The Express.
London, England, 1847-12-08 00:00:00

ght epproig.

MAILS
The malls for Vigo, Oporto, Lisbon, Madeira, Cadiz, and Wrenhat
will be made up ou the morning of the 17th December.
The West India Mails, excluding Bermuda, Nassau, *fa cone.
*fondness, New Orleans., Vera Crux, Tampico, and Porto Rico, and
including those for Madeira, lacmel„ Carthagena, Banta Manias
Chaves, Panama, West Wait of South America, and St. Awns.:les
Nicaragua, will be mode up on the morning of the 17th December.
The mails for British North AmMea, Bermuda. and the Unite
Staten, will be made up on the evening of the 17th December.
The overland mails for Gibraltax, Xiolbs,Urince, the lonian Wand,
Wtpt., Ades, Ceylon, India, thing-Kong, ems Chum ria Sonthasupto2
wifi be made up on the morning of the 20th December.
The mails for New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land, and New
Zealand will be made up on the evening of the 31st December.
The malts for the Brazils, the hirer Plate, Monte Video, rernam•
bow, Bahia, Madeira, and Buenos Agree, will be made op on th
cowing of the 4th January.

TO CORIVIVONDENTS.
Ilheetts..ol. Weeded Oa Tlio Expiates:. Leedom edraidd paper. boast
at bka odlod, ob Dogma, 'WM, by Two Wctork oat tiro day of publeatwa.

IMOD WATER A? LONDON DAIL/OZ.
T 2.11 D .T—Matalm. 12 Ma. NAM 1; Anammo. 31 Mo. pm; 2.
7.31022011 22012g132. 60 min. ma A. AMAmm. 7 1...1 3.

LONDON, WEDNESDA Y, DEC. 8.

ON Monday hot, Lord FARN lIAM, in the House
of Lords, and Captain HAREM, in the House of
Commons, put questions to the government ae to
the state of the law respecting the alleged de-
nunciations from the altar, of persons who have
been afterwards assassinated. As the public feel-
ing of England, if sot of Ireland, is at present a
good deal excited on the subject, it may be as
well to furnish a more definite answer to the ques-
tion than was offered in either house. The Attorney-
General, with a prudent economy of information,
explained to Captain HARRIS, that if any person
could be proved to have instigated and excited any
other person to commit murder, the person so instiga-
ting and exciting might, on sufficient proof thereof,
be convicted and punished accordingly. We have no
doubt that the Attorney-General is perfectly aware of
the state of the law on the subject: but, in the particu-
lar instance, it would really have been quite as sa-
tisfactory and useful to state that, if Archdeacon
LAYFAN bad blown oat the brains of a " cowardly
Saxon," he might, on sufficient proof thereof, be con-
victed and punished accordingly. It needs no
Attorney-General to come from the Queen's Bench to
tell us that an accessory, before the fact, to a felony
may be convicted as a felon—the question is whether
a denunciation from the altar, followed by a murder, is
such an act in contemplation of the law, as makes the
denouncing priest an accessory before the fact.
Lord LANSDOWNE, in answer to Lord FARNHAM,
gave a similar explanation of the difficulty at greater
length, quoting the words of the statutes, by which an
accessory before the fact can be indicted separately from
his principal. That he might from time immemorial
have been indicted at common law, with his princi-
pal, it is hardly necessary to state. Lord LANs-
DOWSE adds the important information that in one
case, at least, of denunciation, sworn informations
have been furnished to the LORD LIEUTENANT, and
submitted by him to the Irish law officers.
The question is still unanswered, whether a denun-
ciation from the altar will support an indictment for
murder, as accessory before the fact. The priest of
Strokestown is reported to have publicly attacked the
character and conduct of Major. Manor+, to have
called him a " Caostweax," and finally to have
asked " Does he yet live ?" A few hours after-
wards, and possibly in consequence of this infamous
profanation of the altar, Major Mianols was mur-
dered. We will suppose, for the sake of
argument, that the utterance of the words in question
was fully proved, and the jury were satisfied that
they tended to excite the assassins to the murder.
It still remains to be considered whether the neces-
sary averments of the indictment would be borne out.
The count on which alone a conviction could be ap-
plied for, must state that the accused priest "did
feloniously and maliciously incite, move, procure, aid,
counsel, hire, and command (or some of these words)
J. S. (or, as the case may be, some person or persons
to the jurors unknown) to commit the murder." It
will not do to state or to prove that the accessory
urged A., 8., and C., who formed his congrega-
tion, to commit the murder, which wan in
fact committed by D., who very possibly
was not present. The connexion between the
priest and the assassin, as principal, and accessory,
must be fully proved. It must be shown that the
priest not only meditated the deed, but that he selected
thg instrument, either alone, or as one among many.
It will not do to allege or to prove that helibelled and
calumniated Major 'Autos, that he wantonly en-
dangered his life, or that he was the indirect cause of
his death. Ile must be shown by distinct evidence to
have deliberately intended his murder, and to have
communicated his intention to those who afterwards
committed the act, for the purpose of inducing them
to commit it.
In stating concisely the requirements of the law in
such a prosecution as Lord LANSDOWNE seems to con-
template, we virtually explain, that according to the
evidence which has been alleged to exist, no such pro-
ceeding is tenable. We pass over the difficulty of
proving the exact words which have been used by
a public speaker. Innumerable prosecutions for sedi-
tion have broken down before this incidental obstacle,
which would present at least equal difficulties in the
case of a trial for murder. But we will assume the
words to be proved. The only phrase which could
be alleged, as containing a substantial proof of guilt,
is the inquiry "Does he yet live ?" With the fullest
disposition to sympathise with the general indigna-
tion which the denouncing priests have called forth,
we find it utterly impossible to interpret these
words into a command or en exhortation
to kill the obnoxious landlord. It is diffi-
cult to believe that even a seditious and malig-
nant priest could intend such an effect to follow his
words. We confess our own utter incredulity on this
point. We think that if the denouncer had wished
such an event to take place, he would certainly not
have need language so plain and opea on the subject.
But the question is not whether there is ground for
believing in his guilt. The prosecution would have
to prove it, which is impossible. It would probably
not be easy to show that the assassia heard the words.
It would be mach more difficult to rove that they
bad any relation to his act. The Irish are too much
in the habit of using violent language in public' ;
which is, happily, not always followed by violent acts.
It is not unnatural for them to think that they may

