from its habitual and hiding element of darkness, runs to and fro bewildered and blind with mud, to find escape. Some months ago I wrote to a personal friend of the President, that Irishmen of head and who are hostile to England, do not desire that America should go to war with this country; they only need to have her exposed as above upon the stage of Nations. This will have the combined effects of destroying her foreign prestige, dispelling from the serfish Irish their lurking awe of her capacity, and abating in her own people that stolid but empty arrogance which leads to most of her misdeeds, and is a bar to her real civilitude. Already the national credit for all Legal knowledge must be gone for ever. J. O'CONNELL.

DIGEST OF RECENT AMERICAN DECISIONS. SUPREME COURT OF NEW YORK. *

ADVANCEMENTS.

1. In no case can a child, born after the making of a will by his father, recover of any brother or sister, born before the will was made, any portion of any advancement, made by his father in his life-time, to such brother or sister. Sanford v. Sanford et al.

2. When a parent conveys land to his child, without asking or receiving any consideration therefor, the presumption is that it is an advancement to the child, though the deed recites a money consideration, and contains an acknowledgment of the payment of it. Ib. 3. Small, inconsiderable sums of money, occasionally given to a child to spend, or to defray expenses in traveling, or to pay for small presents, and the like, should be deemed to have been given "without a view to a portion or settlement in life," as contemplated by the statute, and are not to be regarded as advancements. Ib.

4. But a considerable sum of money, given to a son to enable him to start in business, is prima facie, an advancement. Ib.

5. And every considerable sum of money, given to a child to use in business, should be deemed an advancement, unless proved to have been given "without a view to a portion or settlement in life. Ib.

ASSESSORS AND ASSESSMENT.

1. Property of a corporation.-Where assessors assessed the real estate of a corporation at $125,000, and on application refused to correct the assessment, although the highest valuation fixed for such real estate, by the uncontradicted evidence before them, was but $45,000,❘ held, that they should have corrected the assessment, by striking out the sum of $125,000, as the valuation

*From Hon. O. L. Barbour, and to appear in vol. 61 Barbour's Reports.

of the real estate, and inserting the sum of $45,000 in its place. The People ex rel. The American Linen Thread Company v. Howland et al.

2. Held also, that, after having deducted from the amount of capital paid in or secured, such sum of $45,000, for the value of the real estate, it was proper for the assessors to assess the remaining capital as personal estate, at its actual value, as shown by the evidence before them. Ib.

3. Assessors act in a judicial capacity, in hearing parties aggrieved, and must be governed by the evidence presented to them on an application to correct the assessment. Ib.

4. Where, upon an application to correct an assessment, there is no evidence before the assessors, on the subject of the value of the real estate assessed, except the affidavits produced by the owner, they, if uncontroverted, must be considered controlling and conclusive. Ib.

ATTACHMENT.

1. Plaintiff's rights to. -Although an attachment is an extraordinary remedy not known to the common law, and therefore one which courts should watch with scrupulous jealousy, yet when a creditor fairly brings himself, by his application, within the spirit and intent of the statute authorizing the remedy, he is to be protected in the enjoyment of its advantages. Rowles et al v. Hoare.

2. Motion to discharge: when it may be made. The provision in section 241 of the Code, as amended in 1857, that "in all cases the defendant may move to discharge the attachment, as in the case of other provisional remedies," includes all cases, such as want of jurisdiction in the officer who issued the attachment; fraud in obtaining it; defective papers; and various others." Ib. 3. An application to discharge or vacate an attachment may now be made in furtherance of justice, upon the real merits of the motion as for irregularity, or for want of jurisdiction in the officer who granted it, or from other cause. And such motion may be made after judgment entered in the action; even though the defendant has appeared and given the undertaking required by sections 240, 241. Ib.

4. Affidavits upon motion.-In cases where the defendant moves upon his own affidavit, or affidavits made on his behalf, the plaintiff may oppose the motion, as in other cases, by affidavits which either explain or contradict those offered by the moving party. Ib.

