Buchanan, W. B. Paterson, William Cochran, Robert Meldrum, and George Jackson, Lanarkshire; William Buchan and John F. Cormack, Peeblesshire; John Martin, Alexander Campbell, William Cargill, John Scott, Patrick S. M'Lean, William Graham, and W. M. Cunningham, Perthshire; James Macdonald, Thomas Wilson, and J. Innes Macdougall, Renfrewshire; George T. Munro, Ross-shire; George Grier, Roxburghshire; Robert Main, Junr., and J. Wood Blakey, Stirlingshire; A. D. Walker and John Smith, Wigtownshire.

The following applicants passed their examination in general knowledge, viz.: - George G. Tait, Ayrshire; Clement W. R. Gordon, Banffshire; John Symons, Junr., Dumfriesshire; W. M'Kenzie, Inverness-shire; James C. Dow and James M. Laird, Perthshire; Robert Wright, and R. B. Shearer, Renfrewshire.

Society of Solicitors in the Supreme Courts. At the stated general meeting of this Society, the following gentlemen were elected as Office-bearers for next year, viz.: President, Mr. John Henry; Vice-President, Mr. William Miller; Council: Messrs. James Lamond, John Carment, David Dove, James Currie Baxter, Andrew Beveridge, John Macandrew, and Alexander Morison.

Obituary.

JOHN MURDOCH, Esq., S.S.C. (1826), late of the firms of Murdoch, Boyd & Henderson, and Murdoch, Boyd & Co., died at 14 Great King Street, Edinburgh, June 2, in the 73rd year of his age. ANDREW FRASER, Esq., W.S. (1832), late Sheriff-substitute of Inverness-shire at Fortwilliam, died at Darnley Villa, Morningside, June 15, aged 68.

GEORGE SMITH, Esq., S.S.C. (1850), Sheriff-Clerk of Zetland, died at Braeside House, Lerwick, June 6.

ANGUS GREGORSON, Esq., Solicitor, Oban, died there suddenly, June 15, aged 57. Mr. Gregorson was agent for the National Bank of Scotland, Town-Clerk of Oban, and held some other minor appointments.

JOHN DUNDAS, Esq., C.S. (1826), died at his house, 25 St. Andrew Square, May 27. The Courant says, in an article full of personal knowledge: "He belonged to a family which has for more than a century been connected with the legal profession in this city. His father, Mr. James Dundas, C.S., of Ochtertyre, was a cadet of the family of Dundas of Manor, and was for many years head of the eminent professional house now known as Dundas & Wilson, Clerks to the Signet a house which was founded by an eminent feudal jurist, Mr. David Erskine, son of John Erskine of Carnock, author of the 'Institutes of the Law of Scotland.' His mother

He

was Elizabeth, third daughter of William Graham, of Airth; and of these parents the subject of this notice was the fifth son. was born on 19th December 1803; and after receiving his education at the High School, he entered his father's house, and was admitted Clerk to the Signet on 29th June 1826. Since that time, until the last few years, he was engaged in the active exercise of his profession. On his father's death in April 1831, he became the head of the legal firm, which position he retained to the last. He was also at the time of his death a director of the Royal Bank of Scotland, and of the Standard Life Assurance Company. In 1830 he married Jemima Christian, fifth daughter to Day Hort Macdowall, of Walkinshaw and Castlesemple. She predeceased him, leaving six daughters and a son; and he was laid by her side on the 31st of May, in the burial-place of St. John's Episcopal Church.

"Of Mr. Dundas's professional career it may be sufficient so say that he was the confidential adviser of a large body of clients, and that of the majority of them he was also the valued personal friend. While yet young in his profession, he was appointed a member of the Law Commission in 1837, and his services on that occasion have been frequently noticed. From party politics he kept himself altogether free. When he encountered a hot-headed partisan, he usually placed himself, for the nonce, on the opposite side, and seldom failed to enlist the laugh on that side by showing that things undoubted were open to question, and that there was sometimes a lack of evidence for propositions deemed self-evident. His skill of fence and freedom of speech thus pleased and displeased both sides in turn, with the usual result, that he was 'by Tories called a Whig, by Whigs a Tory.' We have heard him say that he never gave a vote in his life at any Parliamentary election; which is worth recording, as showing the independent and over-critical character of a man whose youth and early manhood were spent in an atmosphere charged with political electricity.

