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The Green Bag.

for amendment as supply of the common law. But the crown was not willing to confer upon the chancellor this same plenary power in respect to the criminal jurisdiction in herent in it and its councillors, and that sovereign prerogative was still retained by the king and his nobles. In its judicial capacity, the body pos sessing this extraordinary power of supreme judicature was called the council, and as time went on these several bodies came to be distinguished by different titles : ( I ) the great council of the nation, or Parliament; (2) the Council; (3) the Privy Council. It is a matter of some difficulty to distinguish these three bodies from each other in the early stages of their history. The council took from the earliest times a part in the administration of justice, which was viewed with great suspicion by Parliament

and was made the subject of remonstrance by them on various occasions in the course of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Notwithstanding these remonstrances and the provisions of several statutes on the subject, the jurisdiction of the council continued and increased, and it ultimately established itself as one of the recognized institutions of the country. Although the hereditory lords had from time immemorial usually neglected to assert their rights to participate in the proceedings of the curia regis, still they had always pos sessed this inherent right of judicature as constitutent members of the council of the king and kingdom, and when the curia regis was divided, and the departments of ordinary judicature were branched out in the manner we have just seen, the peculiar character of this council, now separated and retired with in itself, became more distinguishable.

"FOREIGN" RECEIVERS AND JUDICIAL ASSIGNEES. By Seymour I). Thompson. I. I.

Preliminary Statement.

DURING the past year the assets of an unprecedented number of individuals, partnerships, and corporations, engaged in banking, in trade, and in manufactures, have passed into the hands of receivers, assignees, and trustees, for judicial administration, under the insolvent laws of the states. The business conducted by these insolvents has, in nearly every case, extended beyond the limits of the state of the domicile, and has, in many cases, extended into every state and territory in the Union. The task de volved upon the receiver, assignee, trustee, or other representative of the insolvent and of the creditors of the insolvent, is, there

fore, to collect debts and gather in assets in many states other than that in which the administration is conducted. In the absence of any legislation on the part of Congress, either under its power of establish ing a uniform system of bankruptcy, or under the commerce clause of the federal Constitution, he must rely upon the statute laws of every local jurisdiction in which debts are to be collected or assets gathered in and conserved, with such feeble aid as he can find in that provision of the Constitution of the United States which directs that "full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the public acts, records, and judicial pro ceedings of every other state."1 1 Const. U. S., art. 4, § 1.