am Comptroller-General of the Exchequer. There are three classes of Exchequer-bills, of which those issued for "supplies" are the largest both in value and number. The bills in question purport to belong to that class, and are duplicates of others issued as "supply bills." These issue under special acts, called "the ways and means bills." The course observed in the issue of bills is as follows:-We receive directions from the Treasury to make out the bills required, and they are printed in duplicate, or I should rather say that each bill has a counterfoil, with two marks upon it. These counterfoils are distinguishable from the Exchequer-bills, inasmuch as they have no water mark on them presenting the word "Exchequer," which the bills have upon them. They vary also, inasmuch as the figures in the bills are expressed by words in the counterfoils, and vice versa of course. [Here his Lordship compared the bills and the counterfoil-book.] I see I am wrong in the latter respect. There is no such distinction; but there is a seal or stamp on the bill which there is not on the counterfoil. When there is to be an issue of Exchequer-bills there is first a preparation of paper for the purpose, which is always laid in by anticipation. Moulds are then cast for the particular bills, which remain with the Exchequer. From that office the moulds are sent to the paper-mill, under the custody of a special messenger, who remains at the mill while the paper is in process of manufacture, and brings back the moulds and the paper. When the issue is required, the plate is engraved, and the bills printed in the office; enough to satisfy the demand. Every plate

contains three bills and three counterfoils. These blanks are given to the junior clerk in the office, who numbers the counterfoils consecutively from 1 upwards. The blank bills are then marked doubly by the senior clerk, when they are separated from the counterfoils and stamped with the ancient device of the office, the portcullis. They are then placed in a cashbox, and brought to the ComptrollerGeneral or his assistant for signature. They are generally printed in books of 500 each. After they have been signed, they are counted over, and their number ascertained to be correct, when they are replaced in the box. At the time of signature there is brought a book, called the "signing book," which contains a record of the signature of every bill authenticated by the signature of the party signing the bills, the date at which he signed the bills entered therein, their number, value, and the act under which they are to be issued. When the bills are signed and counted by the clerk presenting them for signature, the party signing enters his name against them in the signing book, in proof of the fact. The bills are then locked up in a box having two locks, the keys of which are in the custody of two clerks, and so they remain till the day appointed for their issue, when they are handed over to the paymaster or his deputy, who gives a receipt for them, the box being opened in his presence by the two clerks. It follows from this, that no two genuine bills could be issued of the same tenour, number, and date; I think it impossible. The issue of such duplicates would be a violation of the law, and could only arise from great carelessness, or a direct violation of the law.

The statute 4 William 4th, c. 26, requires the signature of the Controller-general or the assistant. These are not my signatures. They do not profess to be. I believe them to be imitations of the signature of Mr. Perceval, the Assistant Controller. Cross-examined by Mr. Erle.The Exchequer-bill-office and the Pay-office are distinct. After the signature the bills are severed from each other. The order for the paper is given by the senior clerk about a year in anticipation, as it is thought to be better not to print the bills on fresh paper. There is always about a year's supply in hand. There is no account kept of the quantity of paper except by the chief clerk, who is not accountable to any one. He is the custos of all the stationery, and is responsible for the supplies. He is not bound to render any account of the paper used; but he has a paperbook as a check on the supply given by him. He is himself relied on as a proper check upon others. He or an assistant-clerk gives out the paper to be printed, and the quantity so given ought to be entered in a book in order to check the return by the printer; but there is no superior officer to examine that book. The chief clerk had access to the seal without any check. The seal is kept apart from the screw press, and is locked up in a chest which is accessible to the chief clerk. The key of that chest is locked up in a press, and may be said to be accessible to all the clerks, inasmuch as the press is so. Formerly the seal and the screw press used to be kept together, but they are separated now. The senior clerk numbers the blank bills and the junior the counterfoil, unless one be absent, when both are numbered by one VOL. LXXXIV.

