fries, 1837; the Eastern Bank of Scotland, Dundee, 1838: Edinburgh and Leith Bank, Edinburgh, 1838: being 29 in all.

The business done by the Scottish banking-houses is prodigiously increased by the institution of their branches in the provincial and country towns. From those banks already noticed, which are situated in Edinburgh, and from two or three of the chief provincial banks, there were altogether deputed, not long since, about one hundred and forty branches, and this number is undergoing a regular increase. The subsidiary establishments are to be found in every town of any note, from the borders to the most northern point of Scotland. They are conducted by resident wealthy or responsible merchants and others, who give securities for intermissions, and are subjected to a very rigorous supervision by inspectors, who are continually travelling about for this purpose.

The prudent and enterprising manner in which the business of banking is conducted in Scotland, has often been the subject of remark and commendation. Several reasons may be assigned for the remarkable stability of the Scotch banks. Each bank, before gaining credit with its neighbours, must show that it possesses a sufficient paid-up capital, with a reserve fund in London, on which orders for balances may be given. It is also the custom of the banks to exchange the notes of each other once or twice a week, by which means the notes are sent very speedily back to the issuers, and thus an overissue on the part of any single establishment is prevented. There can only be an over-issue by all the banks in the country becoming equally reckless, a thing not likely to occur to any serious extent. A third cause of the stability of the institutions, is the liability of shareholders for the debts of the establishment. Excepting in the case of the three old-established banks above specified, all the shareholders in the various banks are liable not only for the amount of their own shares, but for the shares of all the others; and the whole of their property may be seized to make up deficiencies. Although many of the shareholders are certainly not men of opulence, a number are so; and as their fortunes are good for the paper issued, the public runs no risk of injury. To strengthen this liability of shareholders, by the law of Scotland all heritable property, lands and houses, may be seized in satisfaction for their debts. As this is not the case in England, where personal or movable property can alone be taken by creditors, it would not be possible to establish banks in the south part of the island on the principle of the Scottish banks, till the law touching heritable property be altered.

Other causes, not of a legal nature, conspire to render the system of Scottish banking perfect. By reason of the circumscribed limits of Scotland, and the character of the people, a ramification of intelligence is created and preserved throughout the whole of society, altogether unknown in England, whereby the character, the wealthiness, and the conduct of the partners or directors of each bank, are made fully known to the rest. All seek, and all find, a knowledge of the management of each other. All are mutually on the watch; and symptoms of overissues or other improprieties are spread with an amazing celerity, and have their immediate effect.

In comparing Scottish banking institutions with those in England, and considering the different manner in which paper money has been guided by the two nations, the uniform security of the former appears almost miraculous. From the first issue of the bank-notes in 1704, till the year 1930, a single panic or general run did not occur in Secand, although, during at least two-thirds of the intervening period, paper money had been used to the almost total exclusion of a gold currency. Partial and very temporary runs have assuredly been felt, from the effects of short-lived slander or mistaken notions, which have invariably been readily quashed; but in the

course of a hundred and twenty-six years, there have only been two or three cases of banks failing to pay twenty shillings a pound (they paid 10s.), and four, in which, after a short suspension of payments, all demands were liquidated. Their failure or stoppage, with the exceptions we mention, did not put the public to any loss; but this was to the injury of the shareholders, many of whom were reduced from affluence to poverty. The very common practice of making deposits of smalı sums in the banks, has further assisted in giving strength to the institutions. Each bank receives deposits of any sum above £10, for which a regular interest is given; and on this account the banks may be said to be the custodiers and traders upon all the spare capital of the country. Besides employing capital in discounting bills, lending money on heritable security, &c., the Scottish banks grant loans of fluctuating amount, called cash accoun's. By a cash account is signified a process, whereby an individual, on entering into an arrangement with a bank, is entitled to draw out sums as required, to a stipulated amount, and by an implied condition to make deposits at his convenience towards the liquidation of the same.

Cash accounts are said to have originated from the following circumstance:-A shopkeeper in Edinburgh, in the year 1729, found himself at times in the possession of more than a sufficient supply of ready money to carry on his trade, the overplus of which he consigned to the care of the neighbouring bank. But on other occasions, by reason of the length of the credits given to his customers, his money became so scarce, that, after exhausting his bank deposits, he still felt himself in difficulties. Several dilemmas of this kind having occurred, he was prompted to make a proposal of a novel nature to the bank, to the effect that, if it would accommodate him in straits with small loans, he would always shortly afterwards make up such debits, and that the parties should come to a balancing of accounts at periodical intervals. It seems this proposal was acceded to. A cash credit, or liberty to draw to a certain extent, was instituted under securities; and thus originated a system which has been of immense benefit to bankers and traders, and is now followed over the whole of Scotland.

