required by the parties themselves. This practical distinction between Public or Common, and Private or Particular Acts of Parliament, was officially certified by Kirkby of the Rolls as early as the reign of Henry VI.2, and even such important matters as a confirmation of the liberties of London, &c. are to be found recorded on the Rolls of Parliament by a mere memorandum that "all customs, &c. are confirmed.”3 The printed editions of the Statutes make the distinction between Public and Private Acts of Parliament as early as the reign of Richard III.4 when a separate list of the Private Statutes is given at the end of the Public Statutes; but the Rolls of Parliament seem first to make the distinction at the end of the reign of Henry VIII., separate lists of the “actes publicke" and "actes private” being then given on the Rolls, a practice which continued till the 31st Geo. II.5, after which the list of the Private Acts and its introductory and concluding forms are wholly omitted. In the reign of William and Mary, the practice was first introduced of inserting in Private Acts clauses declaring them to be Public; and this was soon extended to nearly all Private Acts, by which felonies were created, penalties inflicted, or tolls imposed. These Acts were in the printed editions of the Statutes up to 1798, confounded with the Public General Statutes; but since that period they have been printed in a separate collection, under the name of Local and Personal Acts, a threefold classification of the Statutes having been adopted; the first including Public General Acts, such as are in their nature public and 1 See Hale's Hist. of the Com. Law, ch. i.; College of Physicians v. Cooper, 3 Keble, 587.; Report of Record Commissioners on Statutes of the Realm, Introd. p. 36.; see also Rex v. Countess of Arundel, Hobart, 109. 2 See Year Book, 33 Henry VI., 17.; Fitz. Abr. tit. Parl. pl. 1., Bro. Abr. tit. Parliament Statutes, pl. 4.; see also Rot. claus. 6 Hen. VI., m. 11.; see Introduction to Edition of Statutes of the Realm, by the Record Commissioners, p. xxxvi. 3 See per Keeling J., in Wilkinson v. Bolton, Siderfin's Reports, p. 251. 4 See Reeve's "Hist. of English Law," vol. iii. p. 379., vol. iv. pp. 129, 130. 5 See Introduction to Statutes of the Realm, published by the Record Com missioners, Appendix E. p. lxvi. See May's "Law of Parliament," p. 280., 2nd ed. general; the second, including Local Acts, such as Road, Canal, and Dock Acts, &c., with the clause declaring the same to be Public; the third, including Local and Personal Acts, without such claim being introduced, such as Estate and Divorce Acts, &c. The course of proceeding in Parliament in passing Private Bills has of late years been the subject of very much animadversion. The great expenses which such proceedings occasion, the unsatisfactory mode in which the investigation before Parliamentary Committees is conducted, the indirect influence which is resorted to, and the jobbing and trickery which have been sometimes detected, loudly call for a reform of the present system. In some instances General Statutes have been passed for securing the uniform adoption of clauses in Private Acts, such as in the instance of the Lands Clauses Act, the Railway Clauses Act, &c. ; and the standing orders of Parliament have from time to time been remodelled with a view to check frauds on the part of the promoters and opponents of public works requiring parliamentary sanction; but very much requires yet to be done to assimilate parliamentary investigations of private applications for a dispensation from the law, to judicial investigations of private disputes. It is in vain that the battle of the Constitution has been fought between the Prerogative and the Parliament, unless the immutable principles of justice are secured; and until Parliamentary Committees are reformed, the concession of a private statute may often be regarded with almost as much suspicion as that of a charter of James II. Our limits will not allow us to pursue this subject further at present; we hope to recur to it on a future occasion. ART. VIII.-SCOTLAND AND HER GRIEVANCES. AN opinion has of late years prevailed among our fellowcitizens in Scotland, that their interests engrossed a disproportionate attention from the Legislature. Timę was, certainly, when this position would have been readily admitted in England, but with a gloss upon the word, giving it the sense of "too great," and not "too little." That on many occasions the Scots had by provident management; by perseverance; above all, by sticking together, and making common cause — succeeded in obtaining exemptions and other advantages over the rest of the Kingdom, cannot be denied. But there has been since the Union with Ireland, and especially since the Reform of 1832, following close upon the Catholic Emancipation of 1829, so great a space occupied, in debate at least, if not in legislation, by the Members from the Sister Kingdom, that we can hardly wonder at the Scots feeling how very small a portion of the time and attention of Parliament has, in comparison, been devoted to their concerns. The often disturbed, generally uneasy, state of the Western Country, has combined with the unsparing loquacity of its representatives to produce this contrast (for such it is), and so far to obstruct public business as occasionally to furnish an apparent argument in favour of Repeal. Certain it is that, whether from the one circumstance or the other, discussion, however