talk dagger, and use none. Their mob orators and
agitators pitch their language several keys higher
than that which is used in England. It m a bad
practice, but it diminishes the apparent criminality of
some of their declamAtions-
The only case in the. books which would support a
conviction of a demount iog priest for murder is that
foofrtFaAnGatelN
I mined any act stated in the` history which could, on
inasdivreiruartel wdasitht' ,
ungelidvewriTthwoiust4h"avTinhagtcounm:
any construction, be tortures into a crime. The re.
porter even forgets to state 'filet he was tried for, or
whether he was tried on any eLtarge in particular ; if
on any, it must have been as accessory to a murder.
We rather believe that he was, is truth, sacrificed to
the moral sentiments of an indignant public of readers;
and it is on a similar feeling that the prospects of in-
dicting the priests who have denounced Irish victims
entirely depend. Irish judges, however, will hardly be
as accommodating as their colleagues who exist in
fiction. They will require an indictment for a definite
offence, and sec that the allegations of the charge are
borne out by positive evidence.
Although we consider the remedy, hypothetically
suggested by the ATTORNEY-GENERAL, utterly inap-
plicable, we are far from asserting that the conduct of
priests who denounce individuals is beyond the reach
of the criminal law. An indictment for language
tending to a breach of the peace may possibly lie in
such (vase ; but, as we have already stated, an indict-
ment for words uttered in public is seldom to be
depended upon when the allegations come to be
proved. It would be difficult to explain the phrase
" be is a Cromwell," by any inners& which would
hold water. It is probably a most irritating phrase
when used to Irish peasants, and yet many would
think its application to themselves rather complimen-
tary than otherwise.
Such language as that of Archdeacon LAFFAN could
evidently only come under some such criminal cate-
gory as that it tended to produce a breach of the
peace. That, in fact, it was suggestive of murder is
certain, but no murder can be proved to have resulted
from it. Mr. J. O'CoNsieu. is constructively encou-
raging murder, when he defends the assassination of
Mr. Hoe, by arguing the question as to his merits as
a landlord ; evidently countenancing the popular belief
of his countrymen, that tokill a bad landlord is not mur-
der. But even if Mr. O.CouriELL was not protected by
privile-te of parliament, every one would admit that
his language was not indictable. He is even at
liberty in law—about morals the less that is said in
such cases the better—to quote against the memory of
Mr. Itor., a long letter from a gentleman, who, it
seems, is brother to one of the prisoners now com-
mitted on the charge of this very murder. Mr.
LAFFAN may have gone a little further, but it is not
by gauging the comparative noise of two declaimers,
that we shall arrive at any legal distinction between
felony and legal impunity. At presete, we do not
believe that any priest in Ireland has deliberately
caused or promoted the murder sf any individual.. At
any rate, we believe there is no Is gal proof of any
such act. We have intentionally avoided all ques-
tions as to the policy of such prosecutions as those
which seem to be proposed, but it seems desirable to
remind the public of the legal merits of the question.

