The Sun.
London, England, 1857-12-17 00:00:00

CANADA.

MONTREAL, Nov. 30.
The parliament of Canada is dissolved by pro-
clamation of the Governor-General, and writs for
a new election, returnable on the 13th of January
next, are issued to-day.
The parliament just dissolved had one more
session to run, but it had passed all the great
questions it was elected to decide upon, and the re-
tirement of Colonel Tache, the late Premier, to
private life, involved the reconstruction of the
cabinet, which, with the reason I have above given
you, made the Governor-Genoral and the new
ministry think a new election desirable.
I subjoin a list of the new ministry, the members
of which have just been sworn in :

John A. M'Donald, Attorney-General for Upper
Canada, and Premier.
William Cayley, Inspector-General.
Robert Spence, Postmaster-General.
Geo. E. Cartier, Attorney-General for Lower
Canada.

Jos. C. Morrison, Receiver-General.
P. M. Vankoughnet, President of the Council.
Louis V. Sicotte, Commissioner of Crown Lands.
N. F. Belleau, Speaker Legislative Council.
Charles Alleyn, Chief Commissioner of Public
Works.

T. J. J. Loranger, Secretary of the Province.

CROSSED CHECKS.

The decision in the Court of Common Pleaq,
described on Friday last, which practically esta-
blishes that any person may remove the crossing of
a check, and that no banker is liable for any loss
that may arise from his paying it after such erasure
across the counter, has caused great uneasiness
among all the principal houses in the city. Among
the various usages of commerce none has been found
of greater service in imparting security to every
transaction and removing temptations to fraud than
that of crossing checks, so as to render it indis-
pensable that they should be paid to some banker,
thus preventing their payment on presentation to
auy one who might purloin or find them. A few
years back the value of the practice was much
injured by a decision which invalidatedthe supposed
effect of what was called a specific crossing—that is
to say a crossing with the name of an individual
banker ; but at the same time the system in its
general form, under which assurance could be
obtained that payment would not be made except
to some banker, was felt to be so important that a
statute was framed expressly to settle, as was
supposed, all doubts of its binding nature in this
latter respect. The not uufrequent result, how-
ever, has been experienced that the Act, through
an imperfection in its form, has destroyed
the very safeguard it was intended defini-
tively to establish. The crossing of a check, it
has been decided, does not, according to the phraseo-
logy of the statute, form part of the body of the
check, any alteration in which would be an act of
forgery, but is simply a direction which any holder
may affix, alter, or caned at pleasure, the only duty
of the banker being to follow any such direction
that may not have been removed from the check at
the time of its presentation. The present judg-
ment
was delivered by Mr. Justice Cresswell, but
the Lord Chief Justice in concurring with it stated
that he did so with some hesitation. The matter is
of such moment that there has been a hope the
plaintiff would resolve to appeal. After the next
meeting of Parliament an amendment of the statute
will doubtless be proposed, but in that case all
business, would be subject to continued risk for
several months. It would be much better if the
matter could be settled by a new trial, and if the
plaintiff is indisposed to encounter the possibility
of further los., the commercial public, whose ques-
tion it really is, should subscribe the comparatively,
trifling amount that would be wanted for the pur-
pose. Some correspondents have suggested the tr
of checks with printed crossings, that could not be
obliterated without destroying other parts ; but if
the decision lately arrived at is properly understood,
it given any one the right to erase a crossing by
simply striking his pen through it.—Times.