Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/22

 Sir George Jessel. the objection : "The question in this case is raised by reason of some obscure dicta in some musty old law-books about the power of an administrator durante minore aetate. The limit to his administration is no doubt the minority of the person; but there is no other limit." On another point he remarked: "Then it is said the sale is not beneficial. That may be. It sometimes is not bene ficial for a man to pay his debts." In Osborne v. Rowlett,1 he says: "As regards the question in this case, it is one of those curious questions of real property law not depending on any ascertained or ascertainable principle, but simply on authority." In Gen. Finance Co. v. Lib. Building Co.,2 he begins : " It is a very unpleasant thing to have to decide a case of this kind without knowledge of the reasons for some of the distinctions which are established by the old cases." " The doctrine of estoppel of this kind [by deed], which is a fictitious state ment treated as true, might have been founded in reason; but I am not sure that it was." 3 " In order to find out what sort of a statement will do, you must have re course to authorities, and as far as I am concerned, I shall treat them as binding and conclusive; for I am not going to enquire how they came to be decided the way they were; there they arc. [We feel as if we were being shown the antiquated horrors of Madame Tussaud's Museum.] Now this,'' he continues, " shows that the grant, though it would amount in equity to a rep resentation, does not amount in law to a representation, that the man has a right to grant. It is very odd that it should be so; but it is so, and that is all one can say about it." In Re Emmett 4 he remarks : " Under this will any layman would understand that all the children of George N. Emmett would become entitled at whatever time they were born; and in the absence of authority so shonld I," — a very mild .comment on the doctrine 113 Ch. D. 774.

2 io ch. D. 15.

3 The Italics throughout this article are ours. 4 13 Ch. П. .(84. 490..

imported into the law solely on ab incon venient! reasons by a sort of judicial legisla tion, under which, on a gift to children at twenty-one, only those take who are born when the eldest reaches twenty-one. On the question whether a reversionary interest in personalty should be excluded from a gift of " any estate or interest whatever," he says : "I see no reason whatever why it should; but not wishing to speak disrespectfully of some of the decisions, I shall say nothing further about it." ' In an action2 by a pur chaser of a reversion on a lease to a trustee of a dissenting chapel for ninety-nine years, with perpetual renewal, not enrolled, as re quired by 9 Geo. II., ch. 36, he frankly states : "This is certainly a very singular action, and I believe that in no country in the world but in England, could such an action be maintained." It was not to be expected that a judge who would show so little respect for the venerable shades of John Doe and Richard Roe would be more nice in dealing with the shams of to-day. On a suit to hold directors of a limited company liable for a dividend paid out of capital, the Master of the Rolls, after discussing some legal aspects of the case, proceeds : " As to their saying they did it bona fide ... a man may not intend to commit a fraud, or may not intend to do anything which casuists would call immoral . . . but when he has the facts before him, when the plain and patent facts are brought to his knowledge, as I have often said, and I now say again, / will not dive into the re cesses of his mind to say whether he believed, when he was doing a dishonest act, that he was doing an honest one. I can't allow that man to come forward and say : • I did not know I was doing wrong when I put my hand into my neighbor's pocket, and took so much money, and put it in my own.' "3 In Marris v. Ingram,4 where a son, while i 3 ,

Re Jackson's Will, 13 Ch. D. 189, 201. Hunting r. Sargent, 13 Ch. D. 330, 335. Re Nat Funds Assurance Co. io Ch Y> nS, 128 13 Ch. D. 338, 344.