uch an order as of course within twelve months of
delivery. After expiry of that time the court may order taxation if the
special circumstances call for it, and even so late as twelve months
after actual payment.

Costs as between solicitor and client are taxed in the same office as
litigious costs, and objections to the decisions of the taxing officer,
if properly made, can be taken for review to a judge of the High Court
and to the Court of Appeal.

_Litigious Costs._--The expenses of litigation fall in the first
instance on the person who undertakes the proceedings or retains and
employs the lawyer. It is in accordance with the ordinary ideas of
justice that the expenses of the successful party to litigation should
be defrayed by the unsuccessful party, a notion expressed in the phrase
that "costs follow the event." But there are many special circumstances
which interfere to modify the application of this rule. The action,
though successful, may be in its nature frivolous or vexatious, or it
may have been brought in a higher court where a lower court would have
been competent to deal with it. On the other hand the defendant,
although he has escaped a judgment against him, may by his conduct have
rendered the action necessary or otherwise justifiable. In such cases
the rule that costs should follow the event would be felt to work an
injustice, and exceptions to its operation have therefore been devised.
In the law of England the provisions as to litigious costs, though now
simpler than of old, are still elaborate and complicated, and the costs
themselves are on a higher scale than is known in most other countries.

Except as regards appeals to the House of Lords and suits in equity, the
right to recover costs from the opposite party in litigation has always
depended on statute law or on rules made under statutory authority,
"Costs are the creature of statute." The House of Lords has declared its
competence to grant costs on appeals independently of statute.

In the judicial committee of the privy council the power to award, in
its discretion, costs on appeals from the colonies or other matters
referred to it, is given by S 15 of the Judicial Committee Act 1833; and
the costs are taxed by the registrar of the council.

Courts of equity have always claimed a discretion independently of
statute to give or refuse costs, but as a general rule the maxim of the
civil law, _victus victori in expensis condemnatus est_, was