general idea of the laws of England; secondly, of the number and gains of the individuals engaged in their administration; thirdly, of the abuses and defects in those laws especially intended for the benefit of trade; and, lastly, we have brought together a multitude of facts, to exemplify the emoluments and salaries of judges and the fees of lawyers and attorneys, in order to show the mass of interest-begotten prejudices that must interfere with, if not be absolutely arrayed against efficient reform in the judicial system. After proceeding thus far, we still despair of bringing the remainder of our subject within reasonable limits. Lord Brougham, after an extraordinary speech of six hours' duration, was compelled to leave various departments of legal delinquency unexplored, though equally claiming the attention of his powerful mind. All that our circumscribed space will permit is an indication or digest of the more prominent defects, and this we shall endeavour to comprise in the present section. Abuses often exist only because they are concealed, and the first step to their reform is general publicity.

JUSTICES OF THE PEACE.-These are virtually appointed by lords lieutenant of counties; for, though the lord chancellor issues the commission, it is the lord lieutenant who designates the persons comprehended in it. Hence an important source of aristocratic influence; which is exerted in raising to the magisterial bench gentlemen who have distinguished themselves by their political opinions or activity in local contests. The tenure of office is fully as secure as that of the judges; whatever be the conduct of a justice, he is seldom removed; and lord Eldon laid it down as an inflexible rule never to strike a magistrate off the list, either for private misconduct or party feeling, until he had been convicted of some offence by the verdict of a court of record, and such conviction, it is notorious, is almost unattainable. Hence these petty judges may be considered as so many irremoveable and irresponsible functionaries, and the great power confided to them in the administration of the game laws, the punishment of theft and assaults, and the granting of licenses is very liable to be abused. Numerous instances of abuse were cited by lord Brougham, in his great speech of the 7th of February, 1828. Still we do not agree with this eminent personage. in thinking, as he seems to incline, that a stipendiary magistracy, consisting of lawyers, would, in lieu of the unpaid magistracy, afford the best security for a pure and independent administration of justice. Costly justice, no doubt, is better than cheap injustice. But lawyers have their prejudices as well as sporting parsons and sporting squires; and we think justice would be quite as corrupt when paid for as when administered gratuitously, unless there were responsibility. This would be best obtained by the entire publicity of justiciary proceedings;-here is the best guarantee against abuse in all functionaries of whatever rank or degree. Clergymen might be disqualified for the magisterial office as for other lay functions, and greater facilities afforded for removing from the commission of the peace justices guilty of misconduct. With these reforms the magistracy would be made a much less objectionable branch of domestic judicature, especially as a material source of their

misdoings has been curtailed by the opening of the beer trade and the improvement of the game laws.

DIFFERENT LAWS IN DIFFERENT PLACES.-Nothing can be more inconsistent than the different modes of inheritance and tenure in the different districts of the country. In the county of Middlesex the eldest son succeeds to the estate; cross over the Thames, into Kent, and all the sons succeed to the ancestor's inheritance in equal shares; proceed a little to the westward, and another law prevails, the youngest son inheriting the land to the exclusion of the other children. What can be the motive for perpetuating these divers usages-the relics of a barbarous age-in a country subject to the same general government? But even the customs of gavelkind and borough-English are not so inconvenient as those which regulate the customary tenures in a thousand different manors. In one manor copy hold property is not devisable by will; in another it may be so conveyed. In one manor a devise is not valid, if made longer than two years before the testator's decease; so that it is necessary for wills to be renewed every two years; in another one year; in a third three years are the period; while in many there are no such restrictions. In some manors the eldest daughter succeeds to the exclusion of her sisters, as the eldest daughter (in default of male heirs) succeeds to the crown of England; in other manors all the daughters succeed jointly, as co-parceners, after the manner of the common law. In some manors a wife has for dower one-third of the tenement, as in case of freehold. In others she has, for her free bench, one half; and again, in some, she takes the whole for life, to the exclusion of the heir. The fines on death or alienation vary; the power and manner of entailing or cutting off entails vary; the taking of heriots and lords' services varies.* There are as many or more of these local laws than in France, in the Pays de Coutume, of which four hundred have been enumerated, so as to make it the chief opprobrium of the old French law, that it differed in every village. Is it right that such varieties of custom should be allowed to have force in particular districts, contrary to the general law of the land? Is it right that, in London, Bristol, and some other places, the debts due to a man should be subject to execution for what he owes himself, while in all the rest of England there is no such resource; although in Scotland, as in France, this most rational and equitable law is universal?

