whose duty it was not to be convinced was necessarily useless." “I never can understand," said Vaughan-Williams, L.J. in a recent case," why counsel will always try to convince their opponents. They are paid not to be convinced." But if Mellish was too eager to convince, his interpellations were always directed to getting at the real substance of the case.

Mellish was of weak health and frail physique. From twenty years of age his constitutional malady, the gout, had fastened itself upon him, and down to the close of life it continued to afflict him, sapping his strength, subjecting him to the severest trial of temper and spirits, though never affecting the clearness and vigour of his brain. This martyrdom he bore with admirable fortitude, never remitting his work except under absolute necessity, but persisting in his arduous duties in the midst of suffering which would have laid most men prostrate. "I have seen him," said one of the judges of the court before which he appeared as counsel," arguing a difficult case before us while he was absolutely writhing with pain."

But, indeed, pain not unfrequently stimulates the faculties. Did not Hood write many of his most humorous things while he was writhing with pain? But then Hood had, as he said, to be a "lively Hood" for a livelihood.

Not the least admirable thing about him was the way in which he endured this incessant pain. His temper never gave way, "and the only time when I can recollect his expressing his feelings," says his friend Lord Blackburn, was when he told me he was going to Malvern to try the effect of the water cure, though he had been warned by eminent medical advisers that it was very dangerous, and more likely to kill than to cure him. But,' said he, 'life on these terms is not worth keeping.' It did, however, give him some relief. The constant struggle with pain gave him an habitual restraint, or, I should say, made him self-contained rather than reserved, but he was always amiable. I admired and loved him very much."

He died at his residence, No. 33, Lowndes-square, in the early part of 1877. His best epitaph is written in the golden words, instinct with the deepest feeling, which his colleague, Lord Justice James, spoke from the bench after his death. "We have to deplore," he said, "the loss of a very dear colleague, Lord Justice Mellish. We had hoped against hope that he would rally as he has so often rallied; but the last long and painful attack

has been too much for his shattered frame. What he was at the Bar and on the bench is known to the Profession and the suitors, and will be long remembered; but to no man was his judicial character so well known as to me, who for so many years had the inestimable advantage and privilege of sitting by his side in the old Court of Appeal, and working with him during all that time with unreserved intimacy and confidence. During that time I had seen him by my side writhing under the painful disease by which he had been racked from his early youth, and subduing pain to which any other man would have succumbed by his strong will and his resolute determination to do his duty. And yet he has continued to apply his powerful and clear intellect and the unrivalled stores of his legal learning to ascertain the truth, to maintain the law, and to do right and justice to all manner of men. That was the single-minded object of his judicial life, which was as free from vanity and caprice as it was from prejudice, passion, or partiality. With it all there was that marvellous sweetness of temper which was never disturbed or altered. Day by day I learned to look upon him more and more with admiration, which was only equalled by the love with which he inspired me, and by the regret with which I now pay this tribute to a very great and a very good judge."

Mellish's special characteristic is his clear strong judgment and power of luminous exposition. He had a marvellous faculty of extracting the pith of a case and putting it in the fewest possible words. All his judgments are marked, too, by singular independence of thought. They are never a mere echo of others.

Nevill's case (23 L. T. Rep. 577; L. Rep. 6 Ch. 47) explains an apparent anomaly in the law of principal and agent. 'The reason," says the Lord Justice, "why a simple release of the principal debtor discharges the surety is that it would be a fraud on the principal debtor to profess to release him and then to sue the surety, who in turn would sue him; but where the bargain is that the creditor is to retain his remedy against the surety there is no fraud on the principal debtor."

His definition of "minerals" in Hext v. Gill, the china clay case (26 L. T. Rep. 502; L. Rep. 7 Ch. 712) has always been since recognised as the most comprehensive and accurate given. The result of all the authorities, he there says, is that a reservation of minerals includes every substance which can be got from underneath the surface of the earth for the purpose of profit, unless

there is something in the context or in the nature of the transaction to induce the court to give it a more limited meaning. We know well enough what a burning topic the religious education of children is in these days. In Hawksworth v. Hawksworth (25 L. T. Rep. 115; L. Rep. 6 Ch. 537), Mellish, L.J. lays down the very salutary rule of the court. The rule of law which regulates the religion in which children of early years should be educated is that, unless the interest of the child interferes so as to make it the duty of the court to make some exception, the child is to be educated in the religion of its father-religio sequitur patrem. In other words, children are not to be fought for by proselytising relatives.