Cash credits are guarantied by two sufficient securities, or the applicants give infeftment to heritable property in caution of the contingent debt, and when any such debt is liquidated, the deed is cancelled. The expense of expeding a cash credit varies according to the amount of the desired loan. One for £500 may be stated at about £15. The deed requires no renewal. At the end of every six, and in some cases twelve months, calculations are made of entries and debits; the interest for and against the bank-the one being a per cent. higher than the other-is added and balanced, and an account being then rendered, the balance, if in favour of the bank, is either paid up, or remains against the debtor at interest to his new account. In these cash credits the borrower is always at the mercy of the bank, which can call upon him at any time to balance his account, or, by his failing to do so, have recourse upon his securities

Since 1729, cash credits have increased to an amazing extent. In 1826, it was computed that there were TEN THOUSAND in Scotland, varying in amount from £100 to £5000 each, but averaging from £200 to £500. Though originally designed for mercantile persons, they are now operated upon by farmers, manufacturers, housebuilders, miners, lawyers, and all classes of traders and shopkeepers. From 1826, it is extremely probable that, instead of decreasing, they have increased a thousand or two more.

Banks are in the present day established in every civilized country. In the United States of North America they have been instituted to a great extent, and requently on most unsound principles, their notes being

Savings' Lanks. These are banks for receiving and taking charge of small sums, the savings of industry, and have been instituted for the benefit of workmen and others, who may be able to spare a shilling and upwards from their weekly earnings. The first savings' bank is understood to have been begun in Philadelphia in 1816, since which time they have been established in all parts of the United Kingdom, France, and other countries. Several acts of parliament were successively passed between 1817 and 1828, for the regulation of savings' banks in England; and in the year last mentioned, the whole of these were consolidated in one statute (9 Geo. IV. chap. 92). This act, together with another passed in 1833, conferring additional and important privileges on savings' banks (3 Will. IV. chap. 14), constitutes the existing law relative to these useful establishments: in 1835, the act was extended to Scotland. Savings' banks established according to the provisions of these acts are entitled National Security Savings' Banks, because the money deposited in them is paid into the Bank of England on account of government, whereby the nation becomes security for the amount of deposits—a security reckoned the best of all that could be given to the depositors. The interest given by government on the sums so deposited is £3, 16s. 0¿d. per cent. per annum, whatever may be the fluctuations in the value of the public funds during the term of investment. This rate of interest being higher than what

Deposits of from one shilling to thirty pounds may be received by these banks; but no individual depositor is allowed to lodge more than thirty pounds in one year, or than £150 in whole. Charitable and provident institutions may lodge funds to the amount of £100 in a single year, or £300 in all; and friendly societies are permitted to deposit the whole of their funds, whatever may be their amount. Compound interest is given on the sums lodged, the interest being added to the principal at the end of each year in some banks, and at the end of each half-year in others, and interest afterwards allowed on the whole. Any depositor may receive, on demand, the money lodged by him, if it do not amount to a considerable sum; and even in that case it will be returned on a few days', or at most two or three weeks' notice. Practically, payment is always made on demand. The wisest and most effectual provisions are made for ensur ing the proper management of the affairs of the banks, so that those who intrust them with their money may place implicit reliance on its safety.

Each depositor is provided with a small book, in which his deposits are entered, and the amount of his interest marked. On the 20th of November, the interest is added in the bank books whether the depositor call or not. It is computed for the full term, and upon every fifth frac tion of a pound. Depositors have thus the advantage of having their principal sum gradually increasing at 3 per cent. compound interest. So successful has been the establishment of the savings' banks in England, that ir November, 1835, there had been deposited in them, uf till that period, the sum of sixteen millions and a half of pounds. The deposits now amount to about twenty two millions.

THE ROMAN LAW, AND THE SYSTEMS DERIVED FROM IT. LAW may be defined as a system of regulations adopted in social communities for the general advantage, and on that account binding upon all the individuals constituting that community. Such regulations being absolutely essential to the existence of a social state, we may safely infer, that no sooner were any portion of mankind advanced into that state, than law began to exist. Its origin, being thus early, is necessarily obscure: we know extremely little of its history in any of the nations of antiquity besides Greece and Rome.

