CAP. 92. An Act for the abolition of Fines and Recoveries, and for the substitution of more simple modes of Assurance, in Ireland.

[15th August, 1834.] CAP. 93. An Act to amend the Laws relating to Appeals against Summary Convictions before Justices of the Peace in Ireland. [15th August, 1834.] CAP. 94.-An Act to enable his Majesty to invest Trading and other Companies with the Powers necessary for the due conduct of their Affairs, and for the Security of the Rights and Interests of their Creditors.

[15th August, 1834.] CAP. 95.-An Act to empower his Majesty to erect South Australia into a British Province or Provinces, and to provide for the Colonization and Government thereof. [15th August, 1834.] CAP. 96.—An Act to enable the Commissioners of Sewers for the City and Liberty of Westminster, and part of the County of Middlesex, to make a new Sewer at Bayswater in the County of Middlesex.

[15th August, 1834.]

FOREIGN LEGAL INTELLIGENCE.

THE new publications mentioned by our Paris Correspondent are the following:1. Code Penal de Brésil, traduit par M. Victor Foucher, Avocat-Général à Rennes, being a continuation of his Collection of the Civil and Criminal Laws of Modern States. We have already mentioned his translation of the Austrian Penal Code as a useful and well-executed work, and the present publication merits the same praise. Of the Brazilian system itself it is to be observed, that there is no jury, and that the only check upon the discretion of the judge is the Code, in which the maximum and minimum of punishment are commonly prescribed. M. Foucher is also editing the Works of Carré, the seventh and eighth volumes of which have appeared, and has lately published a meritorious tract on the Interpretation of Laws. 2. A work by Professor Dufour, of Toulouse, on the History of Law and Legislation, in which he takes occasion to review the Codification question. His opinions on the whole appear to be unfavourable to Codification. 3. M. Pinheiro Ferreira, the distinguished writer on the Law of Nations, has published a new and valuable work on that subject, entitled, Principes du Droit Public Constitutionnel Administratif et des Gens, ou Manuel du Citoyen sous un Gouvernement Representatif, in three volumes. The work is composed in a moderate spirit of liberalism. 4. Sundry Collections of Laws enacted since 1789, many of which are not to be found in the official Bulletins, so that editions by private persons are required. M. Isambert's Collection, under the title of Pandectes Françaises, promises by all accounts to be the cheapest and the best. His chief competitor in this department is M. Duvergier. 5. Traité du Domaine Public, &c. by Professor Proudhom, of Dijon, already known by a work, De l'Usufruct et des Droits d'Usage; 6, The first part of a Recueil des Traités de Commerce et de Navigation de la France avec les Puissances étrangères depuis la Paix de Westphalie, &c. by two employés of the foreign department, MM. Hauterive and de Cussy. 7. The third volume of M. Pardessus' great work, entitled, Collection des Lois Maritimes antérieures au 18e siècle, honourably mentioned in a former number of this work. M. Pardessus has also put forth a learned Memoir on the origin of the Droit Coutumier in France and its state till the 13th century. 8. The last work on French Procedure is that of M. Boncenne, Professor of Poitiers. The works of two of his predecessors (Pigeau and Carré) are almost purely practical; only in particular places are theoretic notions to be found. That of a third (Berriat St. Prix) is little more than a guide to lectures. M. Boncenne has been the first to unite practice and theory. The first part of the third volume has appeared, and reaches to Art. 173, inclusive. 9. Elemens du Droit Public et Administratif, ou Exposition Méthodique des Principes de Droit Public Positif, avec l'Indication des Lois à l'appui. Par M. Foucart, Avocat, Professeur de Droit Administratif à Poitiers. Only the first part, containing the Public Law of France, has yet appeared, of which he has supplied a useful compendium, though the arrangement of his subjects is far from judicious.

The Révue Etrangère de Legislation, edited by M. Foelix, is continued with the same spirit and ability with which it commenced. We copy from the August number the following particulars as to Greece: "We have just received Le Code Penal and La Loi Communale. The law as to the organization of the civil courts and the courts of commerce has also been published. In each eparchy there will be one justice of the peace at the least; in each arrondissement one court of first instance. All the commercial towns will have courts of commerce. There will be two courts of appeal, and one supreme court, called the Areopagus. The jurisdiction of these Courts will extend to all citizens without distinction. The judge of the peace will have his registrar and two assistants. The tribunal of first instance will be composed of a president, three judges at least, a procureur du roi, a substitute, a registrar, and four assistants. The president of the Court of Commerce must be a jurisconsult; he will be assisted by two judges and four clerks, taken from the commercial class. The Court of Appeal will be composed of a president, five judges, a clerk, the procureur du roi, a substitute, and the registrar. The Areopagus will have a president, a vice-president, five judges, the procureur du roi, his substitute, and a registrar.

M. Philip Dupin has been elected Batonnier of the Order of Advocates, beating M. Mauguin by a small majority. M. Philip Dupin is the younger brother of M. Dupin Ainé, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, and of M. Charles Dupin, the author of the celebrated work on the Commercial Power of Great Britain. He is esteemed a man of decided ability, but of a careless unambitious character. Opportunities of entering the Chamber of Deputies have been offered to him, but all have been hitherto declined.

We have received the report of the celebrated copyright case of Wheaton and Peters from America, and propose to give some account of it in our next Number. Our present opinion is decidedly in favour of Mr. Wheaton.

EVENTS OF THE QUARTER.