"From his earliest years he was a lover of books and literature. An excellent Latin scholar, he loved and excelled in Latin verse, and many of his poetical pieces, both Latin and English, although generally short, are well worthy of preservation. Like his brothers, William Dundas of Ochtertyre, Sir David Dundas, and Lord Manor, he was a diligent book collector, and his taste and knowledge in that capacity were well known both in Edinburgh and London. Nor was he contented, like some amateurs, with buying, binding, and preserving books; he was also a diligent reader of them; and few of his contemporaries had a fuller and deeper acquaintance with old English literature. He was very fastidious about the binding of his books. One work in his library he highly valued. It was presented to him by the late Lord Jeffrey and other distinguished friends, who all signed a special inscription bearing that it was gifted for his disinterested endeavours to serve a common friend.

"Mr. Dundas could use the pencil with no inconsiderable skill. Whenever his professional work permitted, he loved to visit the country, and in his early days would sometimes walk great distances, and all night, to indulge a taste which was with him a passion. Angling was his favourite sport, and few more skilful or successful brothers of the rod ever cast a line over the Tweed, or Teith, or Tay. He was also a great master of woodcraft, and delighted, when occasion served, to superintend the thinning of woods, and exercised with equal pleasure his arms in pruning or felling trees.

"With these various tastes and accomplishments, and with a very large gift of humour, his conversation was eminently attractive. Few subjects could be started on which he was not capable of throwing some fresh light, or which, at least, he could not present in a new aspect. He often, as those who were associated with him in the daily and familiar business of life will well remember, found matter for a jest in things and places the least promising; and many of his sayings will live after him in the memories and traditions of his contemporaries. In his countenance and manner there was a certain sternness which enhanced the effect of their coruscations, as well as of the genial laugh, which told that he in turn had been tickled. There was in all he said and did a sort of humorous undertone or subdued flavour which made his presence very pleasant, and his good things very hard to report. To those who knew him, one example may serve to recall his peculiar manner and the gravity and calmness which added zest to his mots. A friend, who was in the habit of giving general rather than special invitations to his dinner-table, accosting him with the well-known 'I hope you will come and dine with us one of these days,' received a reply which may perhaps have checked for a while his tendency to vague hospitality: 'I am very sorry that I cannot have that pleasure, being particularly engaged on that occasion.' No man more thoroughly enjoyed, perhaps few so thoroughly understood, the peculiar humour of his native land. A collection of Scotch sayings and stories from his hand would have been as good of its kind as the 'Apophthegmata' of Bacon. In his fishing excursions he seemed to have the faculty of eliciting anything that was characteristic amongst the country folks with whom he mingled, and who always welcomed his return amongst them. The moral and intellectual nature of the Highlander, especially of the Highlands of western Perthshire, was ever with him a favourite study; and many were the waifs and strays of shrewdness or simplicity with which he would afterwards regale his friends over their claret. One adventure by the Tay it was well worth a day's journey to hear him relate. The day's sport led him up one side of the water and down the other. In the morning his guide, who carried his creel, pointed out a farm on the opposite bank which was infested by a peculiarly savage dog, the terror of the neighbourhood. As they returned in the evening, and had entered upon the lands of the farm, a growl was heard, and the dog in person was seen standing in the path a hundred yards ahead. 'What is to be done now?' said Mr. Dundas, turning to his conductor. 'Weel, sir, I'se warrant ye'd best gae first, for it's weel kent that he's aye warst upon them that's hindmost.' The value of the advice was happily not tested, the dog, 'though vicious to others, was gentle to them,' and the anecdote was well worth the fright it had cost.

"The stately figure of Mr. Dundas was long well known in Edinburgh. But of late years his faltering steps forcibly recalled his own description of himself to one of his humble piscatory attendants :-' I fear, Mr. Dundas, that auld age is creeping upon you.' 'Creeping! old age has rushed after me, has overtaken me, and almost finished me.'

"In hard professional work, and in relaxation-consisting sometimes of reading and writing and drawing; sometimes in rambles, rod in hand, by his well-known and well-loved native rivers-his useful, honourable, and blameless life was passed. He is one of the men of whom their friends must say with a sigh, that, for lack perhaps of opportunity, or perhaps of the stimulus of necessity or ambition, the remarkable intellectual gifts with which he was endowed were never displayed on any wider stage, but remained in a considerable degree dormant, as part of the reserved force of a generation now passing away. A man of gifts so rich and sympathetic, so large and genial, he was beloved by many friends, who unite with his family in deploring his loss and in cherishing his memory."

Notes of English, American, and Colonial Cases.