In Grecian history we find more than one well-known code of laws; but so limited and simple was their operation, and so little are they adapted to the wants of a complicated state of society, that they are to be looked upon rather as the municipal regulations for the temporary government of a small knot of men, than as systems from which any additional hints are to be obtained to aid modern jurisprudence. It does not appear to have been in Greece-the source, as it was, of philosophy, literature, and art-that useful laws, applicable to the business of life, had their origin. The Phoenicians, of whose history and institutions we unfortunately know so little, seem to have been among the first to establish a

general system of mercantile law, which their extensive commerce distributed abroad. To Rhodes, which can scarcely be considered a province of Greece, we owe the earliest regulations applicable to shipping. The law of average, or that by which the loss occasioned by throw ing goods overboard to relieve a ship in distress is laid proportionally on the whole property saved (a most im portant branch of the commercial code of modern nations), had its origin in that state, and is still called ' the Rhodian law.

There is the less importance in the inquiry into the laws of early nations, since all of ancient law which continues to have any force in civilized Europe, has come to us through one channel-namely, the Roman law. Most European nations, being, as it were, the remoulded wrecks of the Roman empire, have obtained the basis of their laws from that source. The Roman law is, therefore, by the common consent of Europe, denominated The Civil Law. In Europe, there was but one other system, at an early period, to combine with it. This was The Feudal Law, or that code of usage which had sprung up in European nations before they received the civil law. It is, after all, only in some countries that the feudal law exists: in other cases, the civil law has established a proportionate, and in some a preponderating influence.

In Holland, and Germany, the original purity of the principles of the civil law have been preserved with such zealous care, that the writings of the lawyers of those countries are quoted as authorities on the law of Rome. 'n Spain, the system has been grafted on the feudal law, and on some peculiar customs derived from the Moors. In France, previously to the Revolution, the civil and the feudal law were united, as in most other nations of Europe and in the Code Napoleon, which we shall hereafter have more particularly to notice, there are many regulations from the jurisprudence of Rome allowed to exist, or revived, while many of the feudal customs which were formerly so prominent are abolished. England distinguished herself from the other nations of Europe by rejecting the civil law as authority, but many of her institutions were derived from its spirit and practice. "With all its imperfections," says Sir William Jones, "it is a most valuable mine of judicial knowledge; it gives law at this hour to the greatest part of Europe, and, though few English lawyers dare make such an acknowledgment, it is the true source of nearly all our English laws that are not of a feudal origin." In Scottand, the Roman law has always been a special subject of study; and though the number of native decisions, the extent of statute-law, and the necessary adaptation of the system to a state of society very different from that in which Justinian promulgated his laws, have rendered references to this source comparatively unfrequent, the civil law is sti! authority where the particular law of Scotland docs not contradict it. It is a special object of study by the legal profession, and is the subject on which the members of the bar are first examined before they are admitted to practice. To complete the general outline of the influence of this system in modern Europe, It must be mentioned as the source of the canon law, which was created into a system by the Church of Rome, and still exists, more or less, either separately or incorporated with other systems, in all countries where the papal authority was acknowledged. The law of nations, or international code, has been, by the common assent of civilized nations, derived from the law of Rome.

Writers have divided the legislative sources from which the laws of Rome spring into five. Among the first of these is generally classed the people, and the laws sanctioned by them are technically divided into the Ler or Populiscitum, and the Plebiscitum, the former including the acts of the whole people, the latter those of the plebeians convened by their tribunes. It would appear that, in the earlier periods of the monarchy, the authority of all classes was in this description of legislation tolerably equal. Servius Tullius, however, the sixth king, introduced the well-known divisions into centuries and classes, by which ninety-eight votes were secured to the first class, while ninety-five only were allotted to the remaining five, of which the lowest and most numerous possessed only one. The tribunes, who were officers chosen for the ostensible purpose of protecting the people from the tyranny of the aristocracy, were, by the exclusive and important power they possessed, again the means of restoring popular election. They procured the assembling of the people by tribes, in which their votes were given individually, and without the necessity of a property qualification. All popular legislation, however, soon disappeared with the authority of the emperors. Augustus, except in one instance, found the popular assemblies profoundly obedient, and under his successor they ceased to exist; so that long before the Roman laws had become the grand system of jurisprudence which they constituted under the auspices of Justinian, the popular source of legislation had been dried up.

