then being proposed on the
subject. The appeal is commenced by a petition of appeal, and by the
giving of security for costs. In colonial appeals printed cases are
lodged containing a summary of the contentions of the parties, and with
this a printed copy of the record of the proceedings and documents used
in the courts appealed from. The hearing is in the privy council chamber
and is not public. When an appeal is called on, the counsel and parties
are summoned into the chamber, and when the arguments are concluded they
are requested to retire. The appeals to the king in council from
colonial states having a federal constitution, like Canada and
Australia, stand in an exceptional position. The act creating the
Supreme Court of Canada purports to make the decision of that court
final. But it is still the practice to admit by special leave a
prerogative appeal from the court, and to entertain appeals from courts
of the provinces of Canada direct to the king in council, without
requiring them to go to the Supreme Court. The constitution of the
Australian Commonwealth contemplates (S 73) the possibility of
restricting appeals to the king in council from the supreme courts of
Australia, and sec. 74 forbids appeals to the king in council except by
leave of the High Court of Australia from decision of that court on any
question however arising as to the limits _inter se_ of the
constitutional powers of the commonwealth and those of any state or
states, or as to the limits _inter se_ of the constitutional powers of
any two or more states. The exact effect of these enactments and of
Australian legislation under S 73 is a matter of controversy.

_Scotland._--In Scotland the ordinary appellate tribunal for decisions
of inferior courts and of the lords ordinary is the court of session,
which for appellate purposes sits in two divisions. Appeals from
inferior tribunals in criminal cases go before the judges of the court
of session sitting in the High Court of Justiciary. The court of session
was in its original constitution a committee of parliament for the
performance of its judicial functions, and an appeal to parliament was
consequently anomalous. In the reign of Charles II., however, the courts
grew so intolerably corrupt that a determined effort was made to have
their judgments overturned, by an appeal which was strictly of the old
character of a cry for protection against flagrant injustice. It was
called a "protest for remeid