tradesman is then considered (even though he have notice not to trust her) as standing in her place and as indirectly enforcing her right to be maintained: Montague v. Benedict;" Martin on Maintenance and Desertion, p. 7. But the presumption in law is then against her being the agent of her husband and entitled to pledge his credit, and it lies on the creditor to show that she is living apart from her husband under such circumstances as give her an implied authority to pledge his credit.

If the wife leaves her husband without cause and without consent she carries with her no implied authority to maintain herself at his expense. The wife may put an end altogether by her conduct to the liability of the husband to maintain her.

By the law of England a soldier of the regular forces is liable to contribute to the maintenance of his wife and of his children to the same extent as if he were a civilian, but execution in respect of any such liability, or of any other order or decree in respect of such maintenance, may not issue against his person, pay, or belongings, nor is he liable to be punished as a civilian would for the offence of deserting, or neglecting to maintain his wife or family, or any member thereof, or of leaving her or them chargeable to any parish, union or place. A copy of any such order or decree made against a soldier is sent to the Army Council which deals with the matter as provided by military law. Martin on Maintenance and Desertion, pp. 24, 25.

Reference may now be appropriately made to Canadian legislation as to duties towards dependents contained in the following sections of the Canadian Criminal Code which are based upon the common law duties to preserve the lives of dependents, as distinguished from duties of maintenance towards them which are enforced by provincial legislation and the common law.

142 B. & C. 635.

'241. Duty of person in charge of others to provide necessaries of life. Every one who has charge of any other person unable by reason either of detention, age, sickness, insanity or any other cause, to withdraw himself from such charge, and unable to provide himself with the necessaries of life, is whether such charge is undertaken by him under any contract, or is imposed upon him by law, or by reason of his unlawful act, under a legal duty to supply that person with the necessaries of life, and is criminally responsible for omitting, without lawful excuse, to perform such duty if the death of such person is caused, or if his life is endangered, or his health has been or is likely to be permanently injured, by such omission.

242. Duty of head of family to provide necessaries.—Every one who as parent, guardian or head of a family is under a legal duty to provide necessaries for any child under the age of sixteen years is criminally responsible for omitting, without lawful excuse, to do so while such child remains a member of his or her household, whether such child is helpless or not, if the death of such child is caused, or if his life is endangered, or his health is or is likely to be permanently injured, by such omission.

2. Every one who is under a legal duty to provide necessaries for his wife, is criminally responsible for omitting, without lawful excuse so to do, if the death of his wife is caused, or if her life is endangered, or her health is or is likely to be permanently injured, by such omission.

242a. Punishment.-Every one is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of five hundred dollars, or to one year's imprisonment, or to both, who

(a) as a husband or head of a family, is under a legal duty to provide necessaries for his wife or any child under sixteen years of age; or,

(b) as a parent or guardian, is under a legal duty to provide necessaries for any child under sixteen years of age; and who, if such wife or child is in destitute or necessitous circumstances, without lawful excuse, neglects or refuses to provide such necessaries.

224b. Evidence of marriage and parentage.-Upon any prosecution under sections 242 or 242a, evidence that a man has cohabited with a woman or has in any way recognized her as being his wife, shall be prima facie evidence that they are lawfully married, and evidence that a man has in any way recognized children as being his children shall be prima facie evidence that they are his legitimate children.

243. Duty of masters to provide necessaries.-Every one who, as master or mistress, has contracted to provide necessary food, clothing or lodging for any servant or apprentice under the age of sixteen years, is under a legal duty to provide the same, and is criminally responsible for omitting, without lawful excuse, to perform such duty, if the death of such servant or apprentice is caused, if his life is endangered, or his health has been or is likely to be permanently injured by such omission.

244. Omitting duty to provide necessaries.-Every one is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to three years' imprisonment who, being bound to perform any duty specified in the three last preceding sections, without lawful excuse neglects or refuses to do so, unless the offence amounts to culpable homicide.'

