pleadings or record of the evidence being kept. In all applications for this legal remedy the parties themselves were declared eligible as witnesses, and the Sheriff or Justices were empowered, if satisfied, to grant the prayer on the evidence of one credible witness, although such witness might be the complainer himself. As regards the caution to be found, the said section of the Act provides (sub-sections 5, 6, 7) that the amount shall be in the discretion of the Sheriff, Sheriff-Substitute, or Justice of the Peace ordering such caution, who may even ordain the respondent to execute a bond for himself without caution; but if caution is ordered and not found, the Sheriff or SheriffSubstitute and Justice of the Peace shall, on failure, order the respondent to be imprisoned for a period not exceeding six months if the order is made in the Sheriff Court; but if made in the Justice of Peace Court, for a period not exceeding fourteen days. Failure by a person who has been ordered, but has not executed a bond by himself without caution will also involve similar periods of imprisonment under either a Sheriff Court or a Justice of Peace interlocutor. If imprisonment takes place, the expense of maintaining the recalcitrant respondent is not to be borne by the complainer, but the defaulter shall be subject to the ordinary rules of maintenance provided for persons imprisoned for contempt of Court. Such is a brief resumé of this antiquated Scottish legal process, which, although it has been simplified and modernised, is now almost in desuetude, simply because the Police Courts of the country are sufficiently adequate in most instances of "cursing and threats of violence" to protect the lieges; and we can hardly imagine that the two or three actions which annually find their way into our Civil Courts are likely to be perceptibly increased; indeed, the wonder is that the process of lawburrows is, even at this time of day, invoked by any aggrieved person. In any future legislation dealing with the subject of imprisonment ad factum præstandum, we should consider it highly probable that this process should be entirely abolished, and the sections of the Act of 1882 relative thereto completely repealed. A HAIR-SPLITTING DISTINCTION. ONE recent afternoon Sandy Hood, the Sheriff-officer, whom I have already introduced to the readers of the SCOTTISH LAW REVIEW, thrust his head unexpectedly into my room, and on my looking up from the work on which I was engaged, asked, with a broad grin illuminating his good-natured features— "A' ye in, Mr. Gray?" "Yes, Mr. Hood," I answered; "come in." "Ye're no awfu' buzzy the noo, a' ye?" he continued, stepping into the room. "No," said I, putting away the bulky accountant's report I had been studying, and resigning myself to a talk with Sandy, even though it should involve my finding, when I came back to the report later on, that I had almost completely forgotten the ingenious argument I had been weaving out of the materials it supplied. "Sit down and give me the best of your news.” Sandy sat down and drew his chair near my desk. "Do you remember yon rhyme you repeated to me the last time you were here?" I said, as he settled down. "My story is now ended; I hope you're not offended. "I repeated it to an antiquarian friend of mine the other day, and he was quite delighted with it. He is gathering materials just now bearing on the once common, but now entirely disused, custom of saying grace after meat as well as before meat. Do you know anything about grace after meat?" "No, naething that I can mind o' the noo," answered Sandy. "But talkin' o' graces and rhymes pits me in min' o' anither auld rhyme--a godless grace before meat-that I've said and heard said mony a time when I wis a laddie. It ran something like this 66 Hallelujah! Roun' the table, Eat as much as you are able, "That's not a bad one at all," I commented, jotting the rhyme down on my blotting paper so as not to forget it. "No, it's no hauf bad," said Sandy, smiling. "But it doesna come up to Rabbie's yin." "Rabbi's!" I echoed, thinking (not unnaturally, perhaps, considering the subject of which we were talking) of the Jewish title of honour. "Who's he?" "A Scotchman, and no' ken wha Rabbie is!" exclaimed Sandy aghast. "Rabbie Burns, man; Rabbie Burns, the poet." "Oh, yes!" I answered. "And how does Rabbie's one run?" I asked. "Something like this," answered Sandy "Some hae meat and canna eat, And some can eat but want it; But I hae meat, and I can eat, And sae the Lord be thankit." 66 "Very good," I exclaimed, very good! But though its sentiment is perhaps better than that of the other, the rhymes don't clink so well together." (I should here state that, as pro nounced by Sandy, the "nane" and the "Amen" in the first grace" were perfect rhymes.) "But Rabbie didna need to depend sae muckle on rhymes as minor bards, man," answered Sandy, with some vehemence. "Look at 'Mary Morrison,' for example, man, the most beautiful love sang in the language. There's hardly twa line-en's in't that clink richt thegither; and yet, for a' that-But that's no' what I cam' to tell ye aboot, man. Whan I lookit in the noo it wis to tell ye aboot a queer damages case I heard debatit in the Sma' Debt Coort this forenune." "What were you doing in the Small Debt Court, Sandy?" I asked, with a smile. "Poaching on the law agents' preserves, eh?" "No," answered Sandy ;"I wis there as a witness. But folks in gless houses shouldna chip stanes. What wis the Citation Amendment Act of 1882 but law agents poachin' on the messengers' an' officers' preserves?" "But that was a change in the law effected by the Legislature," I said, “not individual law agents taking the law into their own hands." "Oppression under colour of law," retorted Sandy with a loud guffaw. "But this'll no mak' frocks for the weans!" he went on, prefixing this quotation from domestic proverbial philosophy with a deep sigh. "I wis sayin' that, whan I lookit in five minutes syne, it wis to tell ye aboot a queer damages case I heard debatit in the Sma' Debt Coort the day. The purshuer was shuing the defender for damages he had sustained through the defender carelessly drappin' a lichtit match lichtit match on his heid and singein' the croon o' a twa-guinea wig he wis wearin'. Purshuer's agent explained that the parties were both in a billiard saloon on the nicht o' the mishap. Defender was a big buirdly man, and purshuer a wee shilpit creature. Defender had been lichtin' his pipe, and was carelessly drappin' the lichtit match whan it landit on the wee man's pow, that be't to be in the way. Then, like the wee pickle tow in the auld sang, the bit mannie's foozy hair gaed up in a low, and that wis the en' o' the cairdin' o't— no, the beginnin' o' the ploy. Weel, they got it oot without the help o' the fire brigade, and then the wee mannie turned on the big chap and tell't him he would hae to pay for the damage he had done. All right, matey,' says the big fellow; that'll be the price o' a hair-cut.' A hair-cut!' said the wee man. 