IT has been remarked that, before deciding on the
beet method of dealing with the plans anew railways,
there occurs a previous question—namely, how far the
process itself is important under present circumstances;
what scope, in fact, now remains for its operation at
aIL That a judicious trial of all applications for new
works of this kind would have been highly beneficial
some years since, when the chief lines were still in em-
bryo, no one familiar with the subject will deny. At
that time, could a tribunal have been established,
endowed with sufficient capacity to determine rightly,
and sufficient power to regulate positively the course
of private enterprise, with a view to the most effectual
and economical laying down of all new railways
as parts of a comprehensive and well-ordered whole,
—the benefit to the country by saving its capital,
the bent fit to the railway companies themselves, by
preventing useless contention, would have been con-
siderable. Whether, in the confused state of opinion
then prevailing on the subject—while the idea of
doing good to the country by running " competing '
schemes" against each other was popular with most
statesmen—any tribunal could have been found to
exercise a wise discretion • whether the views of such
, a direction, from any public department sufficiently in
advance of the time to have discovered them, would
then have been ratified by parliament,—may be se-
riously doubted by those who were used to transact
business at that period in either quarter. But,
leaving this matter of opinion, it will be suffi-
cient to observe the matter of fact; that
nothing of the kind took place. All the main Eng-
lish communications were laid down without any
applied to their treat-

general views whatever being
went by the legislature :—each new measure was dis-
posed of as an insulated project, and by a different set
of judges ; and it has often happened, that., in the
same session, the principles advanced as the ground et
a decision by one committee, were negatived by another;
and the success, or failure, of a given scheme was like
the chance in a lottery, in which no one, by calculations
founded on any principle whatever, could foretell the
blanks or prizes.
In this manner has the existing railway sys-
tem struggled into life, under circumstances in
every way disadvantageous. The communications
that were really wanted have been purchased at
a cost of trouble and expenditure greatly enhanced
by the rivalry of the parties allowed to contend for
the right of making them ; and not a few have been
established, which, although we cannot term -them
wholly useless, may at least be described as pro-
ducing, in • costly manner, accommodation that
might, on a well considered system, bare been more
cheaply procured. In this manner, however, by one
means or another, the chief railways of the kingdom
have now got themselves finally placed on the map:
and, considering the random way in which they have
been dealt with by the legislature, it is satis-
factory to observe how nearly, on the whole,
their direction and distribution correspond with
the objects that must have guided any more com-
prehensive view of their plans. We owe this to the
circumstances of their origin. The promoters, seeking
their reward from the profits of traffic, naturally
sought them by following its main channels; and the
changes to be made, were the whole system to be
settled de noro on a blank map, in compliance with
the practical wants of the conatry, would not be con-
siderable, as far as the main outlines of the system
are concerned. It is also important to remark that,
in most instances where some change might be thought
desirable, the occasion will be found to have arisen
not from any mistake of the promoters in taking a
wrong course intentionally, but from their having
been compelled by powerful private interest, in par-
liament and elsewhere, to deviate from their original
intentions.
- - •

