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many useful suggestions for the amendinent of this important portion of the law. The author is a thorough and ardent admirer of his profession, but his reasoning is exceedingly dispassionate. considers the present system of courts-martial well adapted to the management of an army in times of war, but by no means equal to the proper administration of military law in times of peace. does not make sufficient provision for those cases, which, occurring chiefly in times of peace, and not in active service, involve other considerations than a simple breach of military discipline. The fact that the present system requires no alteration when brought into play on active service affords a strong presumption that it is not so well suited to times of peace."

Several cases are cited for the purpose of showing the anomalous functions of the Judge Advocate, and the utter disregard of the laws of evidence which characterise the proceedings upon courts-martial. Another defect strongly animadverted upon in this pamphlet is the lengthy mode of conducting the proceedings, especially the examination of witnesses. Every question is first written down by the party offering it. It is handed to the President, then to the officiating Judge Advocate, who enters it in full. Every occurrence, however minute, connected with the proceedings is likewise recorded. The Mhow court-martial sat twenty-seven days. The Aldershot court-martial sat twenty-two days. The court-martial on the Paymaster of the 35th regiment, occupied no less than sixty-two days. Captain Hale proposes that a higher form of courts-martial should be constituted. The President shall be selected, irrespective of army rank, from a specially trained class of officers but the members of the court, with regard to rank and number, as in the case of ordinary general courts-martial, dependent on the rank of the prisoner and the station at which the trial takes place.

The duties of the President shall be strictly judicial, and shall be assimilated as nearly as possible to those of the judge of the civil courts. The members of the court shall be the judges of the facts, and they shall decide upon the sentence to be passed. In order that the presiding judges should be fully competent to direct and control their courts, it is suggested that a degree in military law should be conferred upon candidates who shall have gone through a certain course of study and passed successful examination. This branch of our judicature must sooner or later receive the consideration of Parliament, and we have no hesitation in saying that the suggestions of Captain Hale well deserve the thoughtful attention of those who are interested in the amendment of the law.

Mr. Forsyth's learned and highly interesting work on the "Life of Cicero" will be the subject of an article in our next.

A notice of Mr. Serjeant Woolrych's new edition of his "Treatise of the Law of Sewers, including the Drainage Acts" (which came too late for the present number), is unavoidably postponed.

Events of the Quarter,

BAR MEETING ON LAW REPORTING.

A Meeting of the Bar was held, on the 1st ult., in Lincoln's-inn Hall, to consider the report of the committee on law reporting. The Attorney-General presided, and there was a very large attendance of barristers. The report has been already published, and that part containing the scheme of the committee will be found in an article on the subject in the present number.

The Chairman explained that, on the 2nd of December last, a committee was appointed to consider whether some improved plan might not be devised for preparing and publishing law reports. That committee had endeavoured to perform their duty conscientiously, and whatever opinion might be entertained as to the plan. recommended, the profession generally must feel indebted to them for the trouble they had taken. It was no part of his (the AttorneyGeneral's) duty to say a word on the report itself, or to prejudice the opinions of any one present on the one way or the other. He should be glad if the meeting could have been held at a later period, so that more time might have been afforded to the profession to consider the report before they were called upon to vote upon it, but there was no option between holding the meeting now and leaving the whole matter to stand over until after the long vacation. Under these circumstances the committee thought it right that the bar should be invited to meet that day to consider the report.

Mr. Amphlett, Q.C. moved the first resolution :-"That the report of the committee appointed at the general meeting of the bar held in Lincoln's-inn Hall on Wednesday, the 2nd day of December, 1863, and the scheme recommended therein, be adopted." He observed that the evils of the existing system were the unnecessary number of cases reported, the unnecessary length, the multiplication of reports of the same cases, the delay in publication, and the great expense entailed upon the profession. The remedy was to establish an organised system of authorised reports, the present system of what was called authorised reporting not having organisation in the proper sense of the term belonging to it. By the proposed scheme the reports would come out at regular intervals, prepared by duly qualified reporters, and carefully edited by properly qualified editors, at a fixed rate of subscription. It was a question whether it would be better to have a system of reporting by reporters and editors appointed and paid by the State--and of course under the control of the State or whether it would be better to leave the control in the hands of the profession. But as they were not likely to obtain the necessary funds from the government for the purpose, if they decided in favour of an official system it would become a dead letter and be a

bar to all improvement. It was therefore necessary to determine in favour of a system organised under the authority of the profession, and in that case he could conceive no better plan than that recommended by the committee, by which the reports would be prepared and edited, as he had stated, by efficient reporters and editors members of the bar, and under the control of a council which would have the power of revising the details of the scheme as occasion might require. The question of salaries had been anxiously considered by the committee, who had been guided in fixing the amount by a desire to secure as far as possible the services of the present staff of authorised reporters in the several courts. It had also been thought advisable to place the reporters and editors in a certain degree independent of the chances of trade, by assuring them one moiety of the salary agreed upon whether the publication succeeded or not, the other moiety to depend upon the commercial success of the undertaking. It would, doubtless, be more agreeable to the reporters if the government would advance the first moiety of the salaries out of the Consolidated Fund, and he did not despair of persuading government to do so, and in that case there would be no difficulty in finding a publisher who would undertake the risk provided they could show a list of subscribers, say to the extent of £10,000, which he thought would cover the entire expense of publication. The only other point was the price at which the reports could be furnished to the members of the profession, and this it was obvious must depend upon the number of subscribers.

