The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-05 00:00:00

Cite earoreoo.

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LONDO-V, FBIDAT, SEPTEMBBR 5.

Tile passing of the act constituting the new court
of appeal in Chancery has been promptly followed
up by the appointment of the judges, the " Lord
Justices of the Court of Appeal in Chancery;" and
the appointments made will meet with general ap-
proval by the profession and by the public. Tho
Vice-Chancellors KNIGHT BRI:Cr. and Lord Ca ts-
VoRTII are the judges of the appeal court, it being
understood that the former learned person is also to
be raised to the peerage. Of the fitness of both for
the important
.judicial posts they are to fill and the
responsible duties they will have to perform, no one
can entertain a doubt. And it is more than probable
that the two sitting together will constitute a
far better tribunal than either of them did when
sitting alone. Able as both of them are, they
perste" in many respects very opposite character-
istics of mind and temper. As Yiee-Chancellor,
Sir JsMKM Ksu.IIT Been:, to a singular acuteness,
which gave his knowledge of the points in cases
when being argued before him almost the appearance
of intuition, united an energy of purpose. and an in-
domitable determination to do justice in each ease,
which in the great majority of instances worked sub-
stantial justice to the parties in the readiest mode
the nature of the subject matter permitted. lie never
willingly allowed the forms of the court to be used
oppressively, and he often exercised a bold and vigo-
rous discretion to prevent parties using such forms
and enforcing their strict rights in a manner calcu-
lated to operate injuriously on their opponents' which
no judge sitting in equity had ever previously ven-
tured upon. This was mainly accomplished by en-
forcing consents and concessions from the parties, as
the price of some order which it was discretionary
with the court to withhold or to postpone. In this
way a long and intricate litigation was often
nipped in the bud, and many suitors saved
from all the miseries and expenses of a pro-
tracted Chancery suit. Take for instance
the following; a man in trade died owing some debts
in the way of his business, and )iossessed of consider-
able landed and house properties, on some of which
there were mortgagee ; in short, though his estate
was much more than solvent, it was entangled, and
required a little time and some forbearance on the
part of the few trade creditors to be made the most
of. His executors, desirous of preserving the trade,
which was a valuable one, and of keeping the other
property together, delayed for a short time to prove
the will until cited by a creditor to do so, and then
they proposed to the two principal and only trade
creditors to deposit in their hands ample freehold se-
curities for the amount of their debts until money to
pay them off could be realised without needless sacri-
fices. This was refused by the creditors' solicitor,
and a claim to administer the estate was filed on be-
half of one creditor. Under such proceeding a decree to
administer the estate would have been quite of course,
and all the real property of the testator would have
been sold, and his complex affairs wound up in the
Muster's office, and the plaintiff's (the creditor's)
'elicitor would have bad the carriage of the decree,
and, as a consequence, the lions share of the costs
incurred. Anxious to avert such &destructive litiga-
tion, the executors applied to the court to stay pro-
ceedings on the claim, upon their giving security to
pay the plaintiff's debt and coats then incurred
within a short time. Vino-Chancellor KNIGHT BRUM
thought the ezeouten bad not been quite so prompt
as they might have hem in proving the will, and
refused to stay proceedings, except on the terms of
immediate payment of debt and coda and he al-
lowed the matter to stand over for a few hours,
that the counsel of the executors might
confer with their solicitor. When the matter

