The Press.
London, England, 1854-04-22 00:00:00

THE DAY OF HUMILIATION.

As Wednesday next is specially set apart for
humbling ourselves before MAC,* HTY Gon, for
imploring a blessing en our arms, and suppli-
cating the restoration of peace, we trust that
the country may be led seriously to consider
the motives which should actuate it in prose
outing the war, and the ends it should pro-
pose to accomplish. The proclamation itself,
we imagine, will meet with general approval ;
but it is unlucky that it should have been pre-
ceded by the banquet at the Reform Club, or
that some of her MAjesty's Ministers should
have thought the sailing of the Baltic fleet
afforded a fitting opportunity for mirthful
speeches and jubilant cheering.
As yet we fear that the bulk of our people
very imperfectly apprehend the magnitude of
the contest into which we have entered, or the
calamities which war must inevitably bring in
its train. Political feeling has more to do
with the shouts which have greeted the depar-
ture of our fleets and troops than we care to
acknowledge. Instead of deploring the war as
a dreadful necessity, there is a party amongst
us disposed to hail it as a crusade against that
despotic form of government which they hold
in special abhorrence. We do not often agree
with Mr. Balm, but there are passages in his

SATURDAY,

Manchester letter very applicable to some
of his constituents :—" The people, or a por-
" tion of them, are drunk with a confused no-
" Lion of fighting with Russia. They confound
" the blowing up of ships and the slaughter of
" thousands with the cause of freedom."
Such sentiment is the natural offspring of
democratic passion in all ages ; but we hope
that, in the present instance, it will meet with
no kind of encouragement. It is not as Refor-
mers, in spite of the hint of the First Lord of the
Admiralty, that NAPIER and DIINDAB have been
entrusted with the command of our fleets.
We have no quarrel with the political system
of Russia, we quarrel only with her aggressive
acts ; and we are persuaded that we may most
rationally expect a divine blessing on our
arms by entering on this contest with a single-
minded desire to secure the triumph of right,
apart from all political feeling, and with a fer-
vent hope for the speedy conclusion of such
a just and honourable peace as shall long
secure the tranquillity of Europe, aria deci-
sively terminate those pretensions to exclu-
sive dominion in the East which it has
heretofore been the object of our antagonist
to establish.

TESTAMENTARY JURISDICTION BILL.
WE can only acount for the indifference with
which the bill for transferring the testa-
mentary business of the country to the Court
of Chancery has been regarded in the House
of Lords by supposing that the lay peers
were ignorant of its nature. Twelve peers
were present on the occasion of its third read-
ing; and it was passed, after a short conver-
sation, by a majority of two.
That the testamentary jurisdiction of the
Ecclesiastical Courts has prescription and
extreme antiquity in its favour is, of course,
with philosophic Liberals, a prima facie reason
why it should be destroyed ; but machinery
which annually passes twelve thousand pro-
bates, conveying about fifty millions of person-
alty, without fraud or error, if it be old, is not
effete.
But the business thus quietly and efficiently
conducted Lord CIUNWORTH proposes—and, so
far as he has hitherto gone, successfully pro-
poses—to transfer to the Court of Chancery.
Perhaps, owing to the recent reforms, that
Court may be able to perform this work as
well as the Prerogative Court ; but. if that be
so, then it is obvious that the staff of the
Court of Chancery was unnecessarily large
before ; and, knowing the influence of class
interests and class associations over the strong-
est minds, we question whether a jury of Lord
Chancellors was not open to challenge when
the question they had to decide was whether
or not the business and profits of another
court should be transferred to their own.
It may be, and no doubt is, perfectly true
that the annual fees received by the registrars
amounted occasionally to preposterous sums.
That a gentleman should receive for mere
routine work in one year more than the Lord
Chancellor of England is manifestly absurd,
and this has happened in one diocese. Yet
the registrars have been " to the manner born,"
and to deprive them of their position suddenly
is cruel and unjust, and it is possible to re-
move blemishes without exterminating a sys •
tern To cure a wart on the face it is not
necessary to cut off the head. The fees re-
ceivable by these gentlemen might have been
commuted for reasonable salaries. But the
present bill will inflict utter ruin on thousands,
whilst the only persons to whom compensa-
tion is specifically awarded are the chief of
the sinecurist sinners, viz., Mr. Moons and
the reversioner of his office.
We are not defending the existing system.
Many vivid images recur to our recollection of
wills mustily mouldering in damp dungeons,
or soaring on high in a jackdaw's beak to the
summit of a church tower, to strengthen and
increase the comfort of the abode of that
ecclesiastical bird, or descending into the
depths of a sewer in the jaws of a hungry rat,
and we doubt not it is susceptible of many
improvements ; but before we adopt changes
let us, at least, be sure they are for the better.
As in the local registries wills have been neg-

