idity to its system of procedure. In the ec clesiastical Courts, again, the inclination of the canonists to casuistry finds expression in niceties of pleading, in "triplications" and "quadruplications" to which—however little inclined to own it—the common lawyers of England owed their "rejoinders," "rebut ters," and "surrebutters." In Germany the national set towards autocratic officialism gives the judge a control over the proceed ings in an action strange to English lawyers. There is many a valuable hint for the practi tioner in such a review as Dr. Macdonell's. Those familiar with the Attic orators will re member how at certain points in their speeches they paused—and the water clock which marked their time allowance was stopped, too—to call on the officer of the Court to read the evidence. Every allegation in those Athenian openings had to be but tressed by proof on the spot. If counsel in England had to do this we should have, been spared the Master of the Rolls' recent criti cism of a certain K. C.'s conduct of his case.—The Laiv Journal. AN Irish legal journal (says The Law Times), suggests a point which was not dis cussed before Mr. Justice Farwell in Attor ney-General v. Trustees of the British Mu seum, but which, if it had been raised, would have been of considerable constitutional in terest. The claim of the Crown to recover the gold ornaments in question was based on the common law doctrine of treasure trove. The right of the Crown appears to depend on the motive with which the articles were originally disposed of—namely, the conceal ment of them in ancient times. It was proved to the satisfaction of Mr. Justice Farwell that the date of the articles was some period from 300 B. C. to 700 A. D. The most probable date, however, was something be tween 200 A. D. and 300 A. D., and it would not have been a very violent inference of fact that they were hidden then or some hundreds of years later. In any event, they were hid den long before the English common law be came applicable to Ireland—.whether that can
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be considered as having taken -place at the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II., in the reign of Henry VIII., or in that of James I. At the trial of the action the atten tion of the plaintiff seemed to be directed to the proof of the hiding of the articles in an cient times, or of facts from which that fact could be reasonably inferred. But if the common law had no application to Ireland at the time of the concealment, it would seem that another question required discussion— namely, whether the establishment of the common law in Ireland was retrospective, and, if so, in respect of what length of time. As regards treasure trove (says The Law Journal), the writers of authority agree that the right of the Crown extends to gold and silver found hidden in the earth or other pri vate place, but not to articles which have been lost or abandoned, and that, in Blackstone's words, "a man that scatters his prop erty into the sea or upon the surface of the earth, is construed to have absolutely aban doned his property." Thus it is only when the owner has concealed the treasure with the intention of reclaiming it when the Oppor tunity arises, that the Crown can assert its privilege against a finder. The position of the articles claimed by the Crown, when they were discovered, strongly suggested the inference that they had been intentionally hidden away for security, and to rebut this inference the authorities of the British Mu seum could only suggest that they had been thrown into the sea, which was supposed then to have covered the spot in question, as a votive offering by some Irish sea king to some Irish sea god at some period between 300 B. C. and 700 A. D. But there was no evidence that the sea flowed over that spot within the period during which the treas ure could have been in existence; it was not certain that there ever was an Irish sea god, or, if there had been one, that any Irish chief ever made offerings to him; and the case for the defendants was dismissed as consisting of "fanciful suggestions more suited to the poem of a Celtic bard than to the prose of an English law reporter."