was again mentioned the money was brought in
and in open court, by the VICE•CHANCELLOR a direc-
tion, handed over to the plaintiff's solicitor. In the
meantime, however, a second claim by the other
trade creditor had been prepared, through the semi
counsel and solicitor, and when the matter was
mentioned application was made to file a second claim
fir administration. This could not be dealt with in
the same way, the amount of the debt was hirer,
and there was en open account between the creditor
and the testator. The executors could only re-
present to the court that they had offered security,
that they were about to raise money on the
testator's real estate for payment of his debts,
and that each arrangements would probably
be defeated should there be a suit pending for the
administratimi of his estate. In ordinary cases, the
court could scarcely enter into such considerations,
and leave to tile a claim would be given to a creditor
almost as of course. But the VICE-CHANCELLOR said,
I wee there is a desire and intention on the part of
these executors to pay the debts, and I must, *a far
as I tin, protect this testator's estate from destruc-
tion,' and he accordingly directed the application of
the creditor to stand over for two months, on the
executors catering into their personal undertaking
to pay the debt, or consent to an administration
decree at the end of that time. Before that time
had expired, the necessary funds were raised and
the debt laid.
Here. by the exercise of a firm discretion, the
Vier-Cu ‘NCELLOR saved the proprrty of a family from
annihilation. It is true he spoiled a " very pretty
(legal) quarrel," and prevented the creditor's solicitor
h•m getting a very pretty bill of costa out of the
entangled estate, but the suitors and the public will
probably deem his Honour worthy of high praise for
such interference. And so in a multitude of other
cases, familiar to practitioners in his court, the Vice-
Chancellor KNIGHT BRUCE has rendered his a court of
reconcilement to the manifest benefit of all the
As a drawback, it mast also be fairly stated suitors
and their counsel have mat seldom complained. The
court has decided without giving them a full and
satisfactory hearing ; sad Math even in such cases
the ViemCw.txcer.l.ol weevery agep to be right, he
is not mere than other mew . It is unques-
tionable that many appeals have been rude from his
decisions, mainly because all the points in the cases
were not hilly argued baba his.
Lord CRANWORTII, OM the other hand, has earned
the chanter of being esmawhat slow in his deci-
sions, asset permitter to be persisted in
after it has bemoan phin to the judge that
such agonise& vas. Maeda tly less
bascules!, pi asesials his *suet fhea was ex-
ile esamains Mid easpislarm et
and
bowevar, Irks ifves areadaabted, and
they sllpationaaandler y acquiesced by sateen
As a , the loop a et Lard
Citinirnsem from the Courtrrise
y
whilst using se a coalman law judge, was
felt a "have been a disadrantarb Ise alai
gthetterria shoes of precise sad aew
• wars lad which materially
affected tie badense ef the ese;t ; with these the
Nrics-Ckanannes add net lave tied eosapiste
basity mash evarleist mad ally posies k lbe wart

ma alma eves e.a which i 1 mi) essential to the
algiall of • 10p part of the duties of the
Oneetelf annesfip. rem
be
nipai udo,
ON PM" et 0.118.17 'All be of ne natnetanee,
he there are few appeal win in win* toe some
mum or others • fr;ii argument ilitot alcessary, 1
Sid that minute koriaintance wilit details of practise
b mot so voquieed on the flirt of an appeal -
Mu judge of the first instance.
mrAte in which the vacant Vice-Chancellor-
IMP Lava been filled, will geo, we believe, afford
«pit satisfaction with the appointments to the &p-
-led ewe- Sir WILLIAM PAGE WOOD, the late
soliciber-grend, is a dear-headed man and a vod
lawyer, with an eminently judicial mind; and w-hile
he is an acute practitioner, and well versed in the
principles and practice of the court, he has no predilec-
tions or prejudices which can interfere with any
changes necessary to adapt the Court of Chancery to
the ideas and esigencies of modern times. Mr. JAMES
PARKER also is a inan of great legal acumen and sound
knowledge. His practice in the court has been vast
and various, and his opinion on knotty questions of
equity law has long been deemed one of the safest, if
not the safest, upon which intending litigants could
act. That be will make an excellent judge may be
certainly predicted. It is creditable to e govern-
ment and to the LORD CDANCELLOR as their first
legal functionary, that, in completing the judicial
force of the Court of Chancery, party politics have
been thrown overboard, in order to select the best
men for the judgment-seat • for the Vice-Chancellor
li:suarr BRCCE and Vice:Chaneellor TURNER, and
now Vice-Chancellor PARKER, all belong to parties

opposed to the government. -
The question now naturally asked, is—" Who is
to be the new SOLICITOR-GENERAL ?"
That he ought to be selected from the equity bar
nobody can doubt, for there is work to be done in the
way of Chancery reform which none but an equity
lawyer can properly perform. Now, there is ono
man to whom the profession and tho public seem by
common consent to point—namely, Mr. BETIIELL,
who, to his pre-eminence as an advocate, adds an
earnestness and throughness in his views of law re-
form which are at this moment required to satisfy
the demands of the public, and to effect such com-
plete changes as will set at rest certain wild notions
which have been broached on this subject.