All these varieties of tenure and diversities of liability are only so many traps to the ignorant and unwary, and so many impediments to the transmission and circulation of property. They embarrass commerce, by making it difficult-in some cases impossible-for a man to get the full value of his property, or dispose of it at all. For copyhold property is not liable even for specialty debts, nor can it be extended by elegit; and thus, absurd and unjust as is the law which prevents

* Lord Brougham, House of Commons, Feb. 7, 1828, printed speech, p. 45.

freehold property from being charged with simple contract debts, it goes further in this instance, and exempts the copyhold from liability, even to those of the highest nature, a judgment itself not giving the creditor any right of execution against it. The obvious remedy to be adopted in this case is to give all parts of the country the same rules touching property; and, therefore, lord Brougham, in his memorable speech, proposed an assimilation of the laws, affecting real estates, all over the kingdom, to take place after the elapse of a fixed period.

DIFFERENT LAWS FOR DIFFERENT PERSONS.-Sir Wm. Blackstone was very fond of asserting that the Crown and people were, in law, on an equal footing, and that the King, in a court of justice, was no more considered than a subject. This is not correct. It is true a person injured, in his property, by the Crown, may proceed by a petition of right, having first obtained the consent of the attorney-general; but the attorney-general may refuse his fiat, and then the subject is without remedy, except the hopeless resource of an impeachment of the officer of the Crown. Again, in cases where the Crown is interested, the Crown has a right, at the mere suggestion of the attorney-general, to call for a trial at bar; and thus the subject be obliged to bring all the witnesses up, from Cornwall, perhaps, or some other remote county. After all this expense is incurred, by reason of the Crown demanding a trial in London, where the other party is not known, and not in Cornwall, where both parties are known, the Crown may withdraw the case from the consideration of the jury, after the examination of all the witnesses, even at the moment that the jury are, with their backs turned, deliberating about their verdict.

But it is said the Crown pays expenses; the subject, however, has his own expenses to pay. As the Crown is above receiving costs, so it is exempt from paying them. The reason of this practice it is not easy to discover. One cannot see how the dignity of the Crown is exalted by not receiving costs, when they reflect that, by the Crown, is meant the revenue raised from the people for the public service, and that, consequently, the non-payment of costs to the Crown is an increase of the people's burthens. But, even if we admit the propriety of the Crown's receiving none, it would by no means follow that it should pay none to the subject, who is in a widely different predicament. All this, however, arises out of notions derived from the feudal times, when the Crown was in a situation the very reverse of that in which it stands at present, its income then arising almost entirely from a land-revenue. There is now no reason why it should be exempt from paying, or disabled from receiving, in all cases where costs would be due between common persons. Indeed, there has been of late years an exception made in the crown-law on this head, but so as to augment the inequality complained of. In all stamp prosecutions, the costs of the Crown are paid by the unsuccessful defendants; so far does it stoop from its former dignity; but not so low as to pay the defendant a farthing of his costs, should he be acquitted.

