Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/803

 ^0. VEEDER: A CENTURY OF JUDICATURE 789 His substantial contributions to the law deal mostly with topics upon which there was a conflict of opinion, or which fall outside the ambit of well-settled authority. His great opinion in the case of Taylor v. Meads, 4 DeG., J. & S. 597, on the testamentary capacity of married women, is a good illustration of his remarkable skill in settling discussion of a complex subject. The domain of what has been called private international law afforded scope for his peculiar powers.^ Trade-marks and patents were also congenial sub- jects.^ He made several contributions of importance to the law of prescriptive easements.^ Other miscellaneous deci- sions will be recognized by the professional reader as legal landmarks.* It is difficult to characterize the mind and career of Lord Cairns (1868; 1874<-80) without seeming to exaggerate. It may therefore be well to quote, at the outset, the delib- erate opinion of his life-long professional and political an- tagonist, Lord Selborne. Referring to Lord Salisbury's statement that Cairns " had an eminence not often granted to exercised by the amount of prudence which the judge himself might think under similar circumstances he should have exercised. I think it extremely likely that many a judge, or many a person versed by long experience in the affairs of mankind as conducted in the mercantile world, will know that there is a great deal more trust, a great deal more speculation, and a great deal more readiness to confide in the probabili- ties of things with regard to success in mercantile transactions, than there is on the part of those whose habits of life are entirely of a dif- ferent character. It would be extremely wrong to import into the con- sideration of the case of a person acting as a mercantile agent, in the purchase of a business concern, those principles of extreme caution which might dictate the course of one who is not at all inclined to invest his property in any ventures of such a hazardous character." J. Ch. 427; Ex parte Chavasse, 34 L. J., Bank. 17; Enohin v. Wylie, 10 H. L. Cas. 1 ; Bell v. Kennedy, 1 Sc. & Div. App. 320, and Shaw v. Gould, 3 E. & 1. App. 80. 'Leather Cloth Co., v. Leather Cloth Co., 33 L. J. Ch. 199; McAn- drew V. Bassett, 33 L. J. Ch. 561; Witherspoon ». Currie, 5 E. & I. App. 521; Hills v. Evans, 31 L. J. Ch. 458; Betts v. Menzies, 10 H. L. Cas. 151. •Tapling v. Jones, 11 H. L. Cas. 303; Suffield v. Brown, 33 L. J. Ch. 249; Backhouse v. Bonomi, 9 H. L. Cas. 503. Holroyd v. Marshall, 10 H. L. Cas. 208; Cooper v. Phibbs, 2 H. L. Cas. 149; St. Helen's Smelting Co. v. Tipping, 11 H. L. Cas. 649; Blades v. Higgs, 11 H. L. Cas. 630; Isenberg v. East Indian Estates Co., 33 L. J., Ch. 392; Lister v. Ferryman, 5 E. & I. App. 538; Sack- ville West r. Holmesdale, 5 E. & I. App. 565.
 * Udny V. Udny, 1 Sc. & Div. App. 457 ; Cookney v. Anderson, 32 L.