I come now to notice very briefly the English Law in relation to cemeteries; and here too I hold we find no authority for expropriation for denominational cemeteries, and for much the same reasons as in France.

In England, there exist not only the claims of a national church, but cemeteries are truly public and under the control of public authority. It is sufficient to cite the principal Acts of the Imperial Parliament relative to cemeteries, to shew what a matter of national ooncern they are.

The principal acts constituting the law of England on the subject as it now stands are known by the general name of the Burial Acts. Under these Acts, Burial Boards, subject to the control or one of Her Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State and to Her Majesty in Council, are established all over England, divided into Burial Districts, for the purpose of providing and maintaining great public cemeteries.

The principal of these Burial Acts are: "The Metropolitan Interments Act, 1850," amended by 15 and 16, Vict. c. 85, the principles of which have been extended to the whole of England by "An Act to amend the laws concerning Burial of the dead in England beyond the limits of the Metropolis, and to amend the Act concerning Burial of the dead in the Metropolis; " 16 and 17 Vict. c. 134. Also: "An Act to make further provision for the Burial of the dead in England beyond the limits of the Metropolis," 17 and 18 Vict. c. 87, also the 18 and 19 Vict. c. 79; and c. 128, "An Act to further amend the laws concerning the Burial ol the dead in England." The whole amended by 20 and 21, Vict. c. 81; "An Act to amend the Burial Acts; and 22 Vict. c. 1, "An Act more effectually to prevent danger to Public Health from places of Burial," also the 23 and 24, Vict. c. 64, and the 25 and 26 Vict. c. 100.

The preamble to the Metropolitan Act, in its tenor and objects like the others Aets, says; "Whereas it is expedient to make better provision for the Interment of the dead in and near the Metropolis: Be it therefore enacted &c., &c.,; that the Cities and Liberties of London and Westminster respectively the Borough of Southwark, and the Parishes, Townships, Precincts, and Places mentioned in the Schedule (A) to this Act, shall for the purposes of this Act be One District to be called, "The Metropolitun Burial District."

Extend these Burial Districts with their Burial Boards and

public cemeteries open to all denominations over all Englandthe whole subject, as stated, to the control of n Secretary of State and orders in Council, and this alone is enough to shew that allowing expropriation for such a great public and national system, cannot be invoked as authority in cases of denominational cemeteries here.

The length of this article already will not allow an examination of the elaborate provisions of thsse Burial Acts, which would furnish additional proof, if any were required, to support the pretentions I have urged.

The fact that a particular portion of the cemetery may be set aside for the national church does not affect the argument any more than does assigning different portions of the Municipal cemeteries in France to different religious persuasions.

In both countries there is a connection between State and Church that does not exist here—and in both the cemeteries still continue subject to the control of the public authorities and remain public or municipal property.

This article has been devoted chiefly to pointing out in some measure how devoid of authority we are on expropriation in the usual sources of our jurisprudence, particularly in old French. Law, and that to cite simply and directly even from Modern French and English systems is to be led astray unless we take into amount the differences of political constitution, of the relations between the State and the religious societies within it, and many other modifying circumstances, on all which intimately depends the law of expropriation, being wholly unlike in this respect mere private law which is comparatively independant of such circumstances.

The question of expropriation for cemeteries has been noticed. mainly by way of illustrating this part of the subject. Without reverting to it again, the subject will be continued on the other two heads referred to at the beginning of this article.

NORMAN W. TRENHOLME.

JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS.

A great deal of excitement has been created in England by the appointment of Sir R. Collier to the seat in the Court of Common Pleas vacated by Mr. Justice Montague Smith, in order simply to qualify the late Attorney General for a seat in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, under the 34 & 35 Vic. c. 91.

The following correspondence on the subject has been published:

Sir,-Having heard with considerable pain, on authority on which I can rely, that an impression prevails among the legal profession that my objection to the late appointment of Sir Robert Collier, as cotmmunicaed to Mr. Gladstone, was based inter alia on an ungenerous disparagement of the personal merits of the late Attorney-General, I am naturally desirous of removing an impression which is the reverse of the truth, and of having the grounds of my objection properly understood. The shortest way of effecting this being the publication of the ensuing correspondence, with which otherwise I might not have thought it necessary to trouble the public, I shall be glad if you can conveniently find room for it in your columns.

I beg to remain,

Dec. 2, 1871.

Your obedient servant,

A. E. COCKBURN.

The Lord Chief Justice to Mr. Gladstone.

Court of Queen's Bench: Nov. 10, 1871. Dear Mr. Gladstone,-It is universally believed that the appointment of Sir Robert Collier to the seat in the Court of Common Pleas, vacated by Mr. Justice Montague Smith, has been made, not with a view to the discharge of the duties of a judge of that Court, but simply to qualify the late Attorney-General for a seat in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, under the recent Act of the 34 & 35 Vict. c. 91.