So much for the past. With regard to the future, it
would appear that, excepting on the gauge dispute, to
which we have alluded in former articles, the space now
left for official direction, to any useful purpose, is become
very narrow indeed. Of the new lines still remaining
to be applied for, the greater part are of the nature of
branches and feeders to main trunks already in ex-
istence; concerning tho utility of which to the country
little doubt can exist: on the course of which there
is not much room for dispute, and—what it is of im-
portance to observe—the profitable aspect of which,
ae independent schemes, is not at all to be compared
with that of the principal extant lines. It will be
highly convenient to the public that such branches
should be made; there is not much probability of
their being attempted, unless by the proprietors of
the greater railroads that lie in the way of such com-
mumeations, or at least, by parties in connexion with
them. On the merits and direction of these supple-
mentary lines, we apprehend there can be little scope
for official determination, to any good purpose. The
only business respecting them, which a public depart-
ment might undertake with much advantage, will
arise in cases where two great rival companies
may be contending for the possession of some branch
or lateral communication ; and the decision of
an umpire, competent to declare bow and
by whom it shall be made, might be
practically useful, in more ways than ono,
provided, let us repeat, that such competent decision
were made thorough and final. the amount of
the business of this particular class, it may be ob-
served, cannot be very considerable ; to the country,
its transaction by a public board will be of no corn-
mending importance; and the appointment of • tri-
bunal for minor purposes, seeing the manner in which
; those of great consequence have been left to chaise,
settlement, will be ato strike some observers with a
rathir ludicrous effect; and suggest recollections of

the adage that tells of shutting the stable door when
the steed is stolen.
However, to the appointment of a tribonal_em.
powered to regulate the appendix to the railway
system, after the main body of the work has been
suffered to find its way to the public how it
could—there may be no serious objection, preridott
the two following conditions are observed. The
that it shall be composed of well-qualified persons_
not of noble Masters of Buckhounds, or of learned
gentlemen trained in studies albikcether foreign
to the subject—but of men whose decisions will r%liii
be " entitled to public confidence." The next, that
for this not very considerable office, neither the
country nor the railway interest shall have any very
considerable charge imposed on it. It would be an
injustice to make either the one or the other pey
dearly for even the best performance of a clan of
work which it is no longer of pressing importance to
have done. _ _

To one case of exception on the subject of three
general remarks, we have already alluded. It hie
been observed that there is a fit and considerable ob.
ject for interference, whether official or legislative, in
the settlement of the gauge dispute; and it may be
added, that of those cases of contention between
rival companies, described above, as offering the
principal remaining field for the useful determination,
by some competent authority, of new rail way project
this very dispute has been the most fertile source ; so
that a decision of the main question would greatly
narrow the sphere in which its other operations might
be necessary. For the adjustment of that epee.
Lion, however, which, if capable of settlement,
must be settled once for all, no perpetual hi.
bunal can be requisite ; and while the subject
is, of all others, the moat important now re.
wining within reach of any kind of general deter.
mination, it is also one that, by its very nature, will
be beet disposed of by a body deputed ad hoc, whose
existence need not be prolonged after its work is ao.
compliahed,—if accomplished it can be.
The expediency of a government board for what
we have termed the policc division of the subject,
to be judged of on considerations of a totally ddiereat
class; and may be a proper subject of further dis.
elusion.

W !THIN a month from the present date the officers
of the county courts will no longer be paid by fees,
but by fixed salaries. Saturday's Gazette contains
the requisite preliminary month's notice of her Ma-
jesty's intention to make an order to the effect:—
" With the advice of her Privy Council." We hare
never ceased to urge the expediency of this change,
which has not come before it was wanted. The mis-
chief of the fee system had already begun to operate
in these new tribunals. The symptoms of the plague
were apparent innnnecessary adjournments,quibbhug
constructions of the fee tables in the act, insolence of

officials, and grumbling of the public. Another year
of the present system might have exposed cheap
justice to undeserved discredit, and have reared is the
county courts a miniature crop of dwarf abuses of the
same germ as those in high flourish on the gigantic
scale in the fatter soils of Westminster and Lincoln's

