408 Law Tracts.—New Bills in Parliament. able. For this purpose, in the assignment of the chose in action, the husband should covenant that, until the money assigned become payable, he will appear at the insurance office, to shew the condition of his health, &c. Such a covenant as this appears to have been inserted in the assignment, which gave rise to the suit of Purdew v. Jackson; but it does not appear, from the report of the case, whether any insurance had been effected. NEW BILLS IN PARLIAMENT. WYNFORD'S BILL FOR RENDERING ENGLISH JUDGMENTS EFFECTUAL IN IRE- the husband, is, that he reduce it into possession. That he should do so, however, is impossible, as it does not become reducible, until the power of reducing it has ceased to exist. Suppose, for instance, the case of an assignment for valuable consideration. Upon the death of the tenant for life, the assignee claims-what? What the husband had a right to assign? That would be what the husband might have reduced into possession. But the husband having never reduced any thing, in fact, never having had it in his power, the assignee can claim nothing against the surviving wife or her representatives. Again, if the husband. should have been a bankrupt, the case is the same; as the assignee in bankruptcy can only claim that which the bankrupt actually became possessed of. Indeed, the LORD case of Mitford v. Mitford, 9 Ves. 87, goes beyond this, and decides, that even where the bankrupt husband lived until after the reversionary interest had by the death of THIS bill, which besides the support of Lord the tenant for life become actually reducible, Wynford, has received the approval of the the assignees had no claim against the wife Lord Chancellor, will afford, as it appears surviving. And if the wife join her hus- to us, additional security to the creditor, band in assigning parts of her reversionary without injustice to the debtor; and will chose in action, and he die before the te- tend to increase the confidence of all pernant for life, leaving her surviving, although sons having transactions affecting Irish proshe then execute an assignment of the fund,perty, which hitherto has been exceedingly which recites the former assignments by her and her husband, and purports to be made subject to them; she does not thereby recognize or confirm those former assignments. Nor does she acquiesce in those assignments, or waive her right to claim against them by forbearing to impeach them till the death of the tenant for life. And even where a chose in action of the wife is sought to be bound by a decree in equity, if the husband die before the thing ceases to be a chose in action, that is, before there is depreciated. The judgments to be enrolled under the act being confined to one Court, the expense of searches will be much diminished. These are the measures of reform, of which we highly approve. The proposed clauses are, in substance, as follow: On final Judgments in the Courts at Westminster, the like Judgments may be entered up in Ireland, and vice versa. The preamble of the bill recites, that by afan order for the payment of the money, the fording to his Majesty's subjects in England consequence in equity is precisely the same of enforcing at law pecuniary engagements and Ireland respectively more effectual means as it is at law under analogous circum-contracted in one country by persons who restances; the surviving wife is entitled. Her title (said Sir Thomas Plumer,) is not a creature of the Court of Equity; it is not a mere matter of practice or regulation; it is the wife's positive legal right, the result of a fixed rule of law. It may therefore be observed, in conclusion, that on a sale of the reversionary chose in action of a married woman, (in order to be safe,) it will be advisable to insure the husband's life against that of the tenant for life; as upon the death of the latter, the assignment of the husband will be binding upon him, if living; and if not, the policy of assurance will have already become avail side or possess estates in the other, greater confidence will be placed in such engagements, and the interests of his Majesty's subjects in both countries be thereby promoted. 1. It is therefore proposed to be enacted, that in all cases where final judgments shall have been obtained and enrolled, or shall hereafter be obtained and enrolled, in any of his Majesty's Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, or Exchequer, at Westminster or in Ireland respectively, for any debt, damages, costs, or rent which shall have been thereby adjudged to be paid, it shall be lawful, after the passing fits of such judgment, in case such judgment of the act, for any person entitled to the beneshall have been obtained and enrolled in any of the said Courts in England, to enter up in New Bills in Parliament. manner hereinafter mentioned a like judgment | in his Majesty's Court of King's Bench in Ireland; or in case such judgment shall have been obtained or entered up in any of the said Courts in Ireland, to enter up in manner hereinafter mentioned a like judgment in his Majesty's Court of King's Bench at Westminster. The respective Courts may order a Transcript of the Record to be entered and enrolled. 