5. Where the motion is made upon the plaintiff's original affidavits alone, no further affidavits on the part of the plaintiff are admissible. Ib.

6. When the defendant moves not only upon the original affidavits used in obtaining the attachment, but also upon his own and other affidavits, in order to show the improvidence of issuing it, as well as to show the injustice of issuing it, on account of the unfair statements in the plaintiff's affidavits, and asks to have it vacated and set aside; to be restored to his rights by reason of the action under it; to set aside the judgment and to be permitted to come in and defend the action upon the merits, the plaintiff has a right to read affidavits in opposition to each point in his proceedings which is assailed by the defendant in his moving papers, and as to which he asks for relief. Ib.

CRIMINAL LAW.

1. Murder: trial: conviction.-Upon an indictment for murder, the jury under the statute (2 R. S., Edm. ed. 725, § 27), may convict the prisoner of any degree of

the offense inferior to that charged. McNevins v. The People.

2. Upon the trial of such an indictment, the judge refused the request of the prisoner's counsel to charge "that they could convict of murder in the first degree, or murder in the second degree, or of any of the degrees of manslaughter," and, in his charge, restricted the jury, in the event of any conviction, to murder in the first degree, or manslaughter in the third degree. Held, that, unless there was an entire absence of evidence to prove the commission of any other crime than murder in the first degree or manslaughter in the third degree, it was error to charge as the judge did charge, and to refuse to charge as requested. Ib.

3. Held also, that the right rule would have been for the judge to say to the jury that, under the indictment, a conviction of the principal offense or of any less degree was allowable, and then leave it to the jury to apply the facts to the definitions of the various grades of the crime, and say which they thought was sustained. Ib.

4. Where, upon the testimony, the jury could have convicted the prisoner, had they thought proper, of manslaughter in the fourth degree, held, that a charge which, in effect, told them that they could not do so, and that if the prisoner was guilty at all, the lowest degree of crime of which they could convict was manslaughter in the third degree, was erroneous to the prejudice of the prisoner. Ib.

5. Error to general sessions of New York.-Upon a review of a judgment of the court of general sessions of New York upon a writ of error, even though there was no request to charge or exceptions taken, the court ought, under the statute (Laws of 1855, ch. 337, § 3), if it discovers any error which may have prejudiced the prisoner, to give him the benefit of it. Ib.

EJECTMENT.

1. Comptroller's deed: on tax sale.-Where the plaintiff, in an action of ejectment, is in possession of the premises in dispute, under title derived from and through deeds executed by the comptroller, upon tax sales, and the defendants were without shadow of title - mere intruders and trespassers-regularity in the proceedings by that officer, under the statute conferring the authority to sell and convey, will be presumed. Thompson v. Burhans et al.

2. Possession under. And actual occupation of a part of the premises will, in such a case, draw to it possession of the whole. Ib.

3. Even though the plaintiff's deeds are void, mere strangers and intruders cannot set up their invalidity. The plaintiff's possession, under such a claim of title, is sufficient to sustain a recovery against a naked trespasser, entering without right. Ib.

4. The defendants attempted to justify their entry and possession, under a comptroller's deed, in which the description of the premises conveyed was of land lying north of and adjoining to township No. 47 of T. & C.'s purchase," bounded by the "north bounds of said township." Held, that such deeds afforded no authority for, or justification of, a possession by the defendants south of such north bounds, even admitting its validity, and that their entry upon and possession of such land, claiming under such deed, was without the shadow of right, and they were, as against the plaintiff's prior possession and claim of title, mere naked trespassers. Ib.

ESTOPPEL.

1. The principle that, when a person has induced another to act upon his statements or admissions made for that purpose, he is concluded from asserting the truth against such statements and admissions, has been often applied in actions relating to real property. - Finnegan v. Carabar. Per Bockes, J.