As another number of this work will appear before the meeting of Parliament, we shall here confine ourselves to topics of recent occurrence, and postpone to a future and more fitting opportunity such remarks as we may have to offer on the expected changes in the law.

Sir John Leach, the Master of the Rolls, died on the 16th of September last, at Edinburgh; and Sir Charles Pepys has been appointed to succeed him, with the general approval of the public and the profession. Sir Edward Sugden's admitted pre-eminence as an equity lawyer gave him high claims, and Sir William Horne was also put forward by his friends on the strength of former ill-usage and an alleged promise of the Chancellor, but it was hardly to be expected that the government would quit the direct line of preferment, and pass over a crown officer of Sir C. Pepys' ability, without much more cogent motives than have been made known. There is no truth whatever in the report that the appointment of Sir Charles Pepys was made contrary to the wishes of the Chancellor. He is said to have proposed it himself in one of the first letters he wrote from Edinburgh after the death of Sir John Leach. The Solicitor-Generalship, vacated by Sir Charles Pepys, was first offered to Mr. Bickersteth, and, as might have been foretold by any person acquainted with his principles, refused. Mr. Bickersteth could never be induced to act in relation to any measure of legislation as an advocate, and it would be equally impossible for him to coincide either in jurisprudence or general politics with Lord Brougham. On Mr. Bickersteth's refusal, the ministry are said to have cast their eyes upon Mr. Rolfe, who is the only equity lawyer of note fortunate enough to possess a seat in Parliament. Whether he will have the place or not is still unknown, but the difficulty in making a selection is another proof of the pressing necessity of placing a certain number of seats in Parliament at the disposal of the crown. Whilst the present system lasts, the best (which is not uniformly the most popular) government will be constantly in danger of being weakened or broken up by accident. It was a fatal mistake to change the House of Commons from a checking or controlling body into an executive or originating one.

Another appointment that has gone the round of the newspapers is that of Mr. Charles Phillips to the office of public prosecutor in the new Metropolitan Criminal Court, at "about 2000l. a year." On inspecting the act we find no mention of any office of the kind; and as the act contains a clause providing for the costs of private prosecutors, we can hardly think that any such office was contemplated. The same paragraph intimates that Mr. Charles Phillips has also had the refusal of an Indian judgeship, worth 6000l. a year, from the Chancellor, and is to be made a king's counsel immediately. As to the promised silk gown we say nothing, but as to the Indian judgeship, his lordship has certainly been offering one in another quarter, where he was equally sure of a refusal, though it is shrewdly suspected that he had no such judgeship in his gift. His motive was probably the wish to make or con

ciliate a friend, but surely the means are unworthy of him. It were useless, however, to remonstrate with his lordship on the folly of making offers which he has no power, or promises which he has no fixed intention,' to act upon; as useless as to preach to him about the advantages, to say nothing of the virtue, of consistency. He is evidently bent on descending from the proud position he once held in popular esteem,- -on making the public so soon as possible forget how much as law reformers, how much as friends of education, they owe to him. To judge from his more recent displays in oratory, he really seems to have given up even all outward respect for principle-by which, however, we are far from meaning to assert that he is dishonest in the ordinary meaning of the term, but merely that he has no fixed modes of thought or action, and that all his opinions depend altogether upon his impulses. We are very sorry to be obliged to say so at the present moment, for could we place the least reliance on his more recent declarations, we should henceforth regard him as a conservative of the best and most enlightened kind, and cast our apprehensions of rash schemes of alteration to the winds. His late praises of the House of Lords are most particularly encouraging. In our last number we remarked, in allusion to the bills then pending, "Most of them will pass the House of Commons, which is now too much under the influence of popular prejudice for legal reforms to be properly discussed in it. The House of Lords is our only hope on such occasions, and there, we doubt not, all the crude and ill-considered enactments of each of them will be lopped off." Both in his later speeches and in his article in the Edinburgh Review, Lord Brougham avows the same opinion; and it is to be hoped the avowal will be borne in mind when the Local Court and Arrest Bills, whose fate will probably be decided by popular prejudice in the Lower House, shall reach the Higher House of Parliament. Another recent inconsistency has been rather ungenerously adduced. It seems that Lord Brougham took occasion, at a city dinner, to propose the health of Sir Edward Sugden and the Bar, in a speech highly flattering to the learned gentleman and the profession, though widely different in tone and sentiment from the manner in which he formerly spoke of the learned gentleman and the profession in parliament. Now, in our opinion, a speech of this kind proves nothing; it is called for by the occasion, and ought not to be remembered after it ; except, indeed, by the individual whose injured feelings it was obviously intended to compose. In the same manner Lord Denman's speech at Bristol on proposing the health of Sir Charles Wetherell, in which he

'No less than five instances of breach of faith on the part of the Chancellor are currently repeated in the best-informed legal circles at the present time. The apology commonly made for him by his friends reminds us of that made for Lord Granby, to which Junius alludes as follows: "In the two next articles I think we are agreed. You candidly admit that he often makes such promises as it is a virtue in him to violate, and that no man is more assiduous to provide for his relations at the public expense. I did not urge the last as an absolute vice in his disposition, but to prove that a careless disinterested spirit is no part of his character; and as to the other, I desire it may be remembered, that I never descended to the indecency of inquiring into his convivial hours. It is you, Sir William Draper, who have taken pains to represent your friend in the character of a drunken landlord, who deals out his promises as liberally as his liquor, and will suffer no man to leave his table either sorrowful or sober. None but an intimate friend, who must frequently have seen him in those unhappy disgraceful moments, could have described him so well."