A T F FRASER, Esq of Abertarff, v T A FRASER, Esq of Lovat (Court of Session)

Note .—‘These accounts include so long a period, are composed of so many different items, and are met by the defender in objections so very detailed and critical, that both parties seemed to be aware at the debate of the impossibility of exhausting them in an interlocutor, and confined themselves for the present at least to the ascertainment of certain points affecting large heads of the general expenditure, and it is with this view that the above interlocutor is pronounced.

dly , Considering the fair construction which the statute is entitled to receive, the Lord Ordinary thinks that the operations mentioned in the third finding were sufficiently covered by the notice; it being always understood, that they were actually planned and executed in such a way as to form improvements in the ordinary sense of the term.

The defender reclaimed , and, in respect to the first point decided, contended , that there had not been a sufficient compliance with the statute. An act such as this did not fall under the ordinary acts of administration of a factor or commissioner; on the contrary, it was manifest that the statute required the heir of entail personally to pledge himself for the accuracy of the accounts, by his own subscription. The statute bestows only a conditional right to claim; and if the conditions are neglected, the benefit is lost.

It was answered —That subscription by a factor had been sanctioned by the Court, in Chisholm, 1st Dec. 1820, (not reported,) and Crawford v. Torrance, 1st Dec. 1820, F. C. , and 26th May 1826, W. & S. App. C. ii. 429; Judgment of House of Lords in Campbell, 26th May 1826. Had it not been so sanctioned, it was plain the factor's subscription was the principal's subscription in such a case, and, at all events, it had been corroborated by the principal.

Replied .—The point was one of great importance, and had not received the express decision of the Court in any of the cases cited.