It is not considered advisable, owing to the exigencies of space, to annotate the foregoing sections of the Code, by citing decisions given under them. My article in the C. L. T. Vol. 36, p. 670, deals with sec. 241. The Crown case reserved, of Reg. v. Brown,15 may, however, be referred to, being a Canadian case, decided under the common law in 1893, without reference to the Criminal Code, 1892. Mr. Justice Wetmore convicted the prisoner of manslaughter, reserving a case for the full Court, for his neglect to inform a doctor of the seriously disabled condition to which his servant, a boy working for board and lodging, was reduced in consequence of fatal frost bites received in the prisoner's barn, where his master ordered him to sleep for reasons not considered unlawful. The prisoner attended to the boy in his plight to a certain extent, but neglected to inform a physician. The holding of His Lordship was that

"in view of the age of the deceased, the circumstances of the country, the fact of there being no provision for maintaining poor people, it was the duty of the prisoner, as master, towards the deceased as his servant, to have taken care of him and that, by his omission to do so he was guilty of gross negligence, to which the lad's death was attributable, and that, therefore, the prisoner was guilty of manslaughter."

The conviction was confirmed by the Court in banc.

It is quite apparent that the neglect of persons to acquit themselves according to law of the civil responsibilities or common law duties arising from their relations with others may result in their criminal responsibility under the above sections of the Code, which, whenever it is sought to enforce them, raise the preliminary question whether such civil responsibilities or common law duties actually exist.

Ottawa.

151 Terr. L. R. 475.

VOL. XXXVII. C.L.T.-14

A. J. MCGILLIVRAY.

SOME INSTANCES OF LEGAL AND ACADEMIC RITUAL.

In various spheres of human activity-religious, legal, academic, military, occur instances of apparently meaningless and useless ritual. Generally they are either ridiculed as mere mummery, or defended only as interesting historical survivals. Such ritual, however, is natural to mankind. Those who laugh at it in one form will observe it in another. The stout protestant who condemns the ritualism of the Roman Church may of course do so because he objects to the doctrines which the ritual symbolizes, but when he objects to ritual per se, is he not inconsistent in his actions on July 12th? So too in the Church of England before the Oxford Movement a strange ritual was devised with the parson and clerk as protagonists, and the three-decker and black gown as properties.

There is also a certain practical value even to-day in keeping to conventional arrangements. The instructions issued in military manuals for the setting out of "kit" for inspection seem at first needlessly complicated; but in the end much time is saved if the inspecting officer is accustomed to one arrangement, and does not have to look in different places for the boots and tooth brush in each separate pile. Ritual and conventionalism also make for decency and order in all things and in consequence should not be hastily abandoned.

In the past, too, there was probably an additional practical use of ritual. Before the days of printing and rapid multiplication of copies, or the easy storage of written evidence, there was a real need of impressing all transactions of importance, such as the sale of land or the conferring of degrees, upon the minds and memories of a number of living witnesses. Hence a series of definite and clearly marked actions which all might observe and remember, and which tend to

survive even after their significance has become obscured. Thus at Oxford every candidate for a degree is expected to go through the established rite and it is still a difficult matter to obtain it in absentia.

But even where it can be shewn that an ancient ritual has no longer any practical use and that it is interesting only as a historical survival, let us not be in too great haste to cut it away. By the very fact that it is a survival it may be valuable not only to the antiquarian but also to the historian. As long as it does not impair efficiency, its retention may and will be defended by all who have any historic sense, and are not like the young lady who told Professor Lecky that she took no stock in history, as she preferred to let bygones be bygones.

A few instances are offered here, drawn from the legal and academic spheres. The former are taken from ancient history, as happily for himself the writer has not much acquaintance with modern law-courts.

In the two legal instances here given it is not quite easy to determine how much in the surviving descriptions is serious, how much farcical. For the Romans, conservative and legally minded as they were, could afford to laugh at their own Court proceedings when it suited their purpose.

In the Pro Mureno Cicero is defending the newly elected consul on the charge of bribery and corruption at the polls. From the speech as we have it, it would at first sight seem as if he almost altogether avoids. the legal issue, and discusses all sorts of irrelevant matters, such as the question whether Murena was a"dancer" (saltator)-to the Roman the dancer was primarily a "bounder", and had led too gay a life when in the rich province of Asia. His main argument is the purely political one that the conspiracy of Catiline was not yet crushed, and that to throw Rome into the turmoil of a new election would be playing into the hands of the mischief-makers still left in the city. Such irrelevancies, however, were allowed