STAMP "Conveyance on sale of Property" - meaning of "Property"-" Covenant being the only or principal security for payment of money." - By a deed made between the Limmer Asphalte Company of the first part, the directors of the company of the second, and H. (therein styled the "licensee") of the third part, the company-in consideration of £7,500, of which £1,500 was paid down on the execution of the deed, and the balance, £6,000, was to be paid by six equal monthly instalments-granted to the licensee, his executors, etc., the sole and exclusive right, license, and authority to carry on with the asphalte to be supplied by the company (but not with any other) the business of asphalte paving and dealing in asphalte within the counties of Lancaster and Chester, and not elsewhere, for the then remaining unexpired periods for which certain concessions then held by the company had respectively been granted. The licensee covenanted to pay the instalments when due with interest; and the deed contained a proviso that if he should assign over the benefit of the license, the whole of the instalments then remaining unpaid should immediately become payable. Held, that this deed was not chargeable with stamp duty as a "conveyance or transfer of property," within the meaning of the "Stamp Act, 1870;" but that it was properly chargeable with a stamp duty of ten shillings, and also with an ad valorem duty of 2s. 6d. per cent, on the £6000 remaining unpaid, as a "mortgage or covenant, being the only or principal or primary security for the payment of money," within the meaning of the schedule to the Act.-Limmer Asphalte Company v. Commissioners of Inland Revenue, 41 L. J., Ex. 106.

NEGLIGENCE-Patent agent-Liability for ignorance of law-Delay in getting patent sealed.- A patent agent is expected to know the law relating to the practice of getting patents. Where therefore such agent who was employed to procure a patent, being not aware of the decision of the Lord Chancellor in Re Bates and Redgate (which makes it necessary, notwithstanding provisional specification has been filed, to take care that the patent is sealed before another patent for the same invention is obtained by a later applicant), delayed four months between filing the provisional specification and applying to have the patent sealed, whereby a subsequent applicant for a patent for the same invention was able to get his patent sealed first, and so prevent such agent from procuring a patent for his employer, -Held, evidence of negligence, for which such patent agent might be liable in an action at the suit of his employer.-Lee v. Walker, 41 L. J., C. P. 91.

DAMAGE-Remoteness-Proximate cause-Frozen water on a highway-Liability for a wrongful act. -Deft. washed a van of his on the part of the street opposite his coach-house, and the water so used ran along the gutter by the side of the street for about seventy feet down to the corner of another street, where, meeting an obstruction, it accumulated and expanded over part of the roadway, instead of going as usual into the sewer, and there being a sharp frost at the time it shortly became frozen over. The cleaning a van in the street was an offence under the Metropolitan Police Act, 2 & 3 Vict. c. 47, sec. 54, subs. 1, but deft. was not shown to have known of the obstruction at the corner, and if he had cleaned the van in the coach-house the water would also have gone into the same gutter in the street. Held, that deft. was not liable to plt. for damage caused to his horse by slipping whilst passing over the frozen water at the corner, as such damage was too remote, and was not the immediate and proximate cause of deft.'s act. --Sharp v. Powell, 41 L. J., C. P. 95.

MASTER AND SERVANT-Damages-Unfenced machinery-7 & 8 Vict. c. 15, sec. 21-Contributory Negligence. A company any for the manufacture of cotton employed a servant to grease the bearings between the fly-wheel and the spurwheel of a steam-engine in their factory. The fly-wheel revolved in a wheel race parallel to a wall and on one side of it, and the spur-wheel revolved, parallel, on the other side. The extreme distance between the two wheels was two feet ten inches, and the wall was two feet three inches thick. In a hole made in this wall the servant stood or sat while he greased the bearings. The wheel race was one which ought to have been fenced or otherwise secured within 7 & 8 Vict. c. 15, sec. 21. The fly-wheel on the side next the wall and the edge of the wheel race on that side were not fenced. The servant having been at this work for five days, was found on the sixth lying dead on the bearings, and it was not disputed that he must have been caught and killed by the fly-wheel. The administratrix of the deceased having brought an action on behalf of the widow and child against the company for negligence in not fencing the wheel race, as required by the statute, -Held, assuming that the deceased was not guilty of contributory negligence either in undertaking the employment or in conducting it, that the action was maintainable.--Britton v. Great Western Cotton Co., 41 L. J., Ex. 99.

FOREIGN COMPANY-Libel-Costs-Powers of Directors. The governing body of a corporation, which is in fact a trading partnership, cannot in general use the funds of the community for any purpose other than those for which they are constituted; whether that governing body is exclusively directors, or a council general, or the majority at a general meeting of the company. Therefore the special powers given either to the directors or to a majority by the statutes or other constituent documents of the association, are always to be construed as subject to a paramount and inherent restriction, that they are to be exercised in subjection to the special purposes of the original bond of association. That is not a mere canon in the English Municipal Law, but a great and broad principle, which must be taken (in the absence of proof to the contrary) as part of any given system of Jurisprudence. The costs of a prosecu