The decrees of the senate (Senatus consulta) are another source of the Roman law. The legislative power of this body seems to have grown out of its judicial, which was at first its proper province. By the original VOL. II.-35

constitution, the people alone were understood to be the makers of the laws, and their authority seems to have been gradually engrossed by the senate, the interference of which, from having been confined to mere advice and paternal assistance in legislation, gradually extended itself to that of making laws. It was not till the days of Tiberius that these decrees were publicly promulgated as laws; but the senate had by that time lost its independent authority, and become merely an instrument in the hands of the emperor. The proceedings of the senate were generally suggested by some public officer, as a minister of the crown now introduces a bill into parliament, and a majority decided for passing or rejecting. In later times it became the practice for the emperor to propose a new law either by a message or letter laid before the senate, or by an oration delivered; and as there was no opposition intended or permitted, the legislative body became the mere registrars of the monarch's will.

Another source of the civil law is the constitutions and rescripts of the emperors. At what time they commenced the practice of making laws without the nominal concurrence either of the senate or the people, is not very distinctly known. A passage in the Pandects, the authenticity of which, long doubted, has been confirmed by late discoveries, states that the will of the emperor is law, and that by a particular act, the people had conferred upon him all their own power, which was thenceforth absolutely to remain in his hands-one of those transactions under the guise of which rulers are so fond of concealing their lust of power, by representing as a free gift that which no one can venture to refuse. Hadrian is believed to be the first emperor who exercised the authority of a supreme legislator. The imperial laws were issued in a variety of forms. Sometimes there was a new constitution springing from the monarch's own creative mind--on another occasion he would give his imperial judgment on some nice speculative question of law dutifully submitted to his wisdom. Many of the imperial laws, however, were the decisions of the monarch in particular cases, the spirit of which was piously preserved by the lawyers of the age, as the best criterion for a general rule of action. In modern times we associate with despotism a horror of innovation, and a desire to leave all institutions, whether expedient or hurtful, untouched. It was different in imperial Rome. The emperors were never tired of displaying the legislative produce of their own genius, or those which the prudent and courteous discoverers did not compete with them for the merit of suggesting. During four centuries from Hadrian to Justinian, the manufacturing of legislation was in almost constant operation. Diocletian alone enacted 1200 new laws-a number that would do no dis credit to a moderately long reign of a British monarch.

Edicts of the prætors are another, and not the least important, source of Roman jurisprudence. Of these high magistrates there were different numbers at different times; but the supreme authority vested in two, one hav ing jurisdiction over the city, the other over the provinces. The prætor held his office for a year; and, as a provision against his adapting his judgments to his own personal views, the Cornelian Law obliged him to issue a sort of proclamation at the commencement of his magistracy, imbodying the general principles to which he should adhere in his judgments; and thus, at the moment when he was least acquainted with the duties of his office, he had to fix the plan on which he was to execute them. The prætor was not originally vested with legislative power-it arose in the exercise of his judicial authority. He was merely the interpreter of the laws; but when they seemed to him to be hard or otherwise erroneous, he did not scruple to suspend or alter their execution. The prætorian law has been compared to the equity system in England-a distinct system of law, arising out of those

instances in which it was necessary to give relief from the strict interpretation of the common law. The common law had fixed a particular rule; a case would arise in which its application would be very oppressive; the common law judges, bound by their system, could give no relief; but the chancellor took upon him to modify the evil, and his decision was followed in like cases. The system of the prætors was somewhat similar, with this difference, tha as they had no judges to compete with who pursued a system of strict interpretation, their equity had rather a tendency to modify the common law than to raise a rival structure. The secret or probable wish of the dead," says Gibbon, when illustrating the prætorian system, "was suffered to prevail over the order of succession and the forms of testaments; and the claimant who was excluded in the character of heir, accepted with equal pleasure from an indulgent prætor the possession of the goods of his late kinsman or benefactor. In the redress of private wrongs, compensations and fines were substituted to the obsolete rigour of the Twelve Tables; time and space were annihilated by fanciful suppositions; and the plea of youth, or fraud, or violence, annulled the obligation or excused the performance of an inconvenient contract." With the expiry of his year of office, the edicts of the prætor cease to be imperative; but they were still looked up to as precedents; and when they became venerable by long use, they were considered as part of the fixed law of the land. By an enactment of the Emperor Hadrian, called the "Perpetual Edict," this doubtful and fluctuating branch of the law-at least as much of it as the emperor chose to sanction--received what might be called the royal assent, and was incorporated with the other portions of the civil law, as a distinct branch of the system.

