generally regarded as deserving of admiration, and the only re. grets expressed will be that Quebec law unfortunately does not at the present moment admit of an analogous proceeding.

In Quebec, to the shame of its inhabitants, let it be regretfully said, there is no public opinion. It is quite possible to excite religious or national hatreds, but it is simply impossible to interest the public in the administration of justice. Now-a-days the grand object of man's existence being to make money, the proper administration of the law, the purity of the Bench, and the security of property and life are subjects which do not command public attention. Absorbed in money making, the people of the Province of Quebec have no time for any other occupation. Municipal, protectionist, railway, religious, and political rings, manage the affairs of the country. Seats on the Bench are amongst the prizes offered by political rings for uncompromising support, and it makes very little matter whether rouge or bleu be in the ascendant, the same principle is acted on by both parties, and generally judgeships are conferred, not on account of fitness for the office, but because it is necessary to provide for a member of the party in power.

The system is radically bad, for in lieu of good lawyers, wornout politicians are placed on the Bench. If a man is a political failure, presto he is made judge, so that there is a very fair chance of the Bench becoming the receptacle for that favored class of the community, which, fifty years ago in England was said to monopolize the Church. Thanks to the system, the Bench of Quebec does not command the respect which is accorded to persons occupying judicial positions in other countries. Complaints against the judges are made from all parts of the Province, and although amongst them are many hard-working earnest and wellread men, yet they have to share the odium with those whose sole qualification for the office was a thorough subservience to their political leaders.

Is it possible to suggest any mode by which none but fit and proper persons should be appointed to the Bench? In the first place, inducements must be offered sufficiently strong to make men cleave to their profession and not forsake its practice for the struggles of the political arena. A judge should be placed in such a position as regards salary as to make him perfectly independent. Judges now-a-days receive in Montreal and Quebec £1000 per annum, the same salary judges received sixty years

ago, when the actual expenses of living were not one-half what they are at present. The salary now-a-days is insufficient. Cashiers and managers of banks receive, as a rule, higher compensation for their services. Many merchants, brokers, insurance agents, and barristers, make far more than $4000 per annum. Consequently, it is impossible for the judge to retain that position in society which his office requires, if his salary be not such at all events as to enable him to live like a gentleman, and to absolve him from the necessity of grudging every farthing given in charity as an act of robbery of his creditors. A judge, then, should have at least $6000 per annum. In the next place judges should be taken from the ranks of practising advocates; nothing is more absurd than the nomination of a Clerk of a Court to a seat on the Bench; it is a realization of the old proverb of "put a beggar on horseback," &c. It in fact may be regarded as a violation of our law, which is in the following words: "The Chief Justice and Judges of the Superior Court, when the ninth section of the Act 20 Vic. c. 44 took effect, remain such by virtue of the commissions they then held; the new Judges of the Court were appointed from among the then Circuit Judges and the Advocates of at least ten years' standing at the Bar of Lower Canada; and all future Judges shall be appointed from such Advocates of the said standing." (C. S. L. C. c. 78, s. 7.) With respect to the Queen's Bench, it is provided that no one shall be appointed as Chief Justice or Judge thereof unless at the time of his appointment he hos been a judge of the Superior Court, or is an advocate of at least ten years' standing at the Bar of Lower Canada. (C. S. L. C. c. 77, s. 1, § 2.)

But the real difficulty arises when it is proposed to take away the right of appointment from those who now enjoy it and vest it elsewhere.

In England it has been proposed to vest the right of nominating the judges in the Lord Chancellor and Chief Justices. Here it may perhaps be permitted to advocate a still greater departure from old principles.

Who, may it be asked, have a greater interest in securing the appointment of a fit person to be a judge than the Bar and the Bench of the district within which such judge after his appointment is to act? Where can there be found persons better qualified to judge of a person's fitness for a seat upon the Bench than those who plead against him and those who hear him plead, nearly

every day of their lives. Taking, then, the opportunities possessed of judging fairly, considering also their interest in choosing the most fit and proper person for the office, it must be admitted that the Bur and the Bench of the district in which a man practises his profession, should be the best judges of his fitness for promotion to the Bench.

Why not then allow such Bar and Bench to give the benefit of their experience and knowledge to the Minister of Justice, who now-a-days can know but very little of the personnel of the Quebec Bar.

Should a vacancy occur on the Bench of the Superior Court in Montreal, for instance, let all barristers of over ten years' standing, practising in the district meet, and by a plurality of votes suggest the names of six practising barristers to the Judges of the Superior Court there resident, who should be bound to select from the six names so suggested, three, which should be sent in to the Minister of Justice, who should thereupon appoint one of the three barristers whose names had been so received, to the vacant seat on the Bench.

