30 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. II. 



in the foreground as the principal element of contract is a reversing the 

 natural or historical order of English law, and compels resort to the 

 unscientific expedient of alternate expansion and limitation. Contract 

 is to be defined from the standpoint of duty or obligation in the wider 

 sense, the essential element of which is the formation of a legal bond or 

 tie. (2) The long-established classification of English law, which places 

 records in the first-class, accords with this theory. The distinction 

 between contracts under seal and those not under seal, once important, 

 has broken down from many causes : the more general education of the 

 people, the reduction of seals to attenuated ghosts of their former selves 

 and loss of distinctive character, intervention of the common law and 

 Chancery Courts and statute to prevent fraud ; followed by the amalga- 

 mation of the courts. Seals may continue for solemnization purposes 

 and for evidence, but the affixing them to contracts should no more 

 constitute these a class apart than the requirement of writing should 

 make contracts coming under the statute of frauds a separate class from 

 other simple contracts. In matter of substantive law the tests of the 

 validity of both are identical. Reviewing Mr. Amos' list in respect to 

 the distinction between status and contract, Mr. Browning classified con- 

 tracts under two main heads ; acts of the law immediate, acts of the law 

 mediate. 



SEVENTEENTH MEETING. 



Seventeenth Meeting, 7th March 1891, the president in the chair. 



Donations and Exchanges 75. 



Mr. Levi J. Clark read a Paper entitled " A consideration of Sewage 

 Schemes." He took up the subject under three heads : (i), A general 

 survey of the position of sewage affairs in various parts of the world, 

 particularly in England and Germany ; (2), An elucidation of a gravity 

 scheme for Toronto ; and, (3), Some general defects in sewage works, 

 and also some remarks on weak points in the scheme now before the 

 city. Under the first heading he reviewed a recent work on sewage by 

 W. Santo Crimp, assistant engineer of the London County Council, 

 England. The book contains valuable information regarding the various 

 methods of sewage disposal, such as sewage farming, precipitation 

 works, filtration, irrigation, chemical treatment, electrolysis, and free 

 outfall into the sea or other large body of water. 



The general conclusion that Mr. Crimp comes to is that where a free 