In almost every nation which has passed gradually from barbarism to civilization, many laws will be found to have come into existence without the direct interference of any legislature, and from no better defined origin than a habit on the part of the people of submitting to certain rules, or obeying the commands of certain individuals; it is, indeed, generally in this manner that legislatures have originated. A considerable portion of the Roman law was of this kind; it arose in custom, was handed down by tradition and practice, and called consuetudinary law. It is a disputed question, how far it was necessary that some competent authority should certify that the principle actually was an established portion of the ancient customs of the nation, before it could be safely acted upon as law. It is a peculiarity of the civil, as distinguished from the English jurisprudence, that, according to the former, a law may be tacitly abrogated by long disuse. In England, no law, however long forgotten, ceases to exist till it be repealed by the legislature. The last fountain of Roman jurisprudence which we shall notice, is the Responia Prudentum-literally, the answers of the wise men-the opinions of the sages of the law. It is difficult to conceive a state of society in which the opinions of legal writers, as to the interpretation of the law, will not have an influence. If a case occur in which the judge is uncertain as to the proper application of some enactment, where can he find a more suitable or safer guide than in the opinion of some far-seeing lawyer, who has anticipated the case without knowing the parties, and who, consequently, cannot have proceeded on a bias to one or the other-a defect of which the judge, if he be the first to interpret the law, will be at least suspected? Even in England, where interference with the doctrines of the common law is so jealously opposed, the early commentators are the only authority for its provisions: and there is no doubt that they gave the hue of their own opinions to the doctrines they laid down. In Rome, however, where the profession of the law, instead of being a trade, conferred a high rank in society, the opinions of leading counsel had

a much more extensive range. They not only interpreted, but they could create law, by suggesting how the deci sion should proceed in imaginary cases. At an early period, the relation of lawyer and client was that of patron and dependant. Patricians alone could act as lawyers, and the science was involved in riddles to which they only possessed the key. The poor client was dependent on the good will of his lordly patron for such protection from oppression, whether through the law or otherwise, as the influence of the latter might enable him to afford. When population and transactions increased, and the laws, instead of a mystery, became a serious study, which depended more on laborious application than simple initiation, the profession was opened to ple beians. It became not an unusual case, at a still more advanced period, for the patron and lawyer to be separated; the former being chosen for his influence, the latter for his skill. The forms which regulated the intercourse between patron and client, however, still retained some relics of their origin; and it is a striking illustration of the influence which Roman jurisprudence has exercised, over the human race, to find these still existing. To this day, it is against all etiquette to bargain with a barrister for his work. The law gives him no claim for remuneration, which it kindly views as unworthy of the dignity of his profession; and it is usual to pay him beforehand for his legal assistance. On the other hand, though he has been paid beforehand, he cannot be compelled to perform any duty in return, for he is presumed to assist the client from his own free good will. In most other professions, it is the custom for the person employed to feel under a sort of obligation to the employer who has preferred him to others. This principle is reversed at the bar; for the person employed is the patron, and the employer the client.

But to return to the legislation of the sages of the law During the commonwealth, whoever, by his superior sagacity or knowledge, could obtain deference for his opinions, might be said to be a manufacturer of laws, Under the earlier emperors, the privilege of promul gating authoritative opinions was confined to a limited number of lawyers, of equestrian rank, licensed by the government; but the profession was again thrown open to the public by Hadrian. The most brilliant era of legal wisdom commences within a short period of the decline of the republic, and terminates with the reign of Alexander Severus. Mucius Scævola, the tutor of Cicero, was one of its earliest ornaments; and it included the celebrated jurisconsults Paul, Ulpian, Papinian, Capito, and Labeo. The two last of these, who lived in the age of Augustus, were the founders of the two sects-the Proculians and Sabinians-into which the Roman lawyers were divided. The former advoIcated the doctrine that the laws should be amended at discretion, to meet circumstances as they occurred; the latter maintained the theory of their strict interpretation, be its inexpediency in the particular instance what it may. Capito, applying his doctrines to the inroads which the emperors were gradually making in the freedom of the republic, was a supporter of this species of innovation, and his followers were enrolled among the ready tools of despotism. Labeo sought to support the ancient freedom of the republic by an adherence to the let. ter of the old laws, and his sect became the champions of what may be termed constitutional freedom. The con flict is not unlike that which lately existed in Britain petween Lord Mansfield and Lord Camden; the former supporting, to a certain degree, an equitable, the latter in all cases, a strict interpretation of the law.

Having now enumerated the principal sources of the Roman law, we may notice its remarkable epochs. The laws enacted during the reigns of the kings, although a curious subject of inquiry among antiquaries, exercised too little influence on the civil law, as handed down to