If the proviso authorises and compels a court of equity to say, that the charge cannot be enforced against a purchaser, against whom notice cannot be proved, the only effect of the enactment is, that a judgment is now an equitable charge, where the debtor has the legal estate, for it has long been a charge upon every modification and degree of equitable interest, and not merely upon a moiety of the proceeds,1 for the whole, it appears, are liable.

It should be observed that the present doctrine of Chancery respecting judgments has no reference to the legal estate, it depends simply upon the fact of notice. Hence, supposing under the old law a judgment was entered up against the owner of an equity of redemption, and the same was subsequently sold to a purchaser without notice of the judgment, we apprehend the purchaser would hold free from the judgment, though the legal estate remained outstanding. But supposing the same facts under the new law, with the addition that the judgment creditor, before the sale of the equity, gave notice of his judgment to the party having the legal estate, would the purchaser be free from the judgment? We think not; for the judg ment creditor might say, my charge upon the equity is the same now as if it had been made by an agreement in writing. But a judgment considered as a charge by an agreement in writing should be subject in Chancery to the equitable doctrine of getting in the legal estate without notice of any charge; and this, perhaps, is the real object of the proviso before us.

In cases where the legal estate is already in a mortgagee or otherwise out of the owner, a judgment creditor, whether he gave notice of his charge to the party having the legal estate or not, may be entitled to rank among the equities, however they may be created, according to the date. If so, a second mortgagee, or a mortgagee who has only an equitable estate, will have now little advantage over a judgment creditor, except that he may have power to sell the pledge, without going into Chancery.

Upon the whole we think no device will exempt a purchaser from the charge created by the 11th section, and that he must

Tunstall v. Trappes, 3 Sim. 300.

also be subject to that created by the 13th, unless he gets the legal estate without notice.

We apprehend it will be held that a mortagee's interest in the mortgaged premises is not subject to the charge of the 13th section, though the words are sufficient to comprise it.

But we must now conclude. We have thought it may be useful to bring before our readers these various views; for the subject will doubtless engage the earnest attention of the practitioner, and sooner or later must be fully discussed in our courts. In the meanwhile our advice to purchasers and mortgagees is, search the register and rely not upon any device to sponge off or squeeze out the debts of the person under whom you claim.

But

Since writing the above, Sir Edward Sugden's new act "for the Better Protection of Purchasers against Judgments, Crown Debts, Lis pendens, and Fiats in Bankruptcy" just passed, (4 June, 1839,) has been put into our hands. This enactment coming from the hand of a master should, we think, have contained the whole law respecting judgments, and have settled the doubts which have from time to time arisen. instead of doing so it has confounded the subject to such an extent, that we doubt not litigation will flourish within the precinct. Our readers are aware that the 4 & 5 W. & M. c. 20 required that all judgments should be docketed, and that section 3 enacted, that no judgment not docketed should affect purchasers or mortgagees. The act of 1839 enacts, that no judgments shall hereafter be docketed under the act of W. & M., but it does not repeal the act. But the substance of the act of W. & M. being taken away, can the 3d section have any operation? In other words, suppose a judgment now recovered is not registered pursuant to the act of 1838, will it affect lands in the hands of a purchaser? It may be said, lex neminem cogit ad impossibilia, and that docketing of judgments being prohibited the penalty for not docketing is gone. This is a very serious question, for if a purchaser can be affected by a judgment not registered, he is in as bad a case as before the year 1692.

The most important provision of the act of 1839, so far as regards our present purpose, is section 5, which enacts, that as against purchasers and mortgagees without notice of any

such judgment, (quære, any judgment, or a judgment registered pursuant to the act of 1838,) it shall not bind or affect· any lands or any interest therein further or otherwise, or more extensively in any respect, although registered, than a judgment would have bound such purchaser or mortgagee before the act of 1838, where it had been duly docketed. It appears, then, that the act of 1838 is to have no operation either at law or in equity, unless the purchaser or mortgagee has notice; but the section before us seems to say, that without notice a judgment, at least if registered, shall have the same operation as a docketed judgment; but this very important provision is only an implication. The enactment is, without notice, no judgment shall bind further or otherwise, although registered, than a judgment would have bound before the act of 1838, if docketed. But the act does not say, in

express terms, as it should, that a registered judgment without notice shall have the same effect as a docketed judgment before the act of 1838; and we do not observe that the registering of a judgment is made equivalent to the docketing under the stat. of W. & M. Assuming that the inference is allowed, and that a registered judgment without notice shall have the same effect as a docketed judgment, the result of the section before us is, that without notice the old law will decide the question, with notice the new law must be referred to, and this it must be admitted is very unsatisfactory.

