tions ever submitted to a human tribunal stood for judgment, the Court swayed and groaned and, unfortunately, was seriously divided against itself. Happily, no serious consequences followed; if any confidence was lost it was soon regained, the waves rolled away and all prejudices have evaporated. THE Canadian Law Rn'iav for January gives "Some Reminiscences of Criminal Law" by George S. Holniested, K. C., among them this tale : In the year 1629 one Isobel Young was accused in Scotland of witchcraft, and it was alleged that she had stopped George Sandie's mill 29 years before; that she had prevented his boats from catching fish, while all the other herring boats were successful, and that she was the cause of his failing in his circumstances and of nothing prospering with him in the world. That she threatened mischief against one Kerse, who thereupon lost the power of his leg and arm. That she entertained several witches in her house, one of whom went on the roof in the likeness of a cat, and then resumed her own shape. That she took a disease off her husband, laid it under the barn floor and transferred it to his nephew, who, when he came into the barn, saw the pirlot (i.-e., the corn measure) hopping up and down the floor; that she buried a white ox and a cat alive, throwing in a quantity of salt along with them, as a charm to preserve herself and her cattle from infectious distemper; that she had the devil's mark, etc. The poor creature's counsel pleaded that the mill might have stopped, the boat caught no fish, and the man might not have prospered from natural causes; that as to the man who had lost the use of his leg and arm, the prisoner had never the least acquaintance with him; and that he was lame before the threatening expression she was said to have used; that the charge of laying a disease under the barn floor was a ridicu lous fable, and that two years had elapsed between her husband's illness and his nep hew's; and that the mark called the devil's mark was merelv the scar of an old ulcer;
and that the charge of burying the ox and cat was .false. The celebrated Sir Thomas Hope, who was counsel for the prosecution, insisted that these defences must be repelled, because contrary to the libel! In other words, the de fences urged by the accused's counsel con tradicted what was charged by the prosecu tor; and the defences were therefore over ruled by the court, and the poor wretch was convicted and ordered to be strangled and burned! IN The Law Quarterly Review for January W. R. Bisschop points out some of the char acteristics of the "Roman-Dutch Law in South Africa." For example : It is possible to attach the person as well as the goods of the debtor, either (i) to se cure the payment of the debt by preventing the person from secretly leaving the country (suspcctus de fuga), and by compelling him first to give security; or (2) to found jurisdiction (jurisdictionis fitndandae causa), thus enabling the plaintiff to litigate at his own residence and there recover his debt from the foreigner. The arrest is apart from the principal cause, and must be followed by a summons submitting the dispute as to the debt for the judge's decision. Thus a safeguard is created to prevent the arrest from becoming a mear s of extortion and vexation. The debtor can even forestall the plaintiff by applying to the Court by a request antidotaal, which compels the creditor who may have the intention of using the said measures to show his cards. The Court is thereby asked to decide in ad vance that there exist no grounds for an arrest in so far as regards the plaintiff. . . . Another provisional remedy is the "pro visional sentence." whereby payment is ord ered of what is claimed, notwithstanding that the principal case is still pending. It was in troduced, as Kersteman states in his Law Dictionary, "to check cunning, fraudulent, and unwilling debtors who seek to deprive their creditors by continuous delay and sin ister proceedings in the payment of their
