forfeit £20 to the King if he have sufficient to pay the same and do pay the same within six days' next after his conviction; or else shall suffer for the second offence punishment of the pillory; and for the third offence he shall forfeit £40 to the King, if he have sufficient to pay the same and also do pay the same within six days next after his conviction, or else shall sit on the pillory and lose one of his ears, and also shall at all times after that be taken as a man infamous, and his saying depositions or oath not to be credited at any time in any matters of judgment."

By s. 2 it is further provided that "if it fortune any such conspiracy, covenant or promise to be had and made by any society, brotherhood or company of any craft, mystery or occupation of the victuallers above mentioned with the preference or consent of the more part of them, that then immediately upon such act of conspiracy, covenant or promise had or made over and besides the particular punishment before in this Act appointed for the offender, their corporation shall be dissolved to all intents, constructions and purposes.'

And by s. 4 it is further created: "That no person or persons shall at any time after the first day of April next coming interrupt, deny, let, or disturb any free mason, rough mason, carpenter, bricklayer, plasterer, joyner, hand hewer, sawyer, tiler, paver, glasier, lime burner, brick maker, tile maker, plummer or labourer born in this realm or made denizen, to work in any of the said crafts in any city, borough or town corporate, with any person or persons that will retain him or them, albeit the said person or persons so retained, or any of them, do not inhabit or dwell in the city, borough or town corporate where he or they shall work, nor be free of the same city, borough or town, any statute, law, advance or other thing whatsoever had or made to the contrary in anywise, notwithstanding, and that, upon pain of forfeiture of £5 for every interruption or disturbance done contrary to this statute" one moiety to the King and the other to the informer.

This statute was repealed in England by 6 Geo. IV. c. 129, s. 2. There are, therefore, several problems to be considered in regard to it. First of all was it introduced by the Royal Pro

clamation of 1763, and continued by the Act of 1774; or is it to be regarded as a statute of only local application to England, and therefore not applicable to the circumstances of Canada? If it was in fact made the law of Ontario and Quebec, what was the effect of the repeal in England, as regards this country? Then, if in force, is it wholly or only partially in force? Is the second section, for instance, to be deemed penal or merely as affecting civil rights? Is the fourth section to be regarded as creating a crime or merely a civil liability? Then again, if in force at all whether the punishment imposed ought not, in deference to modern ideas, to be changed. The spectacle of an offending victualler or "plummer" standing in the pillory and having an ear lopped off would at the present day arouse so much sympathy with the offender, that it is safe to say that it is not in the least likely that that punishment would ever be enforced.

But it is obviously unwise to have laws on the statute book of so brutal a character as to be incapable of enforcement.

What has been said in regard to the particular statute of Edward VI. above referred to, applies with equal force to many other Imperial statutes, and there should be no longer delay on the part of the Dominion Government in taking steps to codify the whole statute law relating to crimes, and to make the law on that subject uniform throughout the Dominion.

BAD LAW.

It is told of a celebrated lawyer that it was his custom, as cases were published, to cut out those that failed to recommend themselves to his judgment as sound expositions of the law, and to cast them into a drawer which he labelled "bad law." If we were asked to make such a selection. we should among recent cases be inclined at all events to name one as obviously based on unsound principles and therefore deserving of being consigned to such a limbo. The case is Sovereign Bank v. Gordon, 9 O.L.R. 146. This decision affirms the startling proposition that where a bill of exchange or promissory note is specially indorsed, it is transferable simply by delivery, and that it is competent for the

transferee to strike out the name of the payee in the special indorsement and substitute his own.

