Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/418

 The English Law Courts. other Jessel persisted and silenced " the Chief." Sir George Jessel remained on the Bench till the 7th of March, 1883, four days before his death, and built up for himself a unique judicial reputation. He was not a •' complete " judge in the sense in which we

383

of any legal right of the plaintiffs, and there being no allegation of malicious intention a demurrer to the statement of claim was al lowed. The Master of the Rolls said : " the plaintiffs are quite at liberty to change the name of their estate. If they think proper should apply the term to Cairns. His mental they may call their house " Ashford House," fibre was coarse-grained, and he lacked the or "Ashford Hall," or "Ashford Castle," if cultivated imagination which is an essential they please, or they may call it " Old Ash element to judicial ford Lodge," or "The supremacy. But in Original Ashford swiftness and sureness Lodge," or anything of intuition, in tenac else they like, but to ity of memory, in say that they have a healthy superiority to right to use that name mere precedent, and to the exclusion of all in masterful grasp of otherof Her Majesty's facts he presented a subjects, is admitted combination of quali to be novel. No au ties to be found in no thority has been pro other equity judge in duced for it, and I can this century. To Mr. see no good reason Willard's able review for the allegation that of Jessel's decisions such a right has so ex one instance may be isted from time imme added, Day v. Brownmorial and is part rigg (1878, L. R. of the customary or 10 Ch. v. 294). The common law of the plaintiffs all agreed land." Jessel's un in their statement of bounded confidence claim that their house in his own judgment had been called Ashand comparative ig LORD JUSTICE LINDLEY. ford Lodge for sixty norance of history led years, and the adjoin him into a rather seri ing house belonging to the defendant had been ous error in the Orr-Ewing case of 1885, called " Ashford Villa " for forty years, and (L. R. 10, App. Cas. pp. 473, note, 521, that the defendant had recently altered its 533). He seized hold of an observation name to that of the plaintiff's house. They made in the course of the argument in the alleged that this act had caused them great Court of Appeal, that Scotland is " a foreign inconvenience and annoyance, and had ma country, a foreign jurisdiction," and de terially diminished the value of their prop nounced it as " quite erroneous." As every erty, and claimed an injunction to restrain one who has studied Scotch history is aware, its continuance. It was held by the Court it is the statement of the Master of the Rolls of appeal, overruling the decision of Vice- to which the terms " quite erroneous " are in Chancellor Malins, that the alleged act of this case applicable; and the Lord President the defendant in calling his house by the of the Court of Session (Inglis) was not long name of Ashford Lodge was not a violation in pointing this out to him.