present Act of May 28, 1907, and the laws which it supplants, provide distinctly for written notice, which must be served upon the alleged weak-minded person. As to insane persons, the statement quoted above is misleading, for the Lunacy Act of June 13, 1836, provides for some form of notice, and it has been decided in Comm. v. Groh, 10 Pa. C. C. 557 (1891), that the failure to give notice will result in the setting aside of the subsequent proceedings. It is, of course, impossible to examine here the statutes of the various states, but the references above given are sufficient to show that the present book is hardly a dispassionate investigation of the subject. It is, however, doubtless true that in many jurisdictions the statutes on the subject of lunacy should be amended to provide more clearly for adequate personal notice of proposed lunacy proceedings. If the present work serves to call effective attention to these defects in our laws, its publication will have been justified.

R. D. J.

THE LAW AND PRACTICE IN BANKRUPTCY UNDER THE NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY ACT OF 1898. By WILLIAM Miller COLLIER. Sixth Edition by Frank B. Gilbert. Albany, N. Y.: Matthew Bender & Co. 1907. Pp. liv. 1077.

So rapid has been the development of the law of bankruptcy under the Act of 1898 as amended and so numerous the decisions construing the intricate provisions of that statute that it is not surprising that after a lapse of only two years a new edition of Collier's Bankruptcy has been published. The present volume brings the work down to April, 1907, and includes all the decisions reported in the American Bankruptcy Reports to volume 17. In the treatment of the subject in the present revision there has been no departure from the general plan adopted in the previous editions. This is undoubtedly wise, because although that arrangement sometimes seems confusing it has the merit of familiarity to those who have used the earlier volumes. The new edition contains the full text of the Bankruptcy Act and the usual collection of forms for use in bankruptcy cases. Throughout is shown the sarne careful and thorough work which has earned for the work the approbation of so many practitioners in the bankruptcy courts.

R. D. J.

In the ordinary course of the law of England a creditor could not resort to the property of his debtor in satisfaction of his demand until he had brought suit and obtained judgment and issued execution. The initial seizure of the goods and chattels of a debtor, it may be inferred, originated in an analogy to arrest on civil process for the purpose of compelling the attendance of the defendant, or it may have sprung from an ancient Roman practice whereby the effects of a debtor who had secreted himself at home to elude persecution were appropriated to the payment of his debts, after three efforts to summon him had failed to induce him to appear. Research on this historical question is of little moment in view of numerous authorities which state the antiquity of the proceeding styled foreign attachment in the Mayor's Court of London as one of the customs of London.

The custom was first certified by Starkey, Recorder of London, in 1482, Hariot Mayor, 22 Edw., 14 L., 175.1

1 Set out in the Mayor & Alderman of the City of London v. Cox, Law Reports, 1867, 2 H. L., 239, p. 242.

(137)

This description is given in Bohen's Privilegia Londini, P. 253, etc.

'By the Cuftom of London one may attach Money or Goods of the Defendants, either in the Plaintiffs own Hands, or in the Custody of a third perfon, and that either in the Maior's Court or in the Sheriff's Court.

And Note, That the Cuftom of London is, That if any Plaint be affirmed in London before &c. against any man, and he is returned nihil, if the plaintiff will furmife any other man who is within the City, is Debtor to the Defendant, in any Sum, he shall have his Garnishment against him for him to come and answer if he be indebted in the Form which the other hath alledged; and if he comes and does not deny it, then this Debt shall be attached in his Hands.

Note, the Plaintiff ought to furmife, that the other man who is indebted to the Defendant, is within the City.

* All Attachments are grounded upon Actions of Debt, and the manner of entering Attachments is the same as is before mentioned for entering Actions: And one of the six officers belonging to this court ought be employed to make the same.