TIIE Morning Chronicle very boldly sets itself to
propound and preach a rule of representative govern-
ment, and a law of constitutional right, which we
have before heard murmured from the lips of certain
high Whigs, and which, we think, ought to be duly
tested, examined, and considered by the English pub-
lic at large, previous to the great measures and die-
cussion which we are led to expect next year for the
improvement of the electoral system.
It is a generally entertained opinion by most
men amongst us, even by those of no extrema
views, that Englishmen should not be called on to,
pay taxes, unless, by their representatives, they
have considered and given assent to the same.
The Morning Chronicle gravely assures us that this
is a mistake—that no man has any right of the kind,
for that political science is a science of experiment.
Representative government is itself an experiment,
and if every class included in it does not answer the
great end of the experiment, or is net likely to answer
it, that clam should be eliminated from the franchise
forthwith. The propounder of such a theory as this
ought to have told us who is to be the judge of whe-
ther a class or a constituency performs its part fitly
in the experiment. Tho Chronic's denounces the
metropolitan boroughs. It deems Sir WILLIAM
MOLESWORTU, and Mr. WAKLEY, and Mr. SALO-
moss, and Mr. Dusicomnr, Sir BENJAMIN HALL, and
Lord I)uDLET STUART—nay, Lord Joust Itussuil.
himself—as .very unworthy selections for the
legislature. And it accordingly sets its ban
against the formation of such vulgar consti-
tuencies as failures in the great science of poli-
tical experiment. But there are doctors, quite as
authoritative and as plausible as our contemporary,
who might take an equal number of county consti-
tuencies, might weigh the parts, brains, policy,
consistency, and disinterestedness of the represen-
tatives of these constituencies, and might plead that
they really did no credit to the representative sys-
tem, that they brought no wisdom to parliament,
that they were failures in the great science ; and
were, in fact, nuisances that ought to be abated.
Who is to be judge of his neighbour's fitness for
political life? Londoners are very bad judges,. says
dm Chronicle. Wilts and Dorset are not specimens
et absolute wisdom, opines the Doily News.
What is to oome of this mutual ostracism?
There can in the nature of things be no proper
judge of the fitness or unfitness of constituencies or
classes to be represented. And to tell the dweller in
Ilammersmith that he must not be representediu par-
liament, because the teller does not like the politics
or eloquence of metropolitan members ; whilst the
same person fully admits the right of the Shropshire
hind—this is nothing in the world but sheer imper-
tinence. _ _

—.....
Every Englishman has a right to bo represented; I
nor should that right bo restneted or denied, unless 1
it be shown that he cannot exercise that right freely
land usefully. It is not given to the young man de-
pendent on his parents or on the will of a master,
nor to a pauper, nor to the undomiciled. How far
that lowest class of the population, the daily earner by
physical labour, can be admitted remains a question.
He has clearly the right, although the majority of
society may see reason to suspend, or restrict that
right on account of the manifest dependence, un-
happy ignorance, or political indifferenee, in which
live almost necessarily the hewer of wood and drawer
of water in every country.
But to deny to our great agglomerations of men,
the right to be represented in proportion to either
their numbers, wealth, or intelligence; and to tell
them that all three shall go for nothing, because
they dwell near a metropolis—this is a language
that we should recommend even tory journals to
refrain from ; it is insolent to the verge not merely of
the absurd, but of the dangerous.
There are many peculiarities necessarily incident
to metropolitan constituencies, and they certainly
demand candidates of a peculiar temper and tone
of mind. The metropolitan boroughs aro for the most
part new, the nature of the constituency not gene-
rally understood, its roughness and exigencies re-
pugnant certainly to Ow old class of parlia-
mentary candidates, bat for this very reason
likely to produce a new and useful class
at representatives, as soon ea the constituencies
themselves shall have seen what is requisite to com-
mand the services of able men, and able men see
how they can hope to command the support of such
constituencies. it is moreover always forgotten how
recently these constituencies have begun to work, and
the number of practical men they have returned is
not sufficiently kept in account.
One of the objections of the Chronicle is the habit
of metropolitan electors to ask questions and demand
pledges of candidates. But really, when a citizen is
called upon to give away his political will and weight
to another man for the space of seven years, it
is bin too natural for him to be anxious to
hear what is to be done with it. In the
country, the fanner may trust the squire;
in p ovicial towns the elector is fully aware and
, informed of the principles and prospects of the
local candidate. But in the metropolis, men aro
unknown to each other, and a much severer scrutiny
i is inevitable, than .in districts where a man's charac-
ter, talents, and opinion, are well known, with-
out being tested for that particular occasion.
, The metropolitan boroughs are, we must own, badly
organised for the ventilation and development of
clear political opinion. And a vague promise to
I work wonders, or an enthusiastic profession of ex-
treme principles, never likely to be called for reali-
sation are but too apt to carry the day against the
practical reformer.
There are no districts, however where the middle
classes more largelypredeminate ;him in the suburbs
of the metropolis. If this clam either does not exert
itself at elections, or if it is found to be of a discon-
tented spirit, eager to support extreme changes and
extravagant opinions—this, we confess, is a serious
symptom. The evil of each' opinion in such a class
1 ought to be remedied, for it bodes danger. But we
insist, that the true way to remedy it is not by
excluding such portions of the middle class from the
franchise, but, on the contrary, giving them a voice
and influence, and a responsibility, by the enjoyment
d which political error soon work, its own cure.

MANIA ANTozitA RAILWAY (Florence).—Tenifie
ratans, Augutt lo to 21, 1951: 21 =lee open 222 l 1850 :
11 miles 1351.