the plaintiff and defendant respectively shall be at liberty to file affidavits in support of and in opposition to the motion so to be made, and to use the same on the hearing of such motion; and if such motion shall be made after an answer filed in the cause, the answer shall, for the purposes of the motion, be treated as an affidavit.

"Sec. 16. Upon any such motion for a decree or decretal order it shall be discretionary with the Court to grant or refuse the motion, or to make an order giving such directions for or with respect to the further prosecution of the suit as the circumstances of the case may require, and to make such order as to costs as it may think right."

This new practice has probably been derived from the system of claims as introduced by Lord Cottenham: the decrees on claims being in his Lordship's General Orders of 1850 expressed to be taken on motion. Many vain formalities are thus avoided, and much expense is saved.

Another useful provision for expediting decrees consists in the abolition of the practice of sending cases to a Court of Law for the opinion of the Judges on legal questions arising out of Chancery suits, and in enabling the Court to decide upon legal titles and rights by its own inherent jurisdiction. The Act 15 & 16 Vict. c. 87. deals with this subject in two short sections:

"Sec. 61. It shall not be lawful for the said Court of Chancery, in any cause or matter, to direct a case to be stated for the opinion of any Court of Common Law, but the said Court of Chancery shall have full power to determine any questions of law, which in the judgment of the said Court of Chancery shall be necessary to be decided previously to the decision of the equitable question at issue between the parties.

"Sec. 62. In cases where, according to the present practice of the Court of Chancery, such Court declines to grant equitable relief until the legal title or right of the party or parties seeking such relief shall have been established in a proceeding at Law, the said Court may itself determine such title or right without requiring the parties to proceed at Law to establish the same."

Such cases, we trust, will never again disgrace the Court as White v. Lisle (3 Swanst. 342.), where, after two verdicts

for the defendant, Lord Eldon, not satisfied with this conclusion, sent the case again to Law for a third trial, with a similar result; or Evans v. Prothero (1 De Gex. Mac. & Gord. 372.), where, after two verdicts for the plaintiff respecting a small landed property purchased for 21., Lord Cottenham granted a third trial, in which the plaintiff again obtained a verdict; and Lord St. Leonard's was at last obliged to terminate the suit by overruling the opinion of Lord Cottenham on which the order for the third trial was grounded, and refusing an application by the defendant for a fourth trial, which the Vice-Chancellor Knight Bruce had already declined to grant.

"A case," says Mr. Pemberton Leigh, "will be in the memory of many members of the Commission, where Sir John Leach directed an issue on a will. The jury found in its favour. He was dissatisfied with the verdict, and directed a new trial, which ended in a second verdict for the will. He sent it back a third time, and declared that if twenty verdicts were found in favour of the will, he would not act upon them; and the case was compromised. The objection to the will being a mere technical objection founded on the Statute of Frauds, it is probable that twenty verdicts would have been found in favour of the will, and all contrary to law. It seems to me, either that the evidence should be given before the Judge whose mind is to be satisfied; or, that if the fact is to be tried before another tribunal, the finding of that other tribunal should be conclusive. My own opinion is in favour of the first alternative.”—(Report, p. 249. Evidence of the Right Hon. T. P. Leigh.)

The scheme of printing the papers in a cause, according to the usage of the House of Lords, the Privy Council, and the Court of Session in Scotland, has been frequently advocated as an economical and convenient measure; and its adoption by the Legislature to the limited extent of requiring only the bill to be printed, is to us rather enigmatical. The experiment is thus deprived of a fair trial, and in case of failure, the blame is thrown upon the scheme in its full integrity, notwithstanding its very partial introduction into practice. We cannot find in the evidence taken before the Commissioners any sanction for such a fractional method of proceed

ing: we are led to entertain misgivings as to the disposition which is thus evinced in reference to the improvement of Chancery procedure. We trust, however, that if the printed bill is found to be convenient and not too expensive, the time will not be far distant when the answers and evidence in Chancery suits will be printed throughout, so that the briefs may resemble those now in use in the highest Courts of Appeal. The new system is merely patchwork; but judging from the line of examination pursued by the Commissioners in prosecuting their inquiries on this subject, we are inclined to believe that their desires went beyond their recommendations, which are doubtless confined to the printing of the bill or claim alone. (See the evidence of H. Luke, Esq., and R. Bloxam, Esq.-Report, pp. 210. 216.)