409 lands or goods of any such defendant, except from the time of such enrolment, and subject to the provisions in England and Ireland respectively now in force as to the docqueting of judgments, which shall extend to and regulate the effect of judgments enrolled under this act in the same manner as they now extend to and regulate the effect of judgments of the said Courts respectively. Effect of a Record enrolled at Westminster or in Dublin. the case of a record enrolled in the Court of King's Bench in Ireland, such record shall have the effect of a judgment in an action in which the venue has been laid in the county of the city of Dublin, both with respect to issuing process of execution, and with respect to all writs of scire facias. Certifying Transcript of Record. 2. That the Court of King's Bench in Ireland, in case such judgment shall have been 4. That in the case of a record enrolled in obtained in any of the said Courts in England, the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, and the Court of King's Bench at Westmin- such record shall have the effect of a judgment ster, in case such judgments shall have been in an action in which the same has been laid obtained in any of the said Courts in Ireland, in the county of Middlesex, both with respect upon the production of a transcript of the to issuing process of execution, and with resrecord of any such judgment as aforesaid, en-pect to all writs of scire facias; and that in grossed or written upon vellum or parchment, signed by the proper officer of the Court where such judgment shall have been obtained, and certified by the said officer to be an unsatisfied judgment, and upon the production of a memorial, also engrossed or written upon vellum or parchment, signed by the party or parties claiming to be entitled to the benefit of such judgment as aforesaid, and bearing date the day of the execution thereof, and containing the names of the parties to such judgment, the Court, term, and year in which the same shall have been entered up, and the debt, damages, costs, or rent thereby adjudged, and also containing the names, residences, and description of the party or parties claiming to be entitled, and stating the character, right, or title under or by virtue of which they claim, and stating that such judgment is a subsisting and unsatisfied judgment, and also stating the amount due thereon at the time of such execution, for principal, interest, and costs; and upon proof by affidavit to the satisfaction of such Court, of the signature of such transcript by the proper officer of such Court, and of the due execution of such memorial, and of the truth of the matters contained in such memorial, shall, upon motion to be made in open Court, order, by a rule absolute in the first instance, such transcript and memorial to be entered of record, and enrolled on a roll to be kept in such Courts respectively for that purpose, and to be called in the Court of King's Bench in Ireland, the roll for English judgments; and to be called in the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, the roll for Irish judgments. Operation of Enrolments. 3. That the enrolment of such transcript and memorial shall thereupon become and be and have all the operation of a record of a judgment of the Court in which the same shall be enrolled, to all intents and purposes as if the same had been originally given and recorded in such Court: Provided, that no writ of error shall be brought upon any such record of enrolment, and that no such judgment shall affect any defendant, or any person whatsoever claiming through any such defendant, or the 5. That the officer who shall sign any tran act, at the time of such signing shall make a script of any record for the purposes of this has been given out for the purposes of this act, note on the original record that a transcript and shall endorse on such transcript that it is a true transcript of a record given for the purposes of this act, and shall endorse the number of the original roll on such transcript. Swearing Affidavits. 6. That affidavits for the purposes of this act, or for the purposes of carrying into effect or enforcing or otherwise relating to judgments enrolled under this act, to be used in the Court of King's Bench in Ireland, may be sworn before any commissioner appointed by the Court of King's Bench in Ireland to take affidavits in Great Britain by virtue of the 55 G. 3. c. 157; and that affidavits to be used in the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, may be sworn before any commissioner appointed by the Court of King's Bench at Westminster to take affidavits in Ireland by virtue of 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 42. Amount of Fees. 7. That the respective Courts of King's Bench in England and Ireland shall regulate the amount of fees to be taken by the respective officers or commissioners for the performance of any duty or duties under the authority of this act. 410 The Property Lawyer, No. XXVII.