A great many important questions of bankruptcy and company law came before the Lords Justices. Ex parte Maude (23 L. T. Rep. 749; L. Rep. 6 Ch. 51) is one of them, as to the true principle on which surplus assets of a company are to be distributed. It has quite recently been followed in Re Wakefield Rolling Stock Company (67 L. T. Rep. 83); Re Patent File Company (L. Rep. 6 Ch. 83) decides a point of some commercial importance, viz., that a trading company can raise money by an equitable mortgage by deposit of deeds with its bankers for instance: Rance's case (23 L. T. Rep. 828; L. Rep. 6 Ch. 104) deals with the difficult matter of dividend declaring; it lays down that, if directors declare a dividend or bonus without proper investigation or professional assistance, and it is afterwards called in question, the burden lies on them to show that it was fairly paid out of profits. Ex parte Chalmers (L. Rep. 8 Ch. 289) explains what are the rights of a seller of goods when the purchaser becomes insolvent before the contract for sale has been completely performed. The result of the authorities is, that in such a case the seller, notwithstanding he may have agreed to allow credit for the goods, is not bound to deliver any more goods under the contract unless the price of the goods not yet delivered is tendered to him.

Crook v. Hill (24 L. T. Rep. 488; L. Rep. 6 Ch. 311) is another often-cited case on the meaning of the word "children" in a will. Substantially it is this, that although there is a very strong presumption that the word children means only legitimate children, yet the word children may denote a class including illegitimate as well as legitimate children, provided you find in the will a context raising what is described as a necessary

implication"; that is to say, a plain and clear inference, leaving no reasonable doubt that the illegitimate children are intended to be included. Occleston v. Fullalove (29 L. T. Rep. 785; L. Rep. 9 Ch. 171) is another important decision on gifts to future illegitimate children.

If at the end of seven years a person has not been heard of, the presumption of law is that he is dead. This is comprehensible. The odd thing is, that there is no presumption as to when during the seven years he died. This is Re Lewes' Trusts (25 L. T. Rep. 77; L. Rep. 6 Ch. 356).

Lord Bramwell thought railway companies very badly used by juries. He described a railway company as caput lupinum; but Mellish's remarks in Lee v. Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company (25 L. T. Rep. 77; L. Rep. 6 Ch. 536) threw a light on the subject: When I was on the Northern Circuit," said the learned judge, "I was myself engaged in several of those actions. It was at one time a common practice with some railway companies to have a medical man who was their agent and servant, and whenever an accident took place he used to go and give advice and assistance to the persons injured, carrying receipts in his pocket, and he would induce them to sign receipts in full of all demands upon being paid some trifling sums. I can say from my own experience that in every case of that kind on the Northern Circuit the jury found a verdict against the company." This is even shabbier conduct than we might expect from that soulless thing, a corporation.

LORD JUSTICE LUSH.

THE fusion of the two branches of the legal profession is one of those questions of which trying to get a true view is, as Ruskin expresses it, like "trotting round a polygon"; but there is one assertion we may safely venture, and that is, that every barrister would be the better for a year or two spent in a solicitor's office. No browsing among briefs can make up for that experience which is derived from personal contact with the actualities of the law, the object lessons of the Central Office. It is to the legal student what walking the hospitals is to the medical student. It is a notorious and a significant fact that a large number of our most eminent judges and lawyers have sprung from the ranks of the attorneys or solicitors. Lord Thurlow was occupying a stool in an attorney's office in Ely-place what time he and the poet Cowper spent their time in "giggling and making giggle." Lord St. Leonards' father, the barber, had, we know, to put the future Chancellor as pupil to an attorney because, as he said, "I tried Ned in my own profession, but, unfortunately, he had no genius for it, and it was as a solicitor that he laid the foundations of his fame with his Vendors and Purchasers.'" Lord Truro, as a solicitor, saw counsel bungle their cases and felt that he could do better. Lord Russell of Killowen showed his mettle first as an Irish attorney. It was not an accident that these men rose to the highest eminence from solicitors' offices. They owed in a great measure their success to what they learned there.

Lord Justice Lush was another notable instance. He began at the lowest rung of the professional ladder, and he climbed step by step to the summit. There are men whom

Ambition tempts to rise,

Then hurls the wretch from high

To bitter scorn a sacrifice,

And grinning infamy.

Lush shunned this kind of vaulting ambition. Like Nature, he