Inn.
The roots, rise, and dimensions, of this luxuriant
growth are as yet only partially revealed to the
public. Mr. WATSON'S committee has published a
first portion of its report, affecting only certain de-
partments of the Court of Chancery. The revelations
furnished by even this first instalment of the evidence
on the fee system are instructive enough in themselves
to warrant copious notice. But they have a double
interest just now, in connexion with the proposed
change in the county courts.
The disclosures at present before us extend over the
lunacy-office, the petty-bag-office, and the offices of
the Masters in Chancery. The popular notion of that
court, as a limbo of lingering suits, a chaos of pro-
tracted causes, a maelstrom which sucks down un-
happy suitors, a quicksand which swallows litigated
fortune*, absorbs acres, and devours dividends, is to.
lerably well justified by the description of Chancery
processes and costs, which fills two-thirds of the com-
mittee's first report.
Down to 1833, it was impossible to approximate to
the actual amoimt of fees received in chancery pro-
oeedinge. In the happy times, up to that year, the
officers of the court received the fees to their own use.
When we state that the amount of fees from the
Court of Chancery paid over to the Accountant-Ge-
neral in 1846 amounted to 137,9931., it may be con-
ceived that tho sum received and pocketed by the offi-
eers under the old system did not fall very far short of
this sum—at all events, for the later years preceding
1833. Besides this amount of actual fees, there wu
paid in that year towards the expenses of the court
91,5481. out of the accumulation and interest on the
2,385,000 L standing unclaimed in the Bank to the ac-
count of suitors in chancery. Those times of undis-
turbed fee-taking must have been happy times for the
officials. It is they who have really suffered by the
change of system. The suitor, unhappily, has not be-
nefited by it in any corresponding degree. Out of
his pocket must come not only the payment for work
done, but the compensation for work that has ceased
to be done. Gentlemen who received 8001. a
year for doing nothing continue to receive 6001.
for " compensation," since that nothing has been taken
away from them. Vested rights have been reverently
regarded in our law courts. The " compensation"
system has been uniformly acted on. No matter that
an office was useless, it was still an office. The holder
was to be compensated when the idle machinery was
swept away, and of course the suitor was to pay for
it. Chancery fees seem in many cases to have been
arranged on a principle akin to the Newtonian law of
attraction. They vary in amount inversely with the
importance of the work done for them. Light work
is rewarded with a heavy payment. Heavy work is
counterbalanced by a lighter remuneration ; and the
officials who do nothing are paid best of all. There
is, for example, a functionary who attends the mas-
ters' public office, to hand in affidavits and hand oat
deeds. He has also the onerous responsibility of
keeping the order book, or rota of masters. This
gentleman, whose duties may be supposed to re-
quire about as much intelligence as those of money
taker to a theatre, bating the mental arithmetic, requi-
site for occasionally giving small change, and the
fortitude to remain collected is a rush, receives about
7001. a year in fees, with 300/. compensation forother
fees, which he lost on the appointment of writ-clerks
in 1842.
A Master in Chancery, on whom falls the most
weighty part of the business of the court, is paid by a
salary of 2,5001. In other words, the office porter
receives in fees two-fifths of the Master's salary.
This, then, is the first law of Chancery fees. They
are apportioned in salaries varying in the inverse
ratio of the officers' labour.
The second law equally defies ordinary human
reason to account for it. Chancery fees are the same
whatever the amount of property in litigation.
Mr. FIELD furnishes the committee with an admix-