-Selections from Correspondence. THE PROPERTY LAWYER. No. XXVII. THE RIGHT OF A CLERGYMAN TO CHARGE We have already given the cases and sta- charge on the defendant's living, and the assignment of the former terms to a trustee for the purpose of securing the payment of an annuity so created, since the statute 57 Geo. 3. c. 99, was void. Lord Lyndhurst was of opinion that the assignment to Wilks of the terms created in 1813 and 1816, vested the legal estate in him; and therefore that the lessor of the plaintiff was entitled to recover; and he directed the jury to find a verdict for the plaintiff, but reserved liberty for the defendant to move to enter a nonsuit. Comyn now moved accordingly. The assignment of the terms granted in 1813 and 1816 to Wilks, did not vest the legal estate in him, because the object of it was to secure, not the original annuities, but the annuity first granted by the deed of 1825. It operated, therefore, as a new charge on an ecclesiastical benefice, and consequently is void. The terms created to secure the annuities granted in 1813 and 1816, have been satisfied by the payment of those annuities. Parke, J.-The two terms created in 1813 and 1816 for the purpose of securing the annuity, and charged on the benefice, were valid in point of law, because the charge created by them was made after the passing of 43 Geo. 3. c. 84, and before the passing of 57 Geo. 3. c. 99. The assignment of those terms for the purpose of securing the annuity granted in 1825, operated pro tanto as a continuance of the original charge, and vested the legal estate in the lessor of the plaintiffs. This case is precisely the same as Doe v. Gully, 9 B. & C. 344. Per Curiam.-There must be no rule. Rule refused.-Doe, d. Wilks, v. Ramsden, 4 B. & Ad. 603. Ejectment to recover the rectory of Great Stainbridge, in the county of Essex. At the trial before Lord Lyndhurst, C. B, at the Spring Assizes for Essex, 1833, the following appeared to be the facts of the case:-On the 18th of February, 1813, the defendant, the rector of Great Stainbridge, granted by indenture to Elizabeth Fisher, an annuity of 2607. per annum for her life; and by the same indenture demised to Robert Withy the rectory and glebe lands and tithes thereof, &c.; habendum for ninety-nine years, upon trust for better securing the payment of the annuity. By another indenture, dated the 6th of September, 1816, the defendant granted to Thomas Henry Shepherd, during his life, an annuity of 9.37, which was also secured by a demise of the rectory to a trustee, for ninety-nine years. In 1820 and 1823, he granted two other annuities, the first charged on his vicarage of Little Wakering, and the second charged on the rectory of Great Stainbridge, and vicarage of Wakering; and demised those two benefices for terms of years to trustees, for the purpose of securing those annuities. By indenture of the 19th January, 1825, reciting the grants of annuities above mentioned, and that the defendant had agreed to pay off and repurchase those annuities, and that Peter Moore, the chairman of the British Annuity Company, had, on the behalf of the Company, agreed with the defendant for the purchase of an annuity of 574/. for a term of ninety years, if the defendant should so long live, for the price of 44007., and that it had been agreed that Moore should, out of that sum, pay off the annuities before granted, and that the annuities and the terms created to secure the same respectively, should be assigned to a trustee for Having had occasion to attend summonses the benefit of the Company, the defendant at the Judges' chambers several times this granted an annuity of 5741. payable quarterly vacation, I have experienced more fully than on certain specified days, and charged on his ever the annoyance and inconvenience arising rectory and vicarage, to Moore; and there from their ill adaptation to the present increase was a power of distress in case it should be in of business. On one occasion, the 10th or 11th arrear for twenty-one days, and a power to Feb. there were more than thirty-five sumenter and take the rents, tithes, and profits, if monses on the file at Mr. Baron Bayley's it should be in arrear twenty-eight days. The chambers; and allowing only two persons to indenture also contained an assignment of the attend each summons (although there are usufour annuities by the annuitants; of the two ally more), there would be, with