2. In an action of ejectment, it appeared in evidence that the defendant, at the time the summons and complaint were served upon him, being then upon the premises, told the person serving the papers, in substance, that he lived in, or was in possession of the house, and service was made upon the faith of that statement. Held, that the defendant was estopped from denying that he was in actual occupation at the commencement of the action. Ib.

EVIDENCE.

1. Declarations of a grantor. —Although the declarations of a grantor, accompanying the conveyance of real estate to his sons, or accompanying the giving of personal property to them, are competent evidence res gesta, on the question whether such real estate or personal property were advancements; yet such declarations are not admissible to contradict the plain terms and legal intendment of a writing governing the transaction. Sanford v. Sanford et al.

2. The declarations of a father made subsequent to the execution of deeds of land to two of his sons, and the delivery of money to another son, and when it was not in the power of the father to revoke or alter either of the deeds, or recover back the money, or any part thereof, are mere hearsay, and, therefore, not admissible as evidence to prove that the land was conveyed and the money given as advancements. Ib.

INFANTS.

Security for costs.-The suing by a next friend, in cases of actions brought by infants, is, of necessity, repealed by section 115 of the Code. And the new system nowhere provides for the guardian of an infant giving bail; but gives the defendant an equivalent in section 316, by making the guardian liable for costs. Linner v. Crouse.

JUDGMENT.

1. Motion to set aside.-Where it appeared, on a motion to set aside a judgment, that it was for an amount exceeding $2,500; that to that extent, it was upon a demand for which the defendant, upon a settlement with the plaintiffs, had given them his promissory notes, which were not due when the action was commenced: Held, that this presented a question of law for trial. That prima facie, this was against the right of the plaintiffs to the judgment to that extent. Rowles et al. v. Haare.

2. And that even if the facts sworn to by the plaintiffs, in explanation, could overcome this legal presumption, still the court would not, at special term, try a cause upon the merits, on affidavits. Ib.

PARTNERSHIP.

1. Right of one partner to obtain a renewal of lease for his own benefit. - Where, during the existence of a copartnership, new leases of the premises occupied by the firm as its place of business are obtained by one of the partners to himself, without the consent of his copartner, for a term to commence before the partnership ends, such leases will be declared to be held by the lessees as trustee for the firm. Mitchell v. Reed.

2. And the same rule would apply in a case where the partnership was depending on the will of the partners, to be dissolved by either on notice, and the lease was obtained before notice was given. Ib.

3. But where the partnership is to continue for a specified term, and there is nothing in the articles of copartnership which contemplates any extension of the term, and it is not claimed that the firm have any right of renewal as to either of the leases held by them, there is nothing in the relation of the parties, under the partnership agreement, that prevents either partner from taking a new lease of the premises occupied by the firm, to himself alone, for a term to commence after the expiration of the partnership, although obtained before its termination. Ib.

4. Where two parties held the premises occupied by them, under a lease running to the 1st of May, which had been assigned to them by H., in which a reversion was reserved to H. of two days, at the end of the lease, so that the lease to the partners would expire with the 28th of April, during which period, H., and not the firm, was the holder of the lease, and the right of renewal, if any, in him, held, that one of the partners had the right, as against the other, to obtain, during the partnership, for his own benefit, a renewal of the lease from the 1st of May. Ib.

WITNESS.

1. In an action brought by an heir, against the other heirs, and the executors of the testator, for a distribution of the personal estate and a partition of the real estate of the testator, the defendants offered to prove by one of the heirs who was a defendant, that he overheard a conversation in which the testator said to a third person, "I have this morning made each of my sons a present of a house and lot, as a new-year's present." The offer was rejected, on the ground that the witness was incompetent to prove the declarations of the deceased. Held, that the witness was competent to testify to what the defendants offered to prove by him; for the reason that the offer was not to have him testify "in regard to any personal transaction or communication between such witness" and the deceased, within the prohibition of the Code, section 399. Suntford v. Santford et al.