able illustration of this law.
Only this last day or two I have had instruction from
poor woman to get her the interest of a legacy that coma
body left her of 1001. in the Three per Cent. Consols it weskit
to her husband, or some other party, for life, and was that
to mane to her ; it was part of a large estate, and was car-
ried over to a separate aooonat in the accountant.general,
s
books. The order was node at the expense of the estate,
at the time for paying the income, for the previous treat
for life, for his life ; his life is now ended, and the 31. a
year is to be received by this poor woman. I had to get as
order for her to receive it ; it is one of thorn eases which Fe
not infrequent, in which you cannot dream of allowing
such poor people to pay a farthing ; but I must pay the
court just what I should have had to pay for an order to getan
income of 30001., and I have put upon paper the items which
1 must pay the court in order to get the poor women her
money. In the first place comes the fee for the 'earth
must go to the records of the courts to see exactly what the
original order was, and a variety of particulars showing her
title, in order to prepare a regular petition to the court to
ask for the payment to her ; to show, in fact, that it is hen.
To do so, I must go to the report-office, where all the orders
are entered and the reports are copied. I shall have, I dare
say, to pay many shillings there, for when I find the order,
besides paying for *earthing, the officer will not let me make
the least bit of a copy myself; if he saw me with a pen ie mi
hand, he would say to me, you must not do that ; he ha!,
care that he shall make the copy, and I must pay 4d. a folio
for it ; of this he gets for his profit the lid, for deßrq i
and then he pays the rest over to the fee fund. Au this,
must do before I can know anything about thew orsens
title. That I dare say may cost me 10s., end poribly
might cost me 11. if I have to go far btu k, for they charge
roe **cording to the length of my search 6d. &year. Thee I
shall have to present the petition, and shall have to pay the
chancellor.' secretary I ls. for answering it, and 41. 104. for
the swearing and office copy of the affidavit of having served
it upon the trustee, or some party in the suit who might be
required to be told of it. I should then have to pal
counsel's fee, which either may or may not he
taken into consideration. It is a tax in the cal!
I em stating, for it is quite needier. The suitor le
famed to go to a counsel, because the court will not let and
body eke open his Rooth. I should have to pay fic
to mussel ; but there are few counsel in court who would
not willingly, upon my stating the circumstances, torte the

The neat thing I must pay is 131. fur the court fee,
which was a tee otiginaliy to the tethers, or some of the
officers of the judges, and which, I believe, in all branches
atm court, is kept for the officers' use still, and does not go
into the fee fund. Then I pay the registrar 2s. ler his sni-
ggers; 21.105. for the order; I shall have to pay 2s. 6d. for
entering it, and I shall have to pay the accountant-general
11. be 6d. for a power of attorney (for he will not pay this
no., woman her money upon a letter from her, but a power
of attorney musi be executed) payly I shall have to pay
vi. 01., awl shall have to something for the affida-
vit of execution of it. Altogether I shall have to py not less,
pecbahly, than 81., before I can get that poor woman's 31. a
year in course of payment to her.. So that something like
three years of her InCOnle, if she live so long, will be eaten
up in the court procuring fur her this little sum, which she
could not help going into court for; for where the court ad-
ministers the trusts of a thintaor's will, in its great care it takes
all thaw legaci-s which are held upon limited interests, and
temps them: therefore, this ear* of the court will cost her
81., ix three years of her income, before 11111 cin have a far-
thine of it; sod if it had been 3,000/. a year she would have
paid no more. (The witness banded in a paper.)
You, of course, in this do not charge anyth,ng for your
trouble ? —No, of coarse nut. I suppgee if I had taken the
regular charges the costs would have been 201. altogether.
'Those are lees paid out of your own pocket ?—Yea ; and
this dues not include what I shall have to pay the stationers
for writing, and twitters of that kind.
The third law is like unto the second. No fees are
charged in cases where there exist the most ample
means of nay;ng them, and where the greatest labour
is bestowed by the court. The accountant-general
manages the funded and personal property under con-
trol of the court, while receivers, specially appointed
for the purpose, administer real invests in the same
predicament. The former officer , annually,
immense sums, receives the dividends upon them,
pays them over to the parti.s entitled,—in a word,
does the duty of trustee and trustee's banker. For
all this laborious attenti.m, devoted sometimes to
trusts extending over 60 or 70 years, nothing what-
ever is charged. The poor suitor pays for all. All
taxation ceases the moment a fund is in the hands of
the accountant-general. His salary is paid out of
the fee fund, made up from the regular returns of the
court. So also the unhappy suitor pays for the admi-
nistration of the landed property ander Chancery
control, unless it fall into the lunacy department,'
when a per centage is very rations ly charged to
defray the expense's of management.
The fourth law is worthy of its predecessor!.
Chancery fees are collected in such a way that so
check is placed on the persons receiving them. A
lilaseer's clerk may have paid to him 6.0001. and hand
over only 4,0001. to the proper officer. No ma-
chinery exists for detecting his peculation. It can
only be exposed by a search, which is quite impos-
sible, into every corner of a ease, and every record of
innumerable petty transactions. The whole court
would have to be hunted through for every stray
shilling of suspected pilfering. Very suspicions cir-
cumstances in the returns from particular officers, at
different times, seem to show that this loose and dis-
creditable want of system has borne its natural
fruits. But, even, if it have not made rogues, it ex-
poses every man, undefended, to the imputation
maue. As the thievish Master's clerk
yrog defyry the world to prove his guilt
so the honest one has no means whatever of proving
his integrity. Chancery officials talk of the difficulty
of devising a system of checks. They ought to be
ashamed of themselves. The report suggests half-a-
dozen, thrown out on the spur of the moment by dif-
ferent members of the committee. Some such system
is practised at every theatre in London, and in every
well-conducted retail shop, where money is paid over
the coun er.
We leave our readers to ponder on theme laws of the
Chancery fee system until we have an opportunity of
further illustrating it and its working".