In London Joint Stock Bank v. Mayor of London, 45 L. J. Rep. Com. Law, p. 213 (1876), Lord Coleridge in his discussion of the question whether the custom of foreign attachment can be enforced against a corporation as garnishee gives many citations in regard to the origin and scope of the proceeding. It was definitely settled in The Mayor and Aldermen of London v. Cox, supra, (note 2) that the Lord Mayor's Court in London is an inferior court. From the procedure in such a tribunal sprang the body of statutes in the United States, with countless suits. When the reader dwells on the jurisdiction, the judges, the four counsel, the four attorneys, the executive officers of the Mayor's Court, he wonders at the broad outcome of the custom which was so limited and local in its nature. The current

'It was said by Coleridge, C. J., in London Joint Stock Bank v. Mayor of London, 45 L. J. Rep., 1876, C. L., at p. 219 that much of Bohen's book was taken from Lex Londinensis, published in 1680.

See the third plea in London Joint Stock Bank v. Mayor of London, p. 216: "That afterwards at the same court, the said Sergeant-atMace, according to such custom, returned and certified to the same court, that the said Thomas Griesielle had nothing within the said city or the liberties thereof whereby he could be summoned, nor was he to be found within the same, &c."

from a narrow source has broadened into a mighty volume of legal business.1

Each state has its own system provided by legislative enactments. The present purpose is to indicate the practice in Pennsylvania.

STATUTES.

It appears from a manuscript volume of the laws passed prior to the year 1700, that the first act upon the subject was that of May 16, 1699. This act recognized and confirmed writs of attachment issued before that time. Sergeant on For. Att., p. 2, note A (a copy is printed in the appendix on p. 278).

Then followed the Acts of 1700 and 1701, which were afterwards repealed (Carey & Bioren, Vol. I, p. 8, p. 34).

The next statute was "An Act about Attachments," passed October, 1705 (1 Smith's Laws, 45). This did not distinguish between the two kinds of attachments, foreign and domestic, which were separate remedies, as is clearly shown by "An Act to rectify proceedings upon attachments," passed March 2, 1723 (Ca. & Bio., Vol. I, p. 193). Domestic attachments were regulated by this act and by subsequent ones which altered it.

This statement is made by Judge Sergeant:

"But the Acts of Assembly, relative to foreign attachments, although they are the foundation of that mode of proceeding, are imperfect. Much of the law on the subject, and most of the forms of proceeding, are borrowed from the proceedings under the custom of London, which the legislature took for their model in framing the act of 1705, and are now sanctioned by legal adjudications and by practice."

It may be said, following this quotation, that more than threescore years have elapsed since the last edition of Judge Sergeant's treatise was published, and only the changes by decisions and legislation justify this imperfect supplement to his learned and admirable book.

In the Sixth Report of Messrs. W. Rawle, T. I. Wharton

'Drake on Att., sec. 3. 2 Shinn on Att., p. 2.

and Joel Jones, the able commissioners appointed to revise the Civil Code of Pennsylvania, there was submitted a draft of a bill entitled "An Act relating to the Commencement of Actions," which was adopted and passed June 13, 1836 (P. L. 568), Sections 43 to 78, inclusive, of this act related to foreign attachments. The procedure under the system provided by this well-drawn law prevailed for many years, unbroken by innovations. It is still followed, with some changes which will be noticed in their appropriate places.

The first inquiry is:

Against what persons may a foreign attachment be issued? In the Doctrine and Practice of Foreign Attachment in the Mayor's Court, London, by Robert Woolsey, Gent. (1816), on p. 23, it is said:

"The process of attachment seems, therefore, in its origin, to have been originally intended merely to compel the appearance of the defendant by sufficient sureties to answer the plaintiff's demand upon him. It was justly considered that the merchants of a great mercantile city would have debtors resident in foreign countries with no means (unless by their property here), of rendering them amenable to our courts of justice. The process of attachment was, therefore, probably devised; and hence, in our common law books, it is styled Foreign Attachment. But it may be remarked, that in the language of the city courts, all nonfreemen are styled foreigners."

The 44th Section of the Pennsylvania Act of June 13, 1836, is as follows:

"A writ of attachment in the form aforesaid' may be issued against the real or personal estate of any person not residing within this Commonwealth, and not being within the county in which such writ shall issue, at the time of the issuing thereof."

It appears from the Report of the Commissioners that the words "and not being in the county," were intended to save a creditor from making inquiries in all the counties of the state before issuing his writ; "also because it is not probable that he would be acquainted with the fact of the defendant's presence in a distant county; and if the fact

'The form is given in the 43d section.