F

APRIL 22, 1854.

ligently kept, and thus evidence of the title to
property has been lost, there appears no objec-
tion to the transference of all the wills in
the kingdom to Doctors' Commons, provided
that limited locality have capacity to contain
them. But we cannot so readily concur in
other parts of Lord CRANWORTH'S bill. A dis •
tinetion is made between estates which exceed
and others which are under 1,5001. The
former must necessarily be proved in Chan-
cery ; the latter may, with certain limitations,
be proved at district registries which it is
proposed to create. We are thus to have cen-
tralisation, local organisation, and a new staff
of salaried officials provided for us in a bill
which was professedly based on the alleged
expediency of destroying the second and re-
ducing the third.
If centralisation is good, let us have it ; if
new local districts, with new officials, are
likely to be more careful, and to " sweep " the
wills " cleaner" than the old custodians, by all
means let us have them ; but let us not adopt—
at least without full discussion—a measure
which seems to be a "'coalition" of the two
systems based on a "compromise " of the
principle of either.
Lord CRANWORTH, on moving the second
reading of the bill, said that it had been pre-
pared in "a hurry." Why was this? What
was the necessity for hurry? Is any abnor-
mal mortality amongst the people anticipated?
or was the Court of Chancery in danger of
dying from depletion ? But if Lord CRAN-
WORTH was in the condition of an " otiose
fellow," and suffering from ennui, and if the
leader in the Courts of Equity, finding a
paucity of cases, was, like the demon in
" Vathck," roaring out for " more victims, more !"
considerations like these should not be thought
sufficient reasons for " hasty " legislation in
matters of national moment.

When the Report of the Commissioners first
appeared, and before the bill had been intro-
duced, we remarked that it originated in a
suspicious quarter, and should be carefully
watched. That caution we repeat emphati-
cally, for its merits have never been discussed.

RUSSIA AND HER RESOURCES.
THE curious document purporting to be the
will of PETER the GREAT, recently reprinted
in the papers, has certainly been in existence
for 70 or 80 years, and whether we suppose it
to be really the composition of its reputed
author, or to embody the traditional policy of
the Russian Court, or to be only the lucky
conjecture of some political seer, it is cer-
tain that the policy it prescribes has, up to
the present time, been acted on with literal
fidelity by the successors of the great Czar.
Poland is subjugated, Turkey greatly
weakened, though not yet conquered, the
armies of Russia are united, and three months
back she could boast that the Euxine and
the Baltic were in the possession of her fleets.
Having advanced thus far in the path of
universal dominion, the Emperor NICHOLAS
seems to have thought that the time was come
for breaking up the political system of Europe,
and for greatly extending his empire amid
the general confusion. Though it would yet
be rash tc hazard a prediction on the conse-
quences of his daring enterprise, it seems
highly probable that he has miscalculated
his means for achieving the end he has in
view.
For the Russian empire, vast as is its terri
torial extent, great as is the aggregate of its
population, is not only proportionately the
poorest and least populous in the world, but
even the elements of which it is composed are
not amalgamated into one body. Russia is
not a nation as France is a nation, or England
is a nation; the Samoed amid the northern
ice, the Georgian on the Eastern sand, the
Russian nobleman, whose chief accomplish-
ments are a knowledge of modern languages,
cookery, and games of chance, have no com.
mon ties of interest or sympathy to bind them
together. Of the 80,000,000 to 10,000,000 n-
habitants of the Russian empire, about one-
third are Muscovites proper; the rest. are
Tartars, nomadic tribes, savages inhabiting

THE PRESS.