Sect. 4 enacts, that after a judgment shall have been entered five years it must be re-entered, otherwise the same shall be void; but we apprehend that though a judgment is not reentered it will not be void against a purchaser who has notice of it; and if so, so far as regards the act of 1838, which depends upon notice, the 4th section is a nullity.

Most of the sections in the new act before us are expressly extended to purchasers or mortgagees, but the 12th section, which gives protection against secret acts of bankruptcy, mentions only purchasers. Is this intended? And does the wording of the previous sections exclude mortgagees from the benefit of the section?

Section 13 of the new act is a copy of section 86 of the Bankrupt Act, 6 Geo. 4, c. 16. What is intended by the re

petition?

W. C. W.

ART. VI.-ADVENTURES OF AN ATTORNEY.

Adventures of an Attorney in Search of Practice. London. 1839.

THIS book consists of a selection of cases in which an attorney was or might have been employed, interspersed with reflections on the line of conduct most likely to promote success in the profession, and pieces of advice to young practitioners as to the proper mode of demeaning themselves towards clients of all sorts. The title, therefore-evidently suggested by "Adventures in search of a Horse"-strikes us to be illchosen ; for, coupled with the name of the hero, Mr. Sharpe, it led us, and probably has led many others, to anticipate neither more nor less than an exposure of the tricks of the knavish members of the body, which is not the main object, nor even one of the main objects, of the publication.

As the plan was probably borrowed from Mr. Warren's Passages from the Diary of a late Physician," the author might as well have gone a step further and borrowed the title too. "Passages in the Life of an Attorney" would convey a fair general notion of the contents. This work, however, is obviously the bonâ fide production of a practitioner,—the result of his own actual experience or that of his acquaintance and cotemporaries, so that direct practical conclusions may confidently be drawn from it; and we gladly avail ourselves of the opportunity to comment on a few topics of professional interest which come home to the feelings or pockets of all.

The commencement runs thus, aptly enough pourtraying the unreasoning and unreasonable eagerness of a beginner:

"There is something vastly agreeable in the first day of a professional life clerkship, servitude, and drudgery are all at an end; one no longer asks the hour, with sore consciousness of being too late for office, or dire misgivings of having been inquired for; and racking one's wits in vain for some new excuse, not yet exhausted, of " gone to the Temple," "examining an abstract," or "serving a notice!" I was in such a desperate hurry to begin, though I had not a client nor the dream of one, and was filled with lofty ambition to do the thing well, and start with all the magnificence of a house, I had not patience to wait till I could find one, but engaged a first floor over a shop, bought a desk and half-a-dozen chairs second-hand, incarcer

ated the first stray lad I could catch, in a dark cell eight feet by six, tied up old precedents with new tape, and then painted my name gorgeously on the door posts with all the dignity of "Mr. Sharpe, Solicitor," at full length.

"Such was my self-complacency at the independence of my novel position, that I believe I rung my hand-bell for my clerk half a score of times in the course of an hour, merely for the pleasure of having it answered; though there was charity in the act, for without this stimulus to attention he would inevitably have gone to sleep for lack of better employment. ** **

"How long this interesting state of indolent expectation might have continued, had I waited for clients to come to me, I cannot say ; but after a week or two I began to find it as ennuyant as it was profitless, and resolved, as nobody seemed willing to find me out, to try my luck in finding out them. It was very clear that my extraordinary merits were still unknown, and an attorney, though he ought certainly to "blush unseen," if he blushes at all, cannot by any means afford to waste his sweetness on the desert air. Hence I changed my plan; left word with my clerk that if any body called I was gone to the Temple,' and sallied forth on a Paul Pry expedition among all my friends and acquaintances: but I verily believe that the demon of ill-luck, if there is such a deity in heathen mythology, presided over my first essays. Not a soul had called on me for three weeks, except two or three idle lads to see how I got on,' when, while engaged on one of my marauding expeditions, a certain noble lord of very large property, hitherto unprovided with a solicitor, and to whom I had been favourably mentioned by a common relative, drove up to my door, and called to instruct me to file an information against the trustees of an important charity. Gone to the Temple' was as unintelligible to his noble ears as if my clerk had reported me gone to the devil;' perhaps, in his opinion the expressions were synonymous, as in truth, I have often considered them myself: however this may be, I never saw any more of his lordship, or heard another syllable of his instructions, (except that another solicitor had filed the information,) though on three successive mornings I left my card at his mansion in Grosvenor Square; at no cost of time, for I had nothing else to do, but at an immense expense of coach-hire, omnibuses not then being in fashion. It is all for the best I have since seen and heard much of his lordship; he is a worthy man, but his notions, however becoming his high rank, would never have agreed with my temper at that early time of day; and had we quarrelled, I should have lost clients in his connexion that I have still retained, and value far more highly.