It may be urged that politics would in any meeting of the Bar colour the nominition, but the necessity of the names suggested being approved of by the Judges, would in all likelihood prevent such a misfortune; moreover, vesting the right to vote solely in men of over ten years' standing, would have a great effect in checking such an abuse. Were, however, politics to control such a meeting, it might well be said, that it was useless struggling to obtain a good Bench, owing simply to the fact that the Bar was too irretrievably bad.

WM. H. KERR.

"WILLS AND INTESTACY."

The article of the Hon. J. H. Gray, entitled "Wills and Intestacy," published in the last number of La Revue Critique, has been criticised in the Canada Law Journal, Vol. 7 N. S., p. 286, and also by a correspondent of authority from New Brunswick. The criticisms in question were communicated to Mr. Gray but lately, owing to his absence from Ottawa, and he has just informed us that it is impossible for him to enter upon a discussion of the points involved in the present number, but that in April he will answer the objections taken. We puolish below the criticisms referred to.

The Canada Law Journal observes :

LA RÉDACTION.

"From the general tenor of the essay, it appears that the author professes to show wherein the law on the subject differs in the various Provinces. If his remarks were confined to the statutes merely, they would not be so open to criticism; but, as we have seen, he does not confine himself to those alone. He commences by stating that :-

"In New-Brunswick, a testator may, by his will, dispose of all property, and rights of property, real and personal, in possession or expectancy, corporeal and incorporeal, contingent or otherwise, to which he is entitled, either in law or equity, at the time of the execution of his will, or to which he may expect to become at any time entitled, or be entitled to at the time of his death, whether such rights or property have accrued to him before or after the cxecution of his will. In Nova Scotia, the same."

"It is further said that :

"In Ontario, there is no provision of this general character; but, by the Consolidated Statutes of Upper Canada, chapter 82, section 11, real estate, acquired subsequently to the execution of a will, would pass under a devise conveying such real estate as testator might die possessed of."

"Now, the provisions of this section of the U. C. Con. Stat. are overridden, if not virtually repealed, by the Ontario Act of 32 Vic. cap. 8, sec. 1, which now governs, and under which afteracquired property passes. Gibson v. Gibson, 1 Drew, 62; Leith's Real Prop. Statutes, 293. The statute we have referred to reads

as follows: Every will shall be construed, with reference to the real and personal estate comprised in it, to speak and take effect as if it had been executed immediately before the death of the testator, unless a contrary intention appears by the will.'

Contingent and executory interests were devisable under the Statute of Wills of Henry VIII. and 1 Jarman on Wills, p. 43; and consequently, by reason of the application of that statute here, such interests were also devisable in Ontario since 32 Geo. III. cap. 1, introducing the English law. Independently of this, it has generally been considered here that the Consolidated Statute referred to, authorized devises to fully as large an extent as is said to be the law in New Brunswick: (See secs. 11, 11, 12.)

"Futher on in the article it is said that in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia a testator must be of age,' but that in Ontario there is no provision to this effect.' Now, the Statute of Wills of Henry VIII. is, as above mentioned, the origin and source here of the right to devise, and governs, unless varied by subsequent Acts. It expressly exempts infants from the right there given to devise, and we need hardly mention that at common law no one could devise a freehold.

"It is further said, where speaking of the execution of wills, that in Ontario there is no general statute, as in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, with reference to wills; and reference is made to Con. Stat. U. C. cap. 82, s. 13. The Statute of Frauds should also have been referred to as applying to the mode of execution of wills here. That statute was introduced here by the Act of 32 Geo. III. cap. 1, above referred to. It is in force, and cumulative in its provisions with secs. 13 of Con. Stat. U. C. cap. 82. Mr. Leith, in his work on Real Property Statutes, vol. 1, p. 290, recites the provisions of section 5 of Statute of Frauds (29 Car. II. cap. 3), which enacts as follows:

"All devises and bequests of any lands and tenements, devisable either by force of the Statute of Wills, or by this statute, or by force of the custom of Kent, or the custom of any borough, or of any particular custom, shall be in writing, and signed by the party so devising the same, or by some other person in his presence, and by his express directions, and shall be attested and subscribed in the presence of the said devisor by three or four credible witnesses, or else shall be utterly void and of none effect."

"Mr. Leith then goes on to say

"The variance between the statute of Charles and of William is this; that by the former the will must be attested and subscribed, in