the fact that there was no precedent for a contrary decision. To make a man responsible for his fowl straying en the highway would make the keeping of fowls impossible.

Without calling upon counsel for the owner of the fowl, the court gave judgment dismissing the appeal. Mr. Justice Phillimore said there was very considerable difficulty in drawing the line in dealing with the use of the highway. In this case the fowl flew into the cyclist's machine in avoiding a dog belonging to a third person. If there had been no dog to alarm the fowl, it was possible that the cyclist might have had a right of action.

Leave to appeal further was granted to the cyclist.

It will be noted that the Divisional Court avoided the point on which the appellant's counsel relied, namely, the trespass. They held that the proxima causa of the accident was the dog which frightened the fowl. If there had been no dog in the case, "it is possible," said the Court, that the cyclist might have a right of action." But if we understand Mr. Avory's argument aright he contended that the hen had no right to be there at all, dog or no dog; that it was the duty of the owner to keep the fowl (a "senseless animal ") under control.

DR. KENEALY.

Reviewing the Memoirs of Dr. Kenealy the London Spectator says: "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is a maxim the observance of which entails a corresponding obligation, and Miss Kenealy has been somewhat rash in reviving the memory of her father's ill-starred career. It is eight and twenty years since his death, and the great majority of those who knew him at the Bar or in Parliament have passed away. But there are plenty of men still living who could testify to the strange delusions under which the author of this volume is labouring. Dr. Kenealy was an Irishman with a touch of genius, fluent in speech and ready of pen, a very remarkable linguist, and a poet of no mean order. Handicapped by an ungovernable, and we must add, a very vindictive temper, the word "discretion" had no place in his vocabulary, and he was the victim of conceit which amounted almost to disease. The autobiographical sketch which forms the foundation of the Memoirs, and which his daughter regards as "one of the most interesting human documents ever presented to the world," is a revelation of Kenealy's failings, as striking as it is unconscious. In the "fifties" and "sixties" he was a familiar figure in literary London. He published some volumes of poetry which earned the applause of competent critics, and he was the author of a mass of writing on esoteric and theosophical subjects which his daughter dignified by the name of theology. In 1868, he had obtained sufficient practice at the Bar to justify Lord Chelmsford in making him a Queen's Counsel, and in the spring of 1873, the defence of the Tichborne claimant was entrusted to him. The difficulties of the task were enormous. He never had brief or instructions in the proper sense of the word; the assistance afforded him was most inadequate, and against him were arrayed counsel of exceptional ability, some of whom, such as Hawkins and Charles Bowen, had been steeped in the case for years. The verdict has passed beyond the realms of controversy, and by his own admission Kenealy never really grasped the nature of the case he had to meet. What slender chance of acquittal the claimant possessed was thrown away by the incredibly reckless tactics of his advocate. For his grave breaches of professional decency Kenealy was expelled from his circuit mess; and he was subsequently disbarred by the

Benchers of Gray's Inn, and deprived by Lord Cairns of his patent as a Q.C. The rest of his life was devoted to journalism and politics; he founded and edited "The Englishman," a paper which for libels on the living and the dead stands alone in our language, and he carried Stoke-on-Trent at a by-election in 1875. By an extraordinary aberration of sentiment, "the unfortunate nobleman now languishing in Dartmoor" and his unflinching defender became the most popular men in England, and Kenealy for a few months rivalled the fame of Lord George Gordon. The reaction was rapid and complete. After 1876 he sank into obscurity, he lost his seat in April, 1880, and died a week or two later. For years he had suffered from a painful disorder, which is the best excuse that can be pleaded for the outrageous violence of his speeches and his writings.