The fusion of Law and Equity has received but little advancement under the recent Chancery alterations. We find, however, in the new Patent Act, 15 & 16 Vict. c. 83., a clause of great importance, which may be the germ of extensive additions to the jurisdiction of the Common Law Courts. The 42d section of this Act is in the following terms:

"In any action in any of Her Majesty's Superior Courts of Record at Westminster and in Dublin for the infringement of letters patent, it shall be lawful for the Court in which such action is pending, if the Court be then sitting, or if the Court be not sitting, then for a Judge of such Court, on the application of the plaintiff or defendant respectively, to make such order for an injunction, inspection, or account, and to give such direction respecting such action, injunction, inspection and account, and the proceedings therein respectively, as to such Court or Judge may seem fit."

Nothing can be simpler than the remedy here afforded with reference to injunctions in one class of cases: and when we look at the extreme facility of applying the same rule to cases of copyright, manufactures, and designs, the precedent thus furnished is an irresistible argument for conferring upon the Courts of Common Law a jurisdiction commensurate with that which the Courts of Equity now exercise in every case of the actual or apprehended invasion of legal rights, and for

making the writ of injunction, when legal rights only are involved, a legal as well as an equitable remedy. We are prepared even to extinguish the jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery in such cases, and to give to the Courts of Common Law an exclusive jurisdiction to issue an injunction for the protection of legal rights.

It would be ungenerous to withhold from the Lord Chancellor a tribute of thanks for the labour which he must have bestowed upon the new statutes and orders that we have been considering. His influential position and his high representation render his authority on such subjects almost absolute: and whatever he undertakes in the way of reform will certainly encounter no impediment for want of power or resolution on his part. His Lordship is, beyond all doubt, a first-rate hand at construing deed, wills, and Acts of Parliament, and is, moreover, an accomplished forensic tactician. He has also had the great and rare glory of being Chancellor of Ireland, as well as of England. But we have yet to discover from the Reports of his decisions, or from his judicial bearing, that he is a great Master of Equity, or profoundly versed in the philosophy of jurisprudence-a Nottingham, a Hardwicke, or an Eldon.

On reviewing what has thus been achieved, we are convinced that, on the one hand, many evils and many mischievous practices have been quashed or checked by the new arrangements; but, on the other hand, a fertility of expedients for the multiplication of costs and for the creation of delay will always exist. Much confidence must still be reposed, therefore, in the right feelings and good sense of the practitioners of the Court and the watchful superintendence of the Bench. But even these are insufficient safeguards without the aid of a vigilant public press, to which we look for our best security against all relapses into the old vices of the Court.

The same Act contains a most useful provision in s. 48. for enabling the Court, in foreclosure suits, to decree a sale of the property, on the application of the parties, in lieu of a foreclosure. This has long been the practice in Ireland; and the want of this jurisdiction in England was often severely

felt. In carrying this new branch of the jurisdiction into exercise, the course of practice in the Irish Chancery will probably be much referred to; and the experience of the Lord Chancellor while presiding in that Court will on such occasions be of great value.

The same Act (s. 60.) remedies another important grievance, by which, without any one's fault, except perhaps that of the Lord Chancellor for the time being, the suitors were exposed to the delay and expense of rehearing their undecided causes before a new Lord Chancellor. Every Chancellor is now empowered to deliver judgment within six weeks after resigning the Great Seal, in all causes standing for judgment before him at the time of his retirement.

ART. XII. - THE INNS OF COURT — OXFORD

UNIVERSITY COMMISSION.

THE prospects of Legal Education are very gloomy, so far as the Inns of Court are concerned. So long as nothing was done, or attempted to be done, to remedy the astonishing state of things which depraved custom and inveterate spirit of obstruction had perpetuated in those learned societies, it was not unreasonable to hope that a tardy sense of broken trusts and misappropriated resources would force upon the Benchers a reform, the necessity of which it seems impossible to deny. These anticipations have not been wholly disappointed. Change there has been, but such change as affords little hope of substantial improvement, while it perplexes the subject with a multitude of details and alterations, and affords an endless, and we are afraid not wholly unwelcome or unforeseen, array of excuses and palliations. If the Inns of Court are accused of granting degrees, without satisfying themselves that the aspirants have any qualification for them, the answer is now ready, that an examination has been established; and it is easy to suppress the fact, that the examination is voluntary, and therefore in no respect tends to