countries with every variety of temperature
and physical configuration, extending from
the frontiers of China and Persia to the
Frozen Ocean and Northern Germany.
The Russian empire is as much a problem,
and not much older, than the United States.
Defensively strong, it is aggressively weak;
and whether it possesses a vital principle
which will sustain it unbroken through danger,
disaster, and defeat, we have at present no
data on which to form an opinion. The differ
ence between " the English Factory at Cal-
cutta" of 1700, and our Indian empire of to-
day, is scarcely more marked than is that
between the Muscovy of the great Czar and
ALL THE MMUS over which NICHOLAS reigns.
When PETER gained strength from an
annual defeat inflicted on him during a course
of eight years by CHARLES XII., his sub-
jects were puro Muscovites. The Muscovite
element constitutes but a third of the popu•
lation over whom NICHOLAS claims dominion,
and his empire has never sustained a shock
sufficient to test its powers of cohesion.
Every child knows that the real glory of the
great PETER consisted less in his victories than
in his vast and successful labours to found
Russian commerce. He was greater as a
shipwright, working in the dockyard of Smar-
den, than as a victor at the head of his army
after the battle of Pultowa. It is as the founder
of the Russian marine, as the actual constructor
of the first Russian vessel, that he has won
and that he has deserved the homage paid to
his memory. In truth, the power of Russia
and her influence in Europe are mainly attri-
butable to the rapid growth of her trade.
Shut up within her own territory, spacious
as it is, she will be excluded from those civilis-
ing influences which have made her what she
is, and be in danger of falling back into that'
barbarism from which the enlightened policy
of her rulers for the last 150 years has res-
cued her. Is it likely that Russia with ruined
merchants, impoverished nobles, pressed on
externally by the narrowing line of fire and
steel that day by day grows closer and thicker
on her frontiers by land and sea, can pre
serve internally that appearance of unity
which she now presents ?
At all events, if Franco and England are to
put forth their utmost strength—if an army of
200,000 men and a fleet of 100 sail are to aid
the yet unconquered Ottoman—surely it would
be but wisdom to strike the giant on the head
and heart at once, and attack St. Petersburg,
the centre whence radiate the thousand ad-
ministrative lines which alone, in our opinion,
bind together• the unamalgamated elements of
this stupendous empire.

REHEARING OF MR. BARBER'S CASE.
As we perceive that Mr. BARBER has given notice of
his intention to apply to the Master of the Rolls
for the renewal of his certificate to practise as a
solicitor, it becomes a question for consideration
whether or not he is entitled to succeed in his
application.
With the outline of the facts of the case most of
our readers are no doubt familiar. Mr. BARBER—
& solicitor in considerable practice—was prosecuted
by the Government and convicted on a charge of
forgery. Transported for life, after a detention in
Norfolk Island of about two years, he received her
Majesty's free pardon, accompanied by an intima-
tion from the Secretary of State of his belief that
Mr. BARBER was " free from any guilty participation
" in the frauds of which he was made the instru-
" ment."
The main circumstance which continues to keep
the case before the public is the deprivation of
Mr. BARBER'S professional status. The Incorporated
Law Society opposed the renewal of his attorney's
certificate. After an inquiry before the Master, the
case was argued before the Court of Queen's Bench
for several days ; and ultimately the certificate was
withheld. The judgment delivered was very elabo-
rate, setting forth the particular circumstances upon
which the Court relied.
Upon the result being published some severe
strictures were passed upon the opponents of Mr.
BARBER by the press. In these animadversions we do
not concur; the Incorporated Law Society could have
had no other object in view than the honour and
welfare of the profession.
In anticipation probably of the application now to
be made, Mr. BARBER has published, in sectional
, form, the entire judgment of the Court of Queen's

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363

Bench, and has met each point of difficulty by expla-
nations which certainly appear entitled to serious
consideration, as they are fortified by reference to evi-
dence which cannot fairly be disputed, and much of
which is new.
Among other curious facts it appears that FLET•
CHER had been engaged in the perpetration of pre-
cisely similar frauds for ten years prior to his
introduction to Mr. BARBER'S office. In one of these
he had the audacity to tile a bill to compel the Bank
to pay the sum of 4,0001. claimed by an accomplice.
They succeeded iu getting the money. The Chan-
cery proceedings in this case have been hunted up by
Mr. lieneEtt's friends, and office copies are given.
Reading them, now that the fraud is known, it ap-
pears extraordinary that the counsel and solicitors
on both sides could have been imposed upon. In
this and his other prior frauds FLETCHER had em-
ployed attorneys whose integrity has never been
impugned.
The extent to which the most acute legal minds
may become the victims of deceit was strikingly
exemplified by the recent case of Smyth t.. Smyth ;
and it must be acknowledged that. this case, as well
as FLETCHER'S Chancery suit, differed materially
from the claims which Mr. BARRER and his partner
were employed to support, in the fact that the latter
were admitted by the Bank unquestioned, whilst the
claims under FLETCHER'S Chancery suit, and the
action of ejectment brought by the pseudo-baronet
Surrn, were resisted expressly upon the ground of
fraud.
We observe that two of our legal contemporaries,
recently reviewing Mr. BARBER'S case, have compared
the circumstances of Swan's fraud with those in which
Mr. BARBER and his partner were employed, contend-
ing that Mr. BARBER had far less reason for suspicion
than the professional agents of " Dr. Smyth," alias
l'rovis, who have received from the highest quarters
"a spontaneous and unqualified exculpation."
We commend this publication of the judgment,
with the new evidence and explanations, to the candid
consideration of those who have hitherto entertained
unfavourable views of Mr. BARBER'S case. Appre-
ciating as we do the motives and objects of the
Law Society, we should be sorry to see opposition
carried to a point which might be deemed op-
pression.