'No, sir! It'll be two guineas, the price of a new wig, for you've completely ruined this one,' and he pu'ed aff his fine heid o' hair and showed it wis only a wig. Weel, parties couldna come to ony extra-judicial settlement, and so the case wis brocht into Coort. The defender's agent argued that his client wisna responsible for onything mair than the price o' a hair-cut; it wis nae faut o' his that the purshuer wore a wig an' no' the hirsute cranial coverin' Nature had provided. Indeed, my lord,' says he, wi' a bit lauch, as the barbers chairge fourpence for a singe and fourpence for a hair-cut, my client is entitled to tak' credit for fourpence on the ground that, though the owner of the hair is entitled to the benefit effected upon it by the singe, the person who performed the beneficial operation of singeing is entitled to be indemnified for his labour. My client is entitled to set that off against the purshuer's claim, so that nothin' is due. You should have served a counter claim for that,' says the Sheriff, lauchin'. 'Well, my lord,' says the agent, 'I won't press that point; but I maintain I am not liable for anything more than a hair-cut.' The purshuer's agent-he took the thing very serious-like-read a bit oot o' Glegg on Reparation showin', as he thocht, that he wis entitled to succeed, and quotit cases in support o' his contention. An' guess, noo, whit wis the Sheriff's deceesion." "Who was the Sheriff?" I asked. 66 Sheriff -," he answered, mentioning the most facetious Sheriff on the Lanarkshire bench. "I can't guess," I answered. Weel," continued Sandy, "the learned Sheriff said he had no need to decide the interesting point raised by the agents in the case, as whatever view he took he thought he would arrive at the same result. If the purshuer was only entitled to the loss a man with his own hair would have suffered in the circumstances, then he must hold that the purshuer was not only entitled to the cost of a hair-cut, but also to solatium for the personal annoyance and inconvenience he had suffered, and he could not assess that solatium at less than £2 2s. It would be perfectly plain that a man whose natural hair was singed was entitled to solatium, if they considered what would have happened if the purshuer had not had a wig and the match had fallen on his bald pate. No hair would have been singed then; no patrimonial loss would have been incurred, for no hair-cut would have been necessary; but would the purshuer have been entitled to no damages on that account? Clearly he would have been entitled to solatium for the pain and inconvenience suffered. If, on the other hand, the purshuer was entitled to the value of the wig, he was probably not entitled to solatium; he would be in the same position, in fact, as if he had had a big hole burned in his coat, and so was not entitled to any more than £2 2s. Thus, whatever view he took, the result would be the same, and accordingly, without further remark, he would decern for £2 2s., with 10s. 6d. of expenses or costs," added Sandy with a scornful intonation, "as they will ca' them in the Glesca Sma' Debt Coort, the bonny-like Scotchmen that they are!" "A very characteristic judgment," was my comment, when Sandy had concluded. "Aye, awfu' like him, awfu' like him," answered Sandy, chuckling. "Dae ye min' yon game-no, you'll no' min' o't. But whan I wis a laddie there wis a trick we played on them that didna ken it that that judgment pits me in min' o'. Ye gruppit some innocent bit laddie by the lug and askit him, ‘Dae ye like me?' If he said 'No,' ye said, 'Gae frae me, gae frae me,' an' flung him awa' frae ye, aye haudin' on by the lug, an' he squealed like a hauf-stickit soo. If he said Aye,' ye pu'ed him till ye, aye haudin' on by the lug, and said, 'Come tae me, come tae me.' Whether he said aye or no, he got a sair lug-it wis a' the same whatever way he took it, juist like the Sheriff's judgment." 66 By the way," I said, half to myself, for Sandy was hardly the person to whom to put a question in law, " supposing a man's wig was burned by accident, would the insurance company admit a claim for its value? Would it be included under the head of wearing apparel, or what?" "I don't know," answered Sandy. "Noo that I think o't, man, I min' o' a woman that had her fause teeth burnt. They were lyin' on her toilet table, and the gas bracket wis accidentally shoved against the window curtain, and the hale hypothec gaed up in a bonny bleeze, includin', without prejudice to the foregoin' generality, the foresaid fause teeth. Weel, she put in a claim an' the insurance company allow't it, but whether it wis under the headin' o' wearin' apparel, or napery, or household furniture, or oil pentin's, or gold and silver plate, or ivory han'led knives and forks, I never fashed mysel' to fin' oot." W. P. M. B. Literature. BANKING LAW, with Forms. By William Wallace, M.A., advocate; and Allan M'Neil, solicitor and notary public, Bank of Scotland, Edinburgh. Second edition, revised and enlarged. Edinburgh: William Green & Sons. 1899. When the first edition of this work made its appearance, about five years ago, we took the opportunity of saying that it marked a distinct advance in the legal literature of the law of banking, and that it would eminently serve the purpose, which the authors had in view, of providing bankers and others more immediately connected with banking with practical assistance in the determination of the various legal questions likely to |