bails, &c., at terms created in 1813 and 1816, by R. Withy least eighty persons to be stowed together in and J. H. Shepherd, and of the two other the Judge's clerk's room, a space of about terms created in 1820 and 1823, by the trus- | 12ft. by 12, for some hours. The heat and tees of those terms respectively, to Wilks, as a unpleasantness of this kind of stowage, is one trustee for the benefit of the Company. In reason why the Judges' chambers are contem1826, the annuity became in arrear, and a se-plated with loathing by the greater part of the questration issued. It was contended for the profession. My object in addressing you is to defendant, that the deed of 1825 created a new enquire whether you can inform me, in com SELECTIONS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. JUDGES' CHAMBERS. To the Editor of the Legal Observer. Selections from Correspondence, No. XLVII. mon with all who are obliged occasionally to G. B. ATTORNEYS' CERTIFICATE DUTY. To the Editor of the Legal Observer. Sir, It appears to me that the members of the Legal Profession are, without exception, the most lukewarm and indolent class of men that can well be imagined. Within the last three years, acts of Parliament and sets of Rules have alternately appeared so closely upon each other, that no man at this moment is sure that he is not erring in almost every step that he takes, to his great peril and prejudice. The responsibility of a professional man (always great,) is now so increased, and his remuneration so diminished, that hundreds of attorneys are at this moment in want of the very necessaries of life. This being a known and incontrovertible | fact, still the profession, as a body, take no steps to relieve and do justice to themselves. Why do not they present a petition to Parliament, to relieve the Profession from the unjust impost of the annual certificate duty? Why should the Profession continue to pay this and other taxes affecting them, so unjust and disproportionate with those imposed on other professions? The Judges and Parliament are doing all they can to reduce the profession to the lowest ebb, and are weekly reducing the remuneration to attorneys; and it is high time that the Incorporated Law Society, as the only united body in the Profession, should take the matter up. A. G. WHAT ABSTRACT MUST BE DELIVERED UNDER THE 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 27? To the Editor of the Legal Observer. Sir, Your correspondent J. †, in the Leg. Obs. of 1st of March, goes too far when he asserts that it is agreed on all hands that a sixty years' title must be required until June 1855. Mr. Stewart, in his Appendix to the Practice of Conveyancing, says, "It seems clear that on the 1st of January, 1834, an abstract, showing a good title for twenty years prior to that period, will be sufficient, as the statute may be pleaded in bar to any person having any right before twenty years, and not of course laboring under disability." p. 53. H. W. G. [On referring to Mr. Stewart's work, we find that our correspondent cites only a part of a sentence. Mr. Stewart says, "under these 411 sections (§§ 2 and 24) it seems," &c.; but adds, expressly, p. 54, on the consideration of all the clauses, it seems more safe and currect to require a sixty years title, until the 1st of June 1835." ED.] GENERAL REGISTRY BILL. To the Editor of the Legal Observer. the Profession and the public against this use- LAW AMENDMENT ACT.-COSTS. To the Editor of the Legal Observer. work Knowing it to be the custom of your to judge every alteration by its good, or ill effect, I offer the following remarks to your notice. What was the intention of the Law Amendment Act, but to lessen the expense of trying causes of small amount, and which contained no questions of law? and if it does not diminish the expense, which I submit it does not, it loses its use. I have been present before the Master, on taxation of costs on a writ of trial for a very trifling sum, for the recovery of a tradesman's bill under four pounds, where the costs amounted to near thirty pounds, in which case the attorney was advocate, the pleadings short, and many items not included, which would generally occur in other bills, a a Our correspondent will find that under the 412 Superior Courts: Lord Chancellor. If the framer of the act had said that it was | An order for their commitment was made, made for the purpose of easing the Judges, but afterwards discharged, Read, the father, and expediting business, then the public, as having, in the private room, satisfied the Lord well as the professional man, would have un-Chancellor of his innocence of the contemderstood it; and the former would not have plation of marriage. The husband presented expected to have his cause tried or defended a petition proposing a settlement of the lady's for much less than formerly. I do not com- fortune, and it was