Such, in brief, is the story of Dr. Kenealy. His daughter's effort to represent him as a mixture of Mirabeau, Erskine, and Thomas Aquinas will not avail against the judgment of his contemporaries and his own words and actions, but it will remain to his credit that in the family circle he was loved and venerated. A glance at the book will shew that Miss Kenealy possesses the most imperfect idea of the functions of a biographer. We do not allude to the mere mistakes and misspellings, extraordinary as they are,some of them may be due to bad proof-reading, but others are obviously, in the words of Dr. Johnson, the product of sheer ignorance, or neglect to verify references. We are concerned rather with the utter recklessness with which Miss Kenealy allows herself to reprint and give circulation to the charges and imputations brought by Dr. Kenealy against every one, man or woman, who incurred his momentary dislike, or who ventured to cross his path. Lord Chief Justice Campbell, the poet, Chief Justice Erle, Sir Alexander Cockburn, Lady Palmerston, Samuel Rogers, Baron Huddleston, Bulwer Lytton, "Talfourd and his vulgar wife," whose hospitality Kenealy had just been enjoying, are instances taken at random from these pages. The anecdotes preserved in them are for the most part well worn, some of them obviously untrue, others merely spiteful; and the general impressions conveyed is that of a soured and ill-conditioned man. The account given by Kenealy himself of his earlier days-the utter want of discipline, mental and moral-goes far towards explaining the errors and misfortunes which brought a life of much promise to so melancholy a close.

DOMINION DAY HONOURS.

Sir Charles Fitzpatrick, K.C.M.G., Chief Justice of Canada, has been appointed a Privy Councillor.

Hon. W. G. Falconbridge, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Ontario, and Hon. H. I. Taschereau, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Quebec, have been appointed Knights Bachelor. The distinguished recipients of these honors have the congratulations of the legal profession throughout Canada.

SIR WILLIAM WHITEWAY.

Rt. Hon. Sir William Whiteway, formerly Premier of Newfoundland, died on 24th June. Sir William was born in England, went to Newfoundland in 1843, was called to the Bar in 1852, and ten years later created a Queen's Counsel. In 1873 he became Solicitor-General and in 1878 Premier and Attorney-General of Newfoundland. In 1877 he was counsel for Newfoundland on the Fishery Commission. He was created a K.C.M.G. in 1880, and while a guest, by special invitation, at the Queen Victoria Diamond Jubilee was called to the Imperial Privy Council.

DOCTORS OF LAWS.

At the recent Commencement of the University of Toronto the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on His Excellency J. A. A. J. Jusserand, Ambassador of France, to the United States, and Sir Louis A. Jetté, LieutenantGovernor of Quebec.

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE.

CLARKE v. THE UNION FIRE INSURANCE CO. CASTON'S CASE:*

THE MASTER IN ORDINARY.]

[5TH DECEMBER, 1883.

Power of Master to refer Solicitor's Bills of Costs—Effect of Allocatur in Winding-up Proceedings.

A solicitor brought in a claim upon an allocatur finding certain sums due to him by the company on bills of costs, upon a reference to a taxing officer to tax them. The liquidator objected to the claim upon the ground that no power existed authorizing the Master to refer bills of costs for taxation and that his authority was only to moderate the bills.

THE MASTER IN ORDINARY.-The claim in this case is for the amount of certain bills of costs alleged to be due to the former solicitor of the defendants, and which, under a reference by the former Master to one of the Taxing Officers, have been taxed at the amount set out in his allocatur dated the 11th January, 1883.

It is objected that the Master has no jurisdiction to refer the bills to be "taxed," but only to be "moderated;" and as to the effect of the latter proceeding reference is made to Johnson v. Telford, 3 Russ. 477, and Allen v. Jarvis, L. R. 4 Ch. App. 621.

The objection concedes that the Master has some power to refer bills of costs to a Taxing Officer. No case was cited in support of a limitation of this power to refer; and a reference to the practice of the office and to cases sustain the jurisdiction of the Master. In Barker v. Dacie, 6 Ves. 682 (A.D. 1802), it was stated in argument that if a bill of costs for business done in Chancery were sued for at law, the Master or other officer of the Court of law would take to his assistance a person out of the Court in which the business was done.

*Some decisions of Master in Ordinary, not hitherto reported.