We shall only mention one more case to illustrate the legal disparity

between the King and the people. Whenever a special jury is summoned in a Crown case, and all the twelve jurors do not attend, a tales cannot be prayed to let the cause proceed, without a warrant from the attorney-general; so that it is in the power of your adversary to refuse this at the time it may be most for his advantage so to do; while you have no option whatever, in case it should be for his interest to proceed, and for yours to delay. A singular instance of oppression, under this usage, was related by Lord Brougham, in the celebrated speech to which we have referred. A person named Lowe, with four smugglers, was prosecuted in the Court of Exchequer. The accused were acquitted on the second trial, and Meade, one of the witnesses against them, and others connected with him, were prosecuted for perjury; eighteen indictments were found at the sessions, and the Crown at once removed the whole, by certiorari, into the Court of King's Bench. There they were all to be tried. Meade was the first tried, and clearly convicted. The other seventeen were then to be tried, and Mr. Sergeant Jones called them on; but the Crown had made the whole eighteen special jury causes; a sufficient number of jurymen did not attend; Mr. Sergeant Jones wanted to pray a tales, and the Crown refused a warrant. "Thus," says lord Brougham," an expense of £10,000 was incurred, and a hundred witnesses were brought to London, all for nothing, except, after the vexation, trouble, and delay already endured, to work the ruin of the prosecutor, who had been first harassed upon the testimony of the perjured witnesses. The poor Yorkshire farmer, whom the villain had so vexed, had no more money to spend in law; all the other prosecutions dropped; Meade obtained a rule for a new trial, but funds were wanting to meet him again, and he escaped. So that public justice was utterly frustrated, as well as the most grievous wrong inflicted upon an individual. Nor did it end here; the poor farmer was fated to lose his life by the transaction. Meade, the false witness, and Lowe, the farmer, whom he had informed against, and who was become the witness against him upon the approaching trial, lived in the same village; and one evening, in consequence, as was alleged, of some song, or madrigal, sung by him in the street, this man (Meade) seized a gun, and shot Lowe, from his house, dead upon the spot. He was acquitted of the murder, on the ground of something like provocation, but he was found guilty of manslaughter, and such was the impression of his guilt upon the mind of the court, that he was sentenced to two years' imprisonment. A case of more complicated injustice-one fraught with more cruel injustice to the parties, I never knew in this country, nor do I conceive that worse can be found in any other. We may talk of our excellent institutions, and excellent some of them certainly are, though I could wish we were not given to so much Pharisaical praising of them; but if, while others, who do more and talk less, go on improving their laws, we stand still, and suffer all our worst abuses to continue, we shall soon cease to be respected by our neighbours, or to receive any praises, save those we are so ready to lavish upon ourselves."-pp. 50-1. So much for the

even-handed justice, lauded by Mr. Justice Blackstone, between the Crown and the people!

FINES AND RECOVERIES.-It is well known if a person has an estate in fee, that is, the absolute and unconditional possession of it, he can sell or devise it as he thinks proper; but, if he has an estate in tail, he cannot deal with it in this manner. He must first go through certain forms, in order to make himself absolute master of his estate : he must levy a fine, as it is called, which destroys the expectant rights of the issue in tail; or he must, by means of a recovery, get rid of those rights and of all remainders over. But this must be done through the Court of Common Pleas, at certain seasons of the year;—and why, it may be asked, should there exist a necessity for going there? Why force tenants-in-tail into court for mere form's sake? In case of bankruptcy the necessity for these forms is not felt. A trader, who is tenant-in-tail, commits an act of bankruptcy, and, by the assignment under the commission, not only the interest vested in him is conveyed, but all the remainders expectant upon it are destroyed for the benefit of his creditors, and the estate passes to the assignees, free of all restriction. Why, then, may not the possessor of an estate do that for himself which the law permits to be done for an insolvent tradesman and his creditors? So, too, a man and his wife cannot convey an estate of the wife without a fine or a recovery; neither can the wife be barred of her dower without a similar proceeding. There is certainly nothing very real in a fine, and, as to recoveries, they proceed upon a mere fiction. They go upon the ground of compensation in value being made to the remainder claimants, whose right they cut off, and who, but for this fictitious suit, would have a right to take the estate after the decease of the tenant-in-tail. They are said to recover compensation in value; and from whom do they recover it? Why the common vouchee, who is the crier of the court of Common Pleas, and who, like the man at the Custom-House, obliged to take all the oaths other people do not like, lies groaning under the weight of all the liabilities he has incurred to all the claimants in tail since he became crier, and answerable for the millions of property, the rights to which, in remainder, have been barred, he not being worth a shilling!

The abolition of these ridiculous forms was recommended upwards of one hundred and fifty years since, and still remained to be enforced by the eloquence of lord Brougham. They have no earthly use but to raise money by way of fees; and which, besides creating expense and delay, and oftentimes preventing tenants-in-tail from passing their property by will, which they cannot do if they die before suffering the recovery, they give rise to questions in law, often puzzling, always dilatory and expensive. The mere forms of fines and recoveries cost £70,000 per annum over and above what deeds, operating in the same manner, would cost; and a round sum must be allowed for the litigation which doubts on these assurances are yearly occasioning. Mr. Campbell introduced a bill for abolishing fines and recoveries, which has been