I feel warranted in assuming the general belief to which I have referred to be well founded, from the fact that the Lord Chancellor, with a view to contemplated changes in our judicial system, has, notwithstanding my earnest remonstrance, declined for the last two years to fill up the vacant judgeship in the Court of Queen's Bench. 1 cannot suppose that the Lord Chancellor would fill up the number of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas, while, to the great inconvenience of the suitors and the public, the number of the judges of the Queen's Bench is kept incomplete.

I assume, therefore, that the announcement in the public papers, which has so startled and astounded the legal profession, is true; and, this being so, I feel myself called upon, both as the head of the common law of England and as a member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to beg you, if not too late, to reconsider any deci sion that may have been come to in this matter; or, at all events, to record my emphatic protest against the course proposed-as a judge; because a colourable appointment to a judgeship for the purpose of evading the law appears to me most seriously to compromise the dignity of the judicial office—as a member of the Judicial Committee, because, while grave doubts as to the legality ot the appointment are entertained in many quarters, none seem to exist as to its grievous impropriety as a mere subterfuge and evasion of the statute.

The statute in question (34 & 35 Vict. c. 91) contains in section 1 the following enactment :

"Any persons appointed to act under the provisions of this Act as members of the said Judicial Committee must be specially qualified as follows-that is to say, must at the date of their appointment be, or have been, judges of one of Her Majesty's Superior Courts at Westminster, or a Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Port William in Bengal, or Madras, or Bombay, or of the late Supreme Court of Judicature in Bengal."

Now, the meaning of the legislature in passing this enactment is plain and unmistakeable. It was intended to secure in the constitution of the high appellate tribunal, by which appeals, many of them in cases of vast importance from our Indian possessions as well as from the rest of our colonial empire, are to be finally decided, the appointment of persons who had already held judicial office as judges of the Superior Courts. Whether wisely or unwisely, it plainly was not intended that the selection might be made from the bar. It was to be confined to those who were, or had been, judges, and who, in the actual and practical exercise of judicial functions, had acquired and given proof of learning, knowledge, experience, and the other qualifications which constitute judicial excellence. No exception in this respect is made in favour of an Attorney-General or other law officer of the Crown, who, however eminent and distinguished their position, of course remain members of the bar. Nothing could have been easier; had it been intended to make such an exception, than to have included the law officers of the Crown among the persons specified as eligible. But the eligibility of the law officers does not even appear to have been contemplated by the Government in passing the present Act, a provision enabling the appointment to the Judicial Committee to be made from the bar, contained in the bill of the previous year, having been, I presume purposely, omitted from the bill as introduced in the last session. It is, however, unnecessary to dwell further on this point. No one will be found to say that is was intended to make a law officer, as such, eligible under this Act,

It being, then, plain that the intention of the Legislature was that the selection should be made from the judges, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the appointment of the Attorney-General, who, as such, was not qualified under the statute, to a judgeship (the functions of which he is not intended to discharge) in order that he may thus become qualified according to the letter of the Act, cannot be looked upon otherwise than as colourable, as an evasion of the statute, and a palpable violation, if not of its letter, at all events of its spirit and meaning. I cannot help thinking of what would have been the language in which the Court of Queen's Bench would have expressed its opinion, if such an evasion of a statute had been at. tempted for the purpose of qualifying an individual for a municipal office, and the case had been brought before it on an information in the nature of quo warranto. In the present instance, the Legislature having settled the qualification for the newly-created office, momen. tarily to invest a party, otherwise not qualified, with a qualifying office, not that he shall hold the latter, but that he may be immediately transferred to the former, appears to me, I am bound to say, to be nothing less than the manufacture of a qualification, not very dissimilar in character to the manufacture of qualifications such as we have known practised in other instances in order to evade the law. Forgive me, I pray you, if I ask you to consider whether such a proceeding should be resorted to in a matter intimately connected with the administration of justice in its highest departments.

It would obviously afford no answer to the objection to the propo sed appointment, to say that a gentleman who has held the position of a law officer of the Crown must be taken to be qualified to fill any judicial office, however high or important. This might have been a cogent argument to induce the Legislature to include the AttorneyGeneral among the persons "specially qualified" under the Act; but it can afford no justification for having recourse to what cannot be regarded as anything better than a contrivance to evade the stringency of the statute as it stands. The section in question makes the office of an Indian Chief Justice a qualification for an appointment to the Judicial Committee. Suppose that, as might easily have happened, an Indian Chief Justiceship had chance to be vacant. An Attorney-General would, of course, be perfectly qualified for the office.. What would have been said if the Attorney-General had been appointed to such a Chief Justiceship, not with the intention of his proceed. ing to India to fill the office, but simply for the purpose of his be coming qualified, according to the letter of the statute, for an appointment to the Judicial Committee? What an outcry would have been raised at so palpable an evasion of the Act! But, what possible dif-. ference, allow me to ask, can there be, in principle, between such an appointment as the one I have just referred to and an appointment to a judgeship in the Court of Common Pleas, the duties of which it is not intended shall be discharged, for the sole purpose