referred to the Master to plain of the act itself, but the system of holding approve of a settlement. The Master, upon out that now law is to be done for "nothing," his view of the circumstances of the marriage, or almost nothing. I even think, with a very ascertained by the presence of all the parties, little alteration, this act would answer every pur- required the insertion of a clause, the effect of pose for which the Local Courts are to be cre- which would, if adopted, be to exclude the ated. If, however, the costs are to be lessened, husband from any benefit from the property. so as to prevent men from moving in nearly The husband petitioned the Lord Chancellor the same rank as they have heretofore been against that part of the settlement, and able to do, from the emolument of a profes- counsel were heard by his Lordship for and sion in which it costs so much expense and labor against it. to arrive at any eminence, they will necessarily leave it, to seek some other more congenial to their taste and abilities. And then the profession will fall into the management of less honorable men, and instead of being ranked the first, will descend to a very low ebb in point of respectability. THEOPHILUS. SUPERIOR COURTS. His Lordship having taken time to consider the point, gave his judgment on a subsequent day.This was a petition of appeal against the Master's report, which excluded the husband of the ward from any beneficial interest in her property. It was argued on the part of the husband, that no such settlement was ever made, and that there was no aggravation of conduct on his part to warrant a departure from the usual settlements. I say there is an aggravation, and that an attempt was made by those parties to get the ward's fortune without the leave of the Court. That was evidently the object of concealing the marriage; for in three months more she would be absolutely entitled, and would be beyond the control of the Court. The Court, in cases of marriages without But the decision of the Master makes the wife leave, with female wards, will go fur, ac- a mere tenant for life only in her own procording to the circumstances, in excluding perty; and for the purpose of preventing the the husbands from any benefit from the husband from taking any benefit from it, he wards' fortunes; but the interests of the deprives her of the power of giving any benefit wards being chiefly the object to be re-in it to any husband or other relation. I cangarded, the Court will not make them mere tenants for life in their absolute property, but in the worst cases will allow them a power of appointment by will, if there be no children. Lord Chancellor's Court. not go so far as that. I find no precedent for it in any of the cases, some of which are as bad as possible. Thus in the case of Bathurst v. Murray,a where the father and friends of the husband conspired together to bring about the A young lady of the name of Birkett, a marriage of the ward, she (the ward) by the ward of Court, being entitled absolutely, upon event of her dying without children of the settlement, had a power of appointing, in the attaining her age of twenty-one, to property worth 7007. a year, and being placed by her marriage, and the husband surviving; and in father, with the sanction of the Court, in the default of appointment, the limitations in that house of one Read, married his son, an articled case were to go to her next of kin, in excluclerk, without any property of his own, with- sion of the husband. There also there was a out the consent or knowledge of her father, or power given to appoint to children of a second his friends, or of the Court. She was then marriage. So also in the case of Millet v. lately removed from school, and within a few Rowseb, a case of a most flagrant description, the months of her full age at the time. After the wife's power of appointing was not taken away, marriage she lived with her husband, as his although there the husband, in order to obtain wife, in Read's house, and Read, the father, a licence for the marriage, made the usual and his wife, knew for several weeks that the oath as to the age of the ward, who was only parties were married, and made no communi- fourteen years of age, upon which he was, by cation about it either to the Court or to the direction of the Lord Chancellor, indicted for lady's friends. The lady's father, upon the perjury, convicted thereof, and punished acdiscovery of the marriage, presented a peti-cordingly. Yet the settlement of her fortune, tion to the Court, stating the circumstances, supported by affidavits, and prayed that all the parties might be committed for contempt. Scale of Costs printed in our last Number, the evil he points out is now removed. ED. which was in stock, was, that it be transferred into the name of the Accountant General, to pay the dividends to the separate use of the a 8 Ves. 74. |