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London, England, 1862-03-18 00:00:00

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LONDON, ruzsaar, YAMS 18.

I r Lord WIDCTIIVItY should prove himself an able
legislator, his Chancellorship has fallen in the hap-
piest times. That there are grievous abuses and
defects in the law of England is admitted on all
hands ; nor are the peculiar subjects which
demand immediate attention difficult to ascertain.
Not even among the host of veteran lawyers
and ex-Chancellors who occupy seats in the
House of Lords is there one who does not
profess and sincerely feel the reoessity of consoli-
dating the Statutes, of facilitating the Transfer of
Land, and of amending the procedure in Lunacy.
Two of these subjects have already engaged the
attention of Parliament within the last few days,
nor is it possible to take exception to the tone
in which they have been discussed. There is an ob-
vious anxiety in membersonboth aidesof the House
to divest themselves of all party spirit, and
to agree upon some practical measures to
amend the defects generally admitted to exist.

In this country the CHANCELLOR is the Minister
of Justice, and it loins province, as such, to devise
legal measures, and to obtain for them the assent
of his brother peers. The intellectual powers
mammary to fulfil the duties of such • minis-
ter are comparatively rare; nor does it by any
means follow that the man who has won his way
to the Woolsack from the Bar should really pos-
sess them. At the Bar the advocate is every-
thing ; and it would be difficult to name any
who displayed more consummate ability as an
advocate than Sir Runitase Bwram.i.. In
subtlety of intellect, in arrangement of topics, in
power of statement, and in fertility of resource,
Sir Rice tau Beretta. stood pre-eminent above
all his contemporaries. But he has now entered •
new arena, and it remains to be seen whether, as
Chancellor Wnirse an, he will achieve the same
success as • legislator which he achieved as an ad-
vocate, or whether the peculiar genius which
raised him to his high position is somewhat leas
adapted to the duties which he is now called upon
to discharge. The power of explaining and illus-
trating a design is very different from the power
of constructing it. Genitor. STIPHENRoN was no
doubt less plausible and less ingenious in conver-
sation than Barest ; but &memento"; was always
practically right, and Buren. was sometimes prao-
tically wrong. Hundreds of theoretical mathe-
maticians have constructed machines which
they could make work admirably in conversation,
but which utterly failed when reduced to risible
machinery. It is rare to find the man of ideas ,
and the man of practice combined ; and there
is some fear lest Lord WEATICMY may prove
an illustration of this ancient axiom. It would
be difficult to find • more remarkable con-
trast than that exhibited by comparing a speech
explaining some new measure, pronounced by the
late Sir ROUX? Pint, with the speech of the
present Cnancstion, pronounced upon his Land
Transfer Bill, or upon the subject of Lunacy.
The lidetirstal WlYDaaw case occupied the
Court 32 days, and =et each side 15,000/. Me.
WINDHAM proved his sanity at last, but the coo-
elusion of the jury was reached long after every
sane person out of doors who had read the evi-
dence had made up his mind upon the subject.
Such a case is a scandal to the administra-
tion of justice. Lord Weerseae, therefore, was
almost required to consider the subject, and to
provide • remedy. That remedy is embodied
in • Bill now before Parliament ; and it
may be useful to consider some of the principles
which Lord Wiersetv announced in his address
upon the subject. It may be assumed that ti's
substitution of &Common Law Judge for a Master
in Lunacy will be • very substantial improvement;
for such • magistrate will not only ponces more judi-
cial experience than the present Mastersin Lunacy,
but will have more influence both over the jury
and over the counsel. And there are several
other provisions which will be of considerable
advantage. For the present, however, we omit'
all notice of the preliminary stages, and assume
that the inquiry has reached the point at which the
sanity or insanity of the alleged lunatic is to be
tried by • jury before one of the Common Law
fiTUeell• At this st.;i: :4 the procedure the
CHANCELLOR proposes several modifications.
In the first place, the alleged lunatic is at once
to be examined by the jury. As Lord CHELMAYoRD
said, this person is, in fact, part of the
petitioners' case. He is the most impor-
tant piece of evidence which can possibly
be produced by the petitioners who have
undertaken to establish his insanity, and
therefore it seems most reasonable that he should
be the very• first fact, as it were, submitted to the
jury. It is, of course, possible that the jury may
at once come to the conclusion that he is sane ;
but in case they require further evidence, the
proper course would seem to be that the alleged
lunatic should be continually before them. The
sanity or insanity of a man is not always discover-
able in a single interview, however protracted. 1
Such an interview is fair neither to the judges nor
to the person judged. Should the inquiry con-
tinue • certain number of days, therefore, it'
should be in the power of the jury to require
an interview either at the beginning,
or at the end, of each day's proceedings.
In the second place, the Cats:wet-Loa proposes
that there shall be evidence of no facts which have
occurred more than two years prior to the time
at which the inquiry takes place. There are
many cases in which such • regulation would be
eminently useful. But in the case of Mr. WIND-
BAH it is difficult to understand how any such re-
gulation could have been fairly enforced. The case
was one of congenital imbecility. It was said that
from his birth to the day of the inquiry Mr.WIND-