830 V. BENCH AND BAR policy. Their function when a case like the present is brought before them is, in my opinion, not necessarily to accept what was held to have been the rule of policy a hun- dred or a hundred and fifty years ago, but to ascertain, with as near an approach to accuracy as circumstances permit, what is the rule of policy for the then present time. When that rule has been ascertained it becomes their duty to refuse to give effect to a private contract which violates the rule and would, if judicially enforced, prove injurious to the community." Nordenfelt v. Maxim-Nordenfelt, (1894) A. C. 514. To literary form and refinement of style Watson appears to have been wholly indifferent. Clear, direct and compact in expression, his opinions are nevertheless not without charm from simplicity of diction and the occasional use of the quaint legal phraseology of his native land. Probably the best expression of this is his interesting opinion in the matri- monial case of Mackenzie v. Mackenzie, (1895) A. C. 384. " There can be hardly a more odious form of cruelty," he says in one place, " than a deliberate attempt to wound the feelings of a mother through her affection for her infant child. It is nevertheless true that the law of Scotland per- mits a married man to gratify his taste for that species of cruelty, subject to these conditions, that it must be practiced upon his own wife, and that he must stop short of injuring her health of mind or body or of rendering her existence intolerable. How far he can carry his experiments without exceeding the limits so prescribed, and thereby becoming guilty of legal saevitia, must depend very much upon the circumstances of the case, and, in particular, upon the vic- tim's capacity of endurance." ^ In the House of Lords Bramwell (1882-92) exerted, in
- Lord Watson's ablest efforts are: English Appeals: Allen v. Flood,
(1898) A. C. 1; Smith v. Baker, (1891) A. C. 325; Scholfield v. I.ondes- borough, (1896) A. C. 514; Johnson v. Lindsay, (1891) A. C. 371; Nor- denfelt V. Maxim-Nordenfelt, (1894) A. C. 514; Mogul Steamship Co. v. McGregor, (1892) A. C. 52; The Bernina, 13 App. Cas. 1; Solomon v. Solomon, (1897) A. C. 22; Trevor v. Whitworth, 12 App. Cas. 409; Bank of England, v. Vagliano, (1891) A. C. 107; Ooregum Gold Mining Co. r. Roper, (1892) A. C. 25; Tailby v. Official Receiver, 13 App. Cas. 623; Wakelin v. London and S. W. Ry. Co., 12 App. Cas. 41; London