only. They ought certainly to be numbered by two separate clerks, and if not, it is a violation of the rules of the office. The junior clerk generally cuts the bills off; but it is immaterial, I should say, who did it. The bills are almost uniformly signed at the office in my room, but there are exceptions. It is not essential that they should be signed there. According to antecedent usage the bills were sometimessigned in the country, often in various parts of London. I never signed out of town. The first issue were all signed by me. I have signed in places where I had not access to proofs of their genuineness; but they have always been taken away

in the same box on the next morning, and examined at the office by counting, &c., before the signature is completed by the entries in the book of record. The books are all made up with 503 forms, but when brought for signature there are only 500 bills; the odd number is to make up for accidents, which are sometimes unavoidable. The counterfoils are kept by the chief clerk till they are sent off to the Paymasters'-office. If there was nothing to throw any doubt upon this bill, I should still have doubted whether this was Mr. Perceval's signature. I would not have acted upon it without reference to him, at any rate. At the same time, it is a better imitation than some I have seen. I have examined all the rejected bills.

Mr. Erle addressed the jury for the defendant, and Lord Abinger in summing up the case told the jury that the simple question which they had to try was whether the bills in question were forgeries or not.

The jury immediately found for the plaintiffs, damages 8,0007., with 3401. for interest. Y

VICE CHANCELLORS'

COURTS.

to accept the trust, to the Merchant Tailors' Company, to the

March 14.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL V. LORD
CARRINGTON.

This suit, which was by information and bill, and which was in the matter of the free school and almshouses of Matthew Humberstone, in the parish of Humberstone, in the county of Lincoln, and also in the matter of the act 2 William 4th, c. 57 (the Charity Commissioners' Continuance Act), came on on exceptions to the Master's report, and on further directions. The suit was instituted by the Rev. Mr. Gedge, the vicar of Humberstone and the master of the school there, against Lord Carrington and the other trustees of the same, for the purpose of restraining the trustees from removing the plaintiff from his office of master, for the reopening of the school, for the appointment of new trustees in the room of some who had diel, for the removal of the remaining trustees, and for other purposes, amongst which was a reference to the master to make proper regulations for the government of the school and charity. The master made his report, laying down certain rules, from some of which the present exceptions were filed. The history of the charity, which has been before the Court of Chancery upwards of 130 years, and the proceedings relating to which are reported in 1st Peere Williams's reports, p. 332, is shortly this-In 1708 Matthew Humberstone by his will, dated the 14th of March, devised all his real estate to the Drapers' Company, and in case of their refusing

Goldsmiths' Company in succes. sion, and desired and directed that such person as should be legally admitted by the said conservators of his will into the estate thereby granted and given for his maintenance, should take effectual care to elect and put in a person of sober life and good learning to be curate of the said parish of Humberstone, to be continued with the stipend or yearly salary thereinafter mentioned during his good conduct only, and he performing the service thereby enjoined and thought needful in such a station, and during the pleasure of the male heir of the name of Humberstone, who should succeed the testator in their several reversions, and upon default therein, he should dismiss him and choose another able person. He also directed such curate to teach the boys or youths of Humberstone and those of his tenants in the parishes of Laceby, Scartho, Wilsby, Clee, Titney, and Houlton, in case they should send their children, that all such boys and children might and should be freely educated in the use and practice of the English and Latin tongues as far as the end of the grammar and prosodia learned twice over, with teaching them to write a legible round hand, the use of arithmetic, and casting accounts, according to such books as should be provided for them to learn by. The testator then, among other things, gave a power to the male person of his name who should succeed to his estate to suspend the curate as being both minister and schoolmaster for any neglect in preaching, or in not teaching the boys the use of the English

and Latin tongues according to the Oxford grammar, printed at the Theatre at Oxford, with writing, arithmetic, or accounts, or for not leading a sober life and conversation, or want of good morality. He then made certain devises and bequests for the erection of a school-house and alms-houses. Decrees were made in certain causes relating to the property, and by that of 1751 the charities were established, and a scheme drawn up for their management. In 1792 the Humberstone estate was sold to Mr. Smith, afterwards Lord Carrington, and in 1812, and not before, steps were taken that the charities should be established, and in 1818, when the charity fund amounted to 24,867, the same was effected. Other schemes were from time to time approved for the government of the charities, from the last of which the trustees filed the present exceptions. The first exception was, that the master had laid down that there should be eighteen trustees, and that when they were reduced to twelve those twelve should, by proceedings in the Court of Chancery, procure the number of eighteen to be made up; whereas he ought to have directed that the vacancies should be from time to time filled up by the remaining trustees.

