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The Green Bag.

chasing the land at a certain price and with in a certain time, and dies, pending the op tion, and then the option is exercised and the land conveyed; for it has been hold that, while the land has devolved upon the heir or devisee of the deceased, and so must be conveyed by him, yet the money must be paid to the executor. In short, it has been held, as to the point now under considera tion, that there is no difference between an unilateral contract giving an option of pur chasing land, and the ordinary bilateral con tract for the sale and purchase of land. There is. however, this very important and radical difference between these two species of contract, namely, that in the latter the vendor is not only under an obligation, but also has a correlative right, his obligation being to vest in the purchaser a good title to the land on receiving the purchase money, and his right being to receive the purchase money on performing his obliga tion, while in the former the giver of the option, though he is under an obligation, has no right whatever. THE November Michigan Lute1 Rci'im1 con tains a valuable paper on "Surrender," by Herbert Thorndike Tiffany. After discuss ing "Surrender by Acceptance of New In terest" and by "Transfer of Possession to Landlord," Professor Tiffany says of "Sur render by Xew Lease to Third Person": A third mode of surrender by operation of law occurs in the case of a new lease by the landlord to a third person, accompanied by the former tenant's relinquishment of possession in favor of such third person. The question whether such a new lease and relinquishment of possession would thus operate was at one time the subject of con siderable question in England, but, by later cases there, seems to be regarded as settled that, where a tenant assents to the making of a lease to another, and yields possession to the new lessee, there is a surrender by operation of law, the theory thereof being explained as follows: "As far as the land lord is concerned, he has created an estate in the new tenant which he is estopped from

disputing with him, and which is inconsis tent with the continuance of the tenant's term. As far as the new tenant is con cerned, the same is true. As far as the own er of the particular estate in question is con cerned, he has been an active party in this transaction, not merely by consenting to the creation of the new relation between the landlord and the new tenant, but by giving up possession and so enabling the new ten ant to enter." In this country, likewise, it lias been stated that "an unconditional agreement between a landlord and a third person, with the assent of the tenant, during the term, to rent the premises to such third person, followed by a change of possession and the payment of rent by the tenant, will amount to a valid surrender of the old lease, and an acceptance thereof on the part of the landlord," and approximately similar state ments have been made. In one State [New Jersey] the courts have questioned the va lidity of such a mode of surrender, without, however, positively deciding the question. '•THE Employment of Counsel is thus dis cussed editorially by the Australian Laic Times: The fixed belief in the public mind that if counsel are dispensed with the decision will be arrived at more expeditiously upon the real merits of the case is almost impossible to remove. In an Utopian Court of Law, where plaintiff and defendant would each state his case, his whole case, and nothing but his case without being prodded or as sisted or contradicted, the duties of an ad vocate would indeed be superfluous. But one has only to hear the same incident re lated by two honest witnesses who regard it from different points of view to realize how exaggeration, inaccuracy, stupidity, or clev erness unconsciously color their narrative. Of the dishonest or uncandid witness it is unnecessary to speak. Again, in most hu man affairs time is. of the essence of the contract: and one has only to listen to the litigant in person having his fling in the or dinary courts to gain some conception of the time likely to be spent by a Court in its endeavors to unravel a complication of