unimportant, raised in either House upon Ireland, is sure to command attention until weariness or disgust makes further listening impossible, while the gravest matters, if they only affect Scotland, excite nearly as little interest as would an East Indian question where it did not happen to be mixed up with personal matter, or made the subject of party intrigue. The press, too, is far more Irish than Scotch, and this appears in the Parliamentary Reports. But whatever may be the lot of such questions in the debates of Parliament, the friend of Law Amendment, and generally of social improvement, will never grudge the attention he is called to bestow upon matters so nearly affecting the welfare of the whole Scotch community as the improvement of its Laws - not to mention that the constant intercourse between the two parts of the island give us in England an interest both direct and considerable in the operation of the judicial system upon the affairs of commerce, and indeed upon society at large. The conference holden in London last November, on the Assimilation of the Mercantile Law --- in the two countries, led, as our readers are aware, to the issuing of the Commission whose labours are soon to commence. But we conceive that we shall only be discharging a duty to Scotland if we point the attention of the community in Scotland, as well as in England, to certain defects in the Jurisprudence indeed of both countries, but of Scotland especially, loudly calling for a remedy, and which may not, perhaps, be at first taken into consideration by the Commission. We feel this to be the more necessary, because of the disappointment occasioned, we think unjustly, by the alleged shortcomings of the Government in some matters connected with Law Reform. There are no complaints more loudly or more generally made in Scotland than those of the Law of Debtor and Creditor-first, of that Law generally; next of the Bankrupt Law. 1. Of the Law generally, it is alleged that small debts are wholly impossible to be recovered. In late years the opinion has become more and more prevalent, that imprisonment for debt ought to cease except in cases where the debtor, having the means of payment, withholds it, or has committed some fraud deserving punishment, or has been guilty of such extravagance as may be likened to fraud, or has incurred the liability without the reasonable prospect of being able to satisfy it. In a word, the distinction is taken between misfortune and crime, the imprisonment being reserved for the latter, while the former shall go free. No doubt this is the sound, as well as the humane view; but as it is hardly possible to ascertain in many instances the class to which the case belongs, great care is required in applying the principle to practice; and checks and guards are absolutely necessary to prevent the greatest abuse. The arrest upon mesne process never was known in Scotland; and its abolition in England sixteen years ago, though recommended by the most cogent reasons, gave rise to many evils of which tradesmen have never ceased to complain. But two years earlier, in 1835, and some years before imprisonment for small debts upon final judgment was abolished in England, a most important change in the Law of Scotland was introduced. All imprisonment for debt under 81. 6s. 8d. (2007. Scotch) was abolished by the 5 & 6 W. 4. c. 70.; and this, without any accompanying check or guard whatever. In 1844, a similar Act was passed for England, but extending to 20%. The state of the prisons, especially of those under the local jurisdictions for small debts, caused this course to be taken; and, like the Scotch Act of 1835, it was pursued without any accompanying check or guard. The result was most unfortunate. The next Session of Parliament had hardly opened when the retail traders all over the country, but those of London especially, appealed for protection, and showed clearly that as carrying on their business without giving credit was impossible, the new law left them without any remedy for nearly the whole of the debts incurred in their transactions. To restore imprisonment was out of the question; but after a full and patient inquiry carried on by a Committee of the House of Lords, checks were provided, which it was hoped might prove sufficient. These consisted in the power of summoning the debtor, examining him minutely, ascertaining whether the payment was withheld from mere want of means, and whether there had been any fraud or extravagance or other misconduct in contracting the debt, and losing the power of discharging it; and there was awarded to the debtor unsatisfactorily answering or otherwise misconducting himself an imprisonment of forty days as a punishment, this not to operate as an extinction of the debt. It is believed that this restraint upon dishonesty and extravagance, with the increased caution of shopkeepers in giving credit, has in a great measure remedied the evil complained of, although no doubt there continues to prevail a very general desire among them for a revival of arrest on mesne process, which it is equally clear that they never will obtain. But in Scotland the Act of 1835 continues to produce, if not all, yet a great part of the evils complained of in England as resulting from the Act of 1844, and no remedy whatever has been attempted. It was found by one estimate that before 1835, no less than 96 per cent. of all the debts sued for under the Sheriffs Small Debt Jurisdiction |