2. Of what took place at the time a will was drawn. - In an action wherein the plaintiff (one of the children) and the widow of a decedent are interested on one side, and the devisees and executors are interested on the other side, the attorney, by whom the will was drawn, may be allowed to testify as to the making of an agreement between the testator and his wife, at the time the will was drawn, in regard to a bequest of $10, 000 to the widow being in lieu of a proposed gift of a $5,000 note; and as to what was said by and between the testator and his wife, and to the witness, on that subject; and that the will was drawn in conformity with such agreement. Ib.

THE RESTRAINT OF LIBELOUS
PUBLICATIONS.

The case of A'Beckett v. Mortimer, which was before the court of exchequer on the 8th inst., points to a condition of things in the press which is very undesirable, and which has more than once given our courts of law and equity some trouble. A somewhat analogous application to that of Mr. A'Beckett was made to vicechancellor Wickens in the case of Mulkern v. Ward, L.

R., 13 Eq. 619. That was a motion on behalf of a permanent benefit building society, which was also a bank of deposit, for an injunction to restrain the publication and sale by the defendants of a book containing alleged libelous paragraphs in reference to the annual balancesheets and solvency of the society. The vice-chancellor refused the application, and, in doing so, said that, but for the case of Dixon v. Holden, 20 L. T. R., N. S., 357; L. R., 7 Eq. 488, he should have considered it perfectly settled that a court of equity will not restrain, by injunction, the publication of a libel. His honor brought forward a formidable array of authority, observing, "What was said by Lord Ellenborough in Dubost v. Beresford, 2 Camp. 511, 'that the lord chancellor would grant an injunction against the exhibition of a libelous picture,' has been expressly disavowed by Lord Campbell in the case of The Emperor of Austria v. Day, 3 De. G. F. & J. 207, 239, and is inconsistent with the dictum of Lord Eldon in the case of Gee v. Pritchard, 2 Swab. 414, with that of Lord Langdale, in Clark v. Freeman, 11 Beav. 112, and with that of Sir L. Shadwell in Martin v. Wright, 6 Sim. 297; and lastly, it seems to me inconsistent with what may be clearly discovered to have been Lord Cottenham's opinion in Fleming v. Newton, 1 H. of L. Cas. 366, for which opinion, it may be observed, he gave very strong reasons."

The vice-chancellor regarded the case of Dixon v. Holden as introducing an entirely new rule. In that case a solicitor held out a threat of publishing an advertisement addressed to creditors under the bankruptcy of a firm, which advertisement untruly represented the plaintiff as being a member of that firm. The plaintiff averred that the only object of the defendant in publishing the advertisement was, by insinuations of fraud and complicity, to extort money from the plaintiff; that the effect of its publication would be most prejudicial and injurious to the mercantile reputation of the plaintiff and his firm, and would doubtless have the effect of seriously damaging his business. In granting the plaintiff relief by injunction, ViceChancellor Malins relied very much upon his own decisions, unappealed against, in the case of Springhead Spinning Co. v. Riley, L. R., 6 Eq. 551; 19 L. T. R., N. S., 64. That case Vice-Chancellor Wickens spoke of as peculiar, and it undoubtedly was so. The defendants were officers of a trades union, and they gave notice to workmen, by means of placards and advertisements, that they were not to hire themselves to the plaintiffs pending a dispute between the union and the plaintiffs. The bill prayed an injunction to restrain the issuing of the placards and advertisements, alleging that by means thereof the defendants had, in fact, intimidated and prevented workmen from hiring themselves to the plaintiffs, and that the plaintiffs were thereby prevented from continuing their business, and the value of their property was seriously injured and materially diminished. The acts of the defendants were held to amount to a crime, and the court interfered by injunction to restrain the acts, because they also tended to the destruction or deterioration of property. The objection to the jurisdiction was there raised on much the same ground that Lord Cottenham refused an injunction to restrain the publication of a libel in Fleming v. Newton, 1 H. of L. Cas. 363, namely, in the latter case that to do so would have been to interfere with the jurisdiction conferred by statute upon juries, and in the former case of the trades union that the crime was punishable by the ordinary tri