1 On the ground of public policy, specific performance will not be decreed of a contract to Hell bank shares with which to control the bank. Foil's Appeal. 91 Pa. 434. An agreement by a putative father with his paramour to bestow his property upon their illegitimate offspring, to the exclusion of his wife and lawful children, is not a contract that will be specifically enforced. Wallace v. Rappleye, 103 111. 229. A. agreed in writing with B., that if B. would buy certain shares in a corporation held by C, the company should employ him at a certain yearly salary; that if the company should fail or refuse to give him employment, A. would purchase the stock of him at a fair price; and that if the parties could not agree as to what was a fair price, the same should be determined by arbitrators, whose decision should be binding. It was held, that even if the agreement was not void as against public policy, specific performance would not lie. Noyes v. Marsh, 123 Mass 286 In Post v. Marsh, 16 Ch. D. 395, the court refuses specific performance of a contract to publish a book prepared by the this * rule is construed with liberality; and if the plaintiff have real equities, the court will not be indisposed to seize hold of special circumstances to exempt the case from its operation, (r)

Plaintiff, with the name of a third person who had in tact had nothing to do with the book, on the titlepage as editor, though the latter had given his assent. An agreement which is intended to or will defraud creditors of one of the parties will not be enforced. Ryan v Ryan, 97 111. 38; Marlett v Marlett, 19 N. J. Eq 449; Horn r. Star Foundry Co., 23 W. Va. 522. So relief will not be granted between conspirators to prevent competition at an auction sale, though the sale had taken, place. Baggatt v. Sawyer, 25 S. C. 405.

* A recent act of the British Parliament, passed in 1854, • and known as.The Common Law Procedure Act, gives two new proceedings, or, as they are sometimes called, two new actions, to the courts of common law, - the action of mandamus and the action of injunction. These words are old, but the remedies are wholly new. By the first, it is intended to enable a plaintiff to compel a defendant, not merely to pay damages for a bleach of duty, - for that the law did before, - but to perform any duty in the fulfilment of which the plaintiff is personally interested. Damages may be given, also; and judgment may be between enforcing illegal contracts and asserting title to money which has arisen from them, see Sharp v. Taylor, 2 Phillips, 816-818.

(r) The case is sometimes presented where the agreement, as originally entered into, comprehends illegal as well as legal stipulations, and the plaintiff applies to the court to enforce the legal part, rejecting that which is contrary to law; and the question thus raised is often one of great difficulty. It may be supposed that a court of equity, in the exercise of its discretionary jurisdiction, will not be as ready as a court of law to pick out the materials of a valid contract from an admixture tainted with illegality; for the party has still his remedy at law open to him, and he cannot bring a perfect equity when he admits that his purpose in the beginning was to accomplish something that was contrary to law. Yet if the illegal stipulations were introduced without his fault, or much less by his fault than by that of the other party, it is possible for him to have a standing in equity. Carolan v. Brabazon, 9 Irish Eq. 224, 3 Jones & La T. 200, an interesting case on this subject, was an application by a tenant for the specific performance of an agreement for a lease. The agreement was drawn by the defendant himself; who also in the subsequent proceedings had acted vexatiously, and in an unfair and litigious spirit. The unobjectionable terras of the contract were stated explicitly, but the illegal provision (namely, that the tenant was to bear certain poor-law rates, tithe-rent, etc.) was prefaced with the words, " with the understanding that." The decision went off on the ground that a lease had been actually drawn by the defendant's solicitor, carrying out the valid part of the agreement; under which lease, though not executed by the defendant, the plaintiff had entered and paid rent. Without the consent or knowledge of the defendant, the term in the lease, as drawn, was longer by one life than was stipulated in the agreement; and therefore it was reformed by the court in this respect, so as to comply with the original terms. But this amendment being made, it was treated as a substitute for, or execution of, the agreement. In dealing with the case upon this state of facts, the Lord Chancellor, who, before coming to a decision, had vainly appealed to the defendant to save him the necessity of meeting the main difficulty in the case, made the following observations: "Then there is a question as to the poor-rate. It is said that this agreement is contrary to the act of Parliament. So I think it is But even if I had to deal with the case in an abstract point of view, I am not prepared to say that I should not have given a decree for specific performance. If parties choose to enter into a contract which is legal to a certain extent, to which it is to be executed by an actual lease, and stipulate for something beside, which is to rest on understanding which is not malum in se, but merely prohibited, I am not prepared to say, that in such a case, I should not decree a specific performance so far as the contract is legally capable of execution. What, then, would be the effect of my decree ? Simply to do what the parties intended. They intended that what was legal should be inserted in the lease, but that what was not legal should not be in the lease. Therefore, I should execute the contract precisely in the form which the parties intended.

Not enough of adjudication upon these new actions has yet been reported to illustrate them much. It seems, however, to be thought by the profession, that they are intended only to enable the courts of common law to give equity relief in certain cases, in a cheap and summary way, without the delay and cost of sending the case into chancery. Even if this be all, something might be gained by similar provisions in this country, although our courts of equity and law are not so widely separated as * those in England, and equity relief does not here cost so much of money or of time as there.