Mr. E. James, Q.C., seconded the motion, observing that he did not agree in all the details of the proposed scheme, but on the understanding that it was to be subject from time to time to such modifications as might be necessary for the benefit of the profession, he was induced to recommend the adoption of the report in its entirety.

Mr. Best, who was very indistinctly heard, commented upon that part of the scheme which proposed that editors should be appointed at high salaries to revise the reports, and asked whether they were to have the power of expunging, or whether they were to be merely clerks at a high salary. He moved as an amendment that that part of the recommendation which referred to the supervision by editors be omitted.

Mr. Miller (reporter of Vice-Chancellor Wood's court), who argued that the scheme as proposed would deprive them of all control over their own reports, and put an end to the independence of the reporters, seconded the amendment. He objected to the proposed superintending council, as well as to editors.

Mr. Wordsworth, Q.C., urged that they ought to have more time to consider the report before they were called upon to decide upon it, and moved the adjournment of the discussion to some day in November next, to be fixed by the Attorney-General.

Mr. Malins, Q.C., seconded the motion of adjournment.

Sir H. Cairns thought it very reasonable that the profession should have more time to consider the scheme.

After some remarks from one or two other barristers:

The motion for adjourning the debate, as proposed by Mr. Wordsworth, was agreed to.

DINNER OF THE LAW AMENDMENT SOCIETY.

THE Annual Dinner of the Law Amendment Society (with which is now united the Jurisprudence Department of the National Association for Promotion of Social Science) took place at the Ship Tavern, Greenwich, on the 2nd ult. The president of the Association, Lord Brougham, in the chair.

After the usual loyal toasts had been drank, the noble president, in proposing the toast of the evening, namely, the "amendment of the law," said that we owed to the pure administration of justice which distinguished England, if not from all, almost all, other countries, the enjoyment of our rights and liberties under our admirable constitution. No doubt, the law, ancient as it was, and in most respects admirable, had many defects, partly arising from original inherent vices, partly the consequence of time, and the change which time had effected in the circumstances not being met by a change in the law. Therefore, the amendment of the law was a most important object of national desire. Of all social sciences, there was none so important as that of the amendment of the law. He ought to give a summary of the labours of the Law Amendment Society during the past twelve months, but as they would be found detailed in the report, he would only allude to one or two of the latest attempts at law amendment. Their worthy colleague, Sir F. Kelly, had made various attempts to mend and improve our laws, of which his Bill to prevent gross bribery and corruption at elections had been one of the most important. If that Bill, or a considerable portion of it, had been carried before the last general election, we should not have seen those disgusting outrages of all law, as well as of all morals. Another Bill he had introduced was for a court of criminal appeal. His learned friend considered that it was quite impossible that we could go on much longer without a regular reformed method of revising the judgments recorded by juries. He (Lord Brougham) wished the Bill, with the various modifications and additions of which it was susceptible, all possible success. There had also been some important measures propounded by the Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords, and one of those was of very great importance-he meant the County Court Amendment Act Bill. If that Bill, or anything like it, had passed, he would venture to say that it would have shut up the county courts altogether. County courts without the power of commitment were absolutely impossible. The power of commitment was absolutely essential to those courts, but there were parts of the Bill which he considered excellent. He referred especially to the extension of equitable jurisdiction to these courts, which would be a very great improvement. It had been attempted over and over again, but had always failed; still, he hoped the Legislature would be induced to

pass a measure with that object. Then there was the subject of the limitation of actions on simple contract debts. He thought that the limitation of six years was a great deal too long. The Bill proposed one year, which, however, was a great deal too short, but the Lord Chancellor admitted that it was too short, and he said he was prepared to adopt two or three years. It was unfortunate that these two excellent provisions were found in bad company, because they suffered accordingly, and the Bill had to be withdrawn. The noble and learned lord, after some further observations, gave the "Law Amendment Society," a toast which met with a most cordial

response.

Mr. T. Chambers, the Common Serjeant, in giving "The health of our noble, learned, and venerable President," alluded especially to his great services in the cause of law reform, and observed that those members of the legal profession who were the strongest opponents of the measures he was instrumental in passing, were now the first to acknowledge their great value and usefulness.

The toast was drunk amidst loud cheers.

Lord Brougham, in replying, said he had always considered that our jurisprudence was generally good, and he had only endeavoured moderately to select those parts which were defective, or partially defective, leaving the great body of it untouched. No doubt many of the changes he had been the means of effecting were at first opposed, not only by members of the profession, but by the judges themselves. He would mention only one of the chief instancesthe great, and he thought the most beneficial change which had happened in our jurisprudence during the last 50 years, of allowing the parties in a suit to give evidence, and in some cases compelling them to give evidence. This was at first opposed by the whole bench, and every attempt was made by the then Lord Chancellor, his excellent friend Lord Truro, to prevent its becoming law. Lord Truro went to Lord Lyndhurst, and appealed to him whether it were possible to open such a floodgate for perjury as that of allowing parties to give evidence in their own cause. Lord Lyndhurst heard him, but would give no favourable answer, only observing, "You may depend upon it that the measure will be carried, and you must make up your mind to that." As Lord Lyndhurst had foretold, the Bill was passed, and its effect had been salutary. And to do the learned judges who most strenuously opposed the measure justice, he must say that a year afterwards they confessed that it was of the greatest possible use in accomplishing that which was the great object of all trials, namely, ascertaining the truth. After some other toasts, the meeting separated.

THE EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE PROMOTION OF SOCIAL SCIENCE.

THIS Association will hold its Eighth Annual Meeting in the City of York, from the 22nd to the 29th September, under the presidency of Lord Brougham.