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CORRESPONDENCE AN INSTANCE OF PROMPT ENGLISH PROCEDURE TEMPLE, LONDON, ENG., April, 1905. 1 sels were stopped by the Japanese warships The celerity with which the procedure in j they would be able to produce apparently innoEngland permits cases to be despatched is : cent papers. The real contracts, however, were illustrated by an action which was recently that the vessels were to carry the coal to tried in the King's Bench Division, in which Vladivostok. The vessels started on their commercial cases are heard. The writ in the voyage, but as it is now practically impossible action was issued on the isth of March and to get there without being captured by the judgment was rendered on the 27th, the whole Japanese, the Law Guarantee and Trust So proceedings thus occupying only 13 days. ciety (Limited), who were mortgagees of the The judge offered to give judgment on the vessels, asked the court to declare that they 25th, but postponed it in order to meet the were not bound by the contracts. Mr. Justice convenience of counsel and the parties. On Channel made the declaration, upon the ground the 28th the Appeal Court gave leave to appeal that as the contracts were calculated to im and on the 3ist this was argued and judgment pair the security of the mortgagees, they were was delivered affirming the judgment below not contracts within the ordinary business of sixteen days after the issue of the writ. The a shipowner. Although the learned judge did case which was of very great importance, in not in his judgment expressly deal with the volving a large sum of money, is noticeable as point, this is the first case in which the right being the first arising out of the war that has of a mortgagee of a ship to repudiate her •come before the Commercial Court. Three ves engagements has been upheld where the voy sels belonging to the Heath Line were chartered age, as in the present case, has been partially by them to take cargoes of coal out to Vladi performed and a payment made on account vostok. Charter parties and bills of lading.were of freight, and the decision is considered a STUFF GOWN. made out for neutral ports, so that if the ves- strong one. A SCOTCH LAWYER-POET "I'd try a shot — but whar's the mark? MONTREAL, CAN., April, 1905. I send you herewith a note from the London Her vital parts are hid frae me; Academy, which you may find interesting. Her backbone wanders through her sark R. D. McGiBBON. In an unkenn'd corkscrewity. George Outram, who was born one hundred She's palsified, an' shakes her head years ago, was "probably the first in Scotland, Sae fast about ye scarce can see't; since the days of Sir Richard Maitland, to It's past the power o' steel or lead turn the dry process of law to poetic account." To settle her annuity." Outram was born at Glasgow, but was edu The quality of his verse the English reader must take largely on trust, for Outram was cated in Edinburgh and called to the Bar a, congener of Lord Glenlee, who, though a there in 1827. After two years' practice he "philosophical and abstracted gentleman," became editor of the Glasgow Herald, a post never used an English word when a Scotch which he retained till his death in 1856. By one could be got. This is to be regretted, in far the greater part of his verse is concerned Outram's case, because in ingenuity and fe with legal subjects, the terminology of Scots cundity of rhyme he would not degrade the law seeming to have a perennial fascination company of Calverley or Owen Seaman. His for his peculiar dry humor. After the fashion best known piece is "The Annuity," the woful of the time Outram's verses were handed tale of an old lady annuitant, whose persist round in manuscript among a circle of friends ence in life threatened to bring ruin to the which included lawyers and men of letters in astute lawyer who sold her the annuity. In Glasgow and Edinburgh. His "Legal and other Lyrics" were first printed privately in despair he contemplates her removal : 1851, and subsequently were published in 1874.