Editorial Department lawful claims. By these means the plaintiff can, on the production of sufficient evidence, obtain a provisional sentence condemning the defendant to pay the money over to him or into Court before going any further into the case. If the defendant pa v to the plain tiff, die latter may be ordered to give security for repayment of the money. . . . A third provisional remedy, resembling the above-mentioned request antiilotaal, is that of perpetual silence. If a plaintiff brings an action, but does not continue it, the defemland can ask for an "absolution from the in stance," whereby the proceedings are quashed and the plaintiff has to issue a fresh summons if he intends to persist in suing the defendant. If, however, a person avers that he can bring an action against another per son, but does not bring it, and the other per son is afraid that if the action were brought at a later time he would be deprived of his witnesses or otherwise of his means to refute the allegations of the plaintiff, he can petition the Court to compel the would-be plaintiff to commence his action at once, or else to be sentenced to perpetual silence. In RomanDutch Law it was a means for founding jur isdiction, and was known under the name of lex- diftamari and prcvcntie in cas van Purge (Merula, IV. 2, 22). . . . A debtor is liable in his goods for the pay ment of his debts, and—in the absence of any possessions—he is liable in his person. This maxim has been handed down from ancient times, and it was left to the nine teenth century to make an appreciable alter ation in a survival from early civilization. The "civil imprisonment" of Roman-Dutch Law, either for debt, or ad factum pracstaitdiim (which—if valued in money—became also an imprisonment for debt), is still one of the remedies which a creditor can have in Holland and in Cape Colony for obtaining payment from his debtor after all other means have failed. The person concerned is put in prison, where he is kept at his credi tor's expense. In Roman Law the imprison ment was for an unlimited time, or until the debt vas paid off; and this is still the case
- Cape Colony, except in the case of debts
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of small amount, when a limit of three or six months is imposed. At the present time in Holland the limit is five years, or until the debtor reaches the age of seventy years. AN interesting account of the courts in North Carolina down to the Revolution is given by R. W. Herring in February number of the North Carolina Journal of Laiv. Of the General Court he says: Until the arrival of the Constitutions in 1670 the only tribunal in the colony, so far as we know, was held by the Governor and Council, and we know of this only through a law signed by the Lords Proprietors. In the sparsely settled territory of the infant colony one court seems to have been thought sufficient for all causes. It seems to have combined in itself the jurisdiction in law and in chancery as well as in criminal cases. But soon the growth of the colony necessitated the erection of Precincts, or districts of rep resentation in the Assembly, and these Pre cincts became the territorial basis of the local courts. The Governor and Council held this General Court as late as 1695, and it is only in 1702 that we know that the new system was in use. Then the Governor and the Council became the Appellate Court of the colony. The General Court consisted of a Chief Justice, with assistants, varying in number at different times; the Chief Justice, who was the presiding officer of the Court, being appointed by the Proprietors, them selves, and his assistants by the Governor and Council. Just what powers these asso ciates had, is uncertain. But it seems clear that they need not be "learned in the law" before 1724. In early days they were not, except in rare cases; lawyers. THE subject of the initiative .and referen dum (says The New Jersey Laiv Journal for February) which has been adopted in the State of Oregon and has been discussed in many of the States of the union, is a most in teresting one, and not the least so in that aspect of its being in conflict with the con stitution of the United States, guaranteeing to every State a Republican form of govern
