Leith, the grandfather of the late statesman, and certain other pursuers procured the in terpretation by the House of Lords of a right which, if it had continued to the pres ent time, would have been a valuable en dowment for the parish of North Leith. Even 1 20 years ago this right had a very long history. The Church and parish of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, were annexed to the Abbey of Holyrood when the latter was erected into an Abbacy in 1128. At that time, the parish and abbey lands extended to Newhaven and Leith, and the Charter of erection contained a grant of teinds of fish coming into Newhaven and Leith. This right to fish teinds passed to the parish of North Leith when it was formed in 1606, and in 1781, the House of Lords decided that the right extended even to fish brought to Leith or Newhaven which had paid teind al ready at the place of capture, but that it did not extend to fish, brought to the ports for the purpose of being again exported from them. Another ecclesiastical case was decided in the House of Lords about the same time, which has to the present day important con sequences for the clergy of the Church of Scotland. The teind court had decided that although there was free teind in a parish they could not award a further augmentation of stipend if the legal minimum had been reached, but the House of Lords reversed this finding. Lord Thurlow, the Chancellor, in an interesting account of the law of the matter, remarked: "Much has been said of the policy of a proper provision for the clergy. A State has no business with reli gion as religion, but merely as a political es tablishment. Were I speaking as a legisla tor, I would say that the well-being of Scot land was deeply concerned in making a more
liberal provision for the clergy. I would have higher promotion, higher hopes, and •greater preferment. It is that alone that can keep the clergy in a situation to be of use to religion. For he must be a wretch in deed whose hopes are bounded by the scanty preferment of that country." Lord Thurlow in his contempt for the poverty of Scotland and in his opinions on the motives of church men and their relation to the State, is typical of the Englishman of his time. In conclusion, speaking of the Reports as a whole, one observes that they indicate the large social and legal changes which the lapse of time has brought about. Decisions relating to heritable matters, such as entails, completion of titles, and rights of ownership, exceed in number and importance} all other questions put together. This, of course, arises from the fact that throughout the eighteenth century the wealth of Scotland was chiefly heritable property. There are necessarily no decisions about railways and almost none about, joint stock companies. The law of reparation which now bulks so largely in our Reports, was rarely discussed, owing in part to the fact that there was then no trial by jury in civil causes with its pleas ing or painful surprises. The law of vesting was simple and intelligible, which will hardly be said of it now by those who have tried to follow and reconcile the modern decisions on the subject. There is an almost entire ab sence of questions about trusts, will, and set tlements. The explanation of this is prob ably that there were few investments fof trusters and testators to deal with. Alto gether the cases that came before the Courts indicate a society largely feudal in its organ ization and agricultural in its pursuits. We have traveled far since then.—The Juridical Review.