Such a proposition we have no hesitation in saying strikes at the root of the whole system of special indorsements of negotiable instruments. If a man were to find a bill specially indorsed, according to this doctrine, it would be competent for him to strike out the name of the special indorsee and substitute his own, and the drawer would then be compelled to pay it on presentation, or run the risk of a suit to establish that the claimant was not the lawful holder. In other words, a bill is presented for payment bearing on its face the marks of possible fraud, and the onus is then cast on the drawer of resolving those doubts at his peril. The ordinary rule is that where a man calls on another to pay a negotiable instrument he must at all events be able to shew a primâ facie clear title to the instrument. A special indorsement appears to us to stand in precisely the same position as a bill drawn payable to a named person or his order. Can it be pretended for an instant that such a bill can be transferred merely by delivery, and that such a transferee could strike out the name of the payee and substitute his own? With great respect to the majority of the Court responsible for the decision, we think such a question admits of but one answer, and that, the direct opposite of what has been given in the case referred to. If the bill on its face could not be altered in the way suggested, we fail to see any sound principle by which such an alteration of a special indorsement could be justified.

The facts of the case made it abundantly clear that the plaintiffs were beneficially entitled to the notes sued on, and it is very strange that their title was not rested on its true ground of their being equitable assignees of the notes, and the special payees in consequence mere trustees for them of the legal title. On such grounds the claim of the plaintiffs might have been reasonably supported, without any violation of the laws relating to bills of exchange. In its anxiety to give judgment on the. merits, the Court unfortunately suffered itself to give what we venture to think were wholly untenable reasons for its decision.

PREVENTION OF CRIME.

Corporal punishment is said to be dying out in England, statistics shewing that in their convict prisons only eight prisoners were flogged during the year, as compared with eighty-two in 1880-81. The cat, also, we are told, is giving place to the milder instrument of punishment, to wit, the birch. While this is taking place in conservative England we have some suggestions from progressive Western America, one of which, whether or not it indicates a return to barbarism, or is an evidence of advanced civilization, has certainly the charm of novelty.

A Minnesota grand jury recently made a report recommending some changes in the criminal law, which in the opinion of the jurors would tend greatly to decrease the possibility of crime. One of these was that in the case of criminals convicted for a third time they should be subjected to imprisonment for life. The other was that in cases of criminal assaults upon women it should be made impossible for the offender to commit the crime a second time. There is much sound common sense in the reasons given by the grand jury in support of these proposals in view of the axiom that punishment should be preventive rather than punitive. The reasons stated by the grand jury were as follows: "We have been impressed with the fact that nearly all the crimes brought to our attention, especially those of violence, have been committed by habitual criminals; and we have been especially impressed and alarmed by the number of crimes of violence against female chastity. We believe that the attention of the community should be directed to the existence and growth of a criminal class, and that society should recognize the criminal folly of permitting the members of the criminal class to be at large and preying upon society. And we believe that society should recognize the fact that any adult guilty of the crime of rape is deserving of absolutely no consideration, and should not be permitted to remain capable of committing that crime. We are aware that these recommendations are radical, but we believe that the measures proposed are

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both just and humane, from the point of view of the interests of society; and we further believe that such measures would result in lessening crime in the State of Minnesota, more than any other punitive measures which could be devised, and would immediately rid this State of a large proportion of the habitual criminal class."

Our interesting contemporary, the American Law Notes, says Canadians do not seem to believe (notwithstanding Dr. Osler's chloroform theories) that a man has outlived his usefulness to society by the time he has attained the age of 50, 60 or even 70 years; in proof of which statement the writer cites the case of Hon. Mr. Justice Maclennan recently appointed to the Supreme Court. He was called to the Bar when twenty-four years of age, went upon the Bench at fifty-five and at the age of seventy-two was promoted to the highest Bench in his country. The writer takes occasion to express regret that as to the Bench in the United States it has been thought necessary to write into their law an arbitrary age limit for the performance of judicial duties; and claims that the fact of a man having "reached the age of say seventy years is by no means primâ facie evidence of his incapacity for a judicial office. If anything, such fact is evidence to the contrary, and particularly when a score of more of those years have actually been passed upon the Bench and in the acquisition of judicial training and experience." The idea which became fashionable some years ago as to the necessity of youthful vigour, as opposed to experience, has, we are glad to say, been dying out. Speaking generally, training and experience are much more valuable commodities than energy or book learning. When clients find themselves in a tight place, or a tangled question has to be solved or adjudicated upon, the man who has travelled that road before is certainly the most useful man to have; and long-headed business men know it.