The second exception was, that the master had not provided that the schoolmaster should be removable by the trustees for misconduct. Sir C. Wetherell contended that the trustees were the proper persons to have the power of amotion. They were in the nature of, though not, actual visitors of the charity. A visitorship might be granted, or devised. The testator had devised the power of amotion to his heir,

aud during the infancy of the heir to his conservators, and as there was now no heir, and no such conservators as appointed by the will, it would be most analogous to his intention to hold that the trustees should have the power of removing the master for neglect or misconduct. The general rule of the Court of Chancery was, that whoever de facto was the trustee had the power of amotion, and in the present case the rule would be wholesomely and properly exercised.

His Honour said, that it would be a very irksome thing for a clergyman to be thus under the power of any private man or set of men ; it would be equally irksome to any set of country gentlemen to invest them with such a power as was contended for. The Master had exercised a sound discretion, and he should therefore overrule the exception.

The principal other exceptions were, that the under-mastership ought to be held from time to time by any competent gentleman willing to accept it, and that the holder should be dismissed upon receiving three months' warning or three months' salary.

His Honour thought the effect of this would be to create a perpetual auction of the office, and to open the door to a probability of a gentleman being sent out into the world to earn his bread after he had passed the best of his years in the honest discharge of his duty. Cheap education was no doubt good, in a sense, but not in such a sense as that. On the exception that the master ought not to be allowed to hold the office of a magistrate, his Honour said that the 21st rule made ample provision for that; for by that it

was said, "That the duties of the head master shall be to personally attend in the school, and to teach and instruct the boys during the school-hours, or so much thereof as he is able to do consistently with the discharge of his parochial and spiritual duties as vicar of the parish of Humberstone." If, therefore, he undertook the duties of a magistrate, and such duties interfered with his parochial or magisterial duties, he would be liable to dismissal for breaking that rule. But it would be outrageous to say, that he should not, if he pleased, recreate himself in the holydays by acting in the commission of the peace; as well might it be contended that he should never take a walk. The exception must be overruled.

The other exceptions were then argued, and in most instances experienced a similar fate, though some few of the rules laid down by the Master were modified.

CONSISTORY COURT.
March 16.

SNOW v. SNOW.-CONDONATION IN
CASE OF CRUELTY.

Dr. Lushington delivered judgment in this case, which was a suit by Mrs. Georgiana Snow against Mr. Robert Snow, her husband, for a divorce, on the ground of cruelty. The parties were married in January, 1832, and continued to live together till the 25th of November, 1841, when the husband quitted Paris where they had been residing, and came to England, the brother of Mrs. Snow going over to Paris, for the purpose of bringing her to this country. In this suit Mrs. Snow prayed the interposition of the court, to obtain legal protection against acts of

cruelty charged by her against her husband. The truth or falsehood of these charges were not the subject of the present inquiry; nor was it necessary to consider the various charges in detail; for there could be no doubt that the personal ill-usage stated in the libel was of the grossest character, affecting bodily safety, and even endangering life, such as, if proved, and not barred by legal impediment, would entitle Mrs. Snow to the separation she prayed. There was only one real question to be decided-namely, whether the conduct of Mrs. Snow, taking it as described by herself in her own pleading, did not form a legal bar to the progress of the suit; in other words, whether it did not amount to condonation. Before considering the meaning and effect of condonation, it might be well to ascertain whether condonation, being of the nature of a plea in bar, should be noticed before it is expressly pleaded by way of defence. When condonation is to be inferred from the evidence only, without any facts being pleaded on either side which could raise the question, the result of all the cases was, that unless such condonation were established by the clearest and most conclusive evidence, the court would not be satisfied to act upon it; for if it had been expressly pleaded, the other party might have produced further evidence to explain, and disprove the defence. But he (the learned Judge) was of opinion, that this reasoning did not apply where the alleged condonation is to be inferred from the statements in the libel alone. It could not be injustice to the wife, for it is her own ex-parte statement alone which was to be considered. It was not