WE have again to record an influential meeting in
Staffordshire on the subject of the crying grievance of
copyhold tenure. The principal inhabitants of Bilston
met to form a society for promoting the enfranchise-
ment of copyhold property, and a considerable sub-
scription was made in furtherance of that national
object. The substance of the proceedings at that
meeting appeared in our columns, and we shall pre-
sently advert to same of the instances of wrong in-
flicted on individual copyholds, which were stated by
several of the speakers.
Now this question forms a striking illustration of
the difficulty with which reformation in the law of
real property is effected in England. There is a
power in the legislature, strong het etofore in the
Commons, and dominant in the Lords, which adheres
to the old baronial unwillingness to change the Eng-
lish laws, with a pertinacity which seems to become
intense in proportion as the law sought to be changed
is proved to be burdensome and bad. The movement
against copyholds is no modern one. It does not
originate with the industrious miners and iron-mas-
ters of Wolverhampton End Bilston. The outcry
against copyholds we now hear from Norfolk, Suf-
folk, and Cambridgeshire, is no part of the recent
insurrection of improving agriculturists against their
feudal lords. No, the emphatic condemnauort of copy-
holds dates back for nearly two centuries, and has ever
since been maintained by the mere power and passive
resistance of the landocracy. Mr. JAMES STEWART,
in his able suggestions on " the enfranchisement of
copyholds," reminds us that in 1651, during the Com-
monwealth, a committee of parliament presented a
bill " for ascertaining arbitrary fines upon dement and
alienation of copyholds of inheritance. What became
of that bill does not appear, but in the following year
a petition, "signed by thousands," was presented to
parliament, praying " that copyholds and the like
may be taken away." Nothing, however, was done ;
and after the Restoration, when military tenures were
destroyed by the act 12 Can. 11., e. 24, copyholds
were expressly reserved and left, as a burden and
badge of feudalism to posterity. This exception
naturally excited much dissatisfaction. ROGER
NORTH, in his " Life of the Lord Keeper," says, in
reference to copyholds," Mall tenements and pieces
of land that have been men's inheritances for divers
generations, to say nothing of fines, are detoured by
fees ; so that if it were only to relieve the poorest of
the landowners of the nation from such extortions and
oppressions, without more, there is reason enough to
abolish the tenure." Nor has the grievance then com-
plained of been remedied even at this day. The copy-
holders of Bilaton still complain, that their small
inheritances, "to say nothing of fines, are de-
voured by fees." The chairman at the Bilston
meeting, the Rev. Mr. Fixrcnett, the incumbent of
one of the parishes of that place, said :
In one instance with which he had been made acquainted,
upon a property belonging to a lady, worth 1,000 guineas,
the court charges were 871., while in another, the case of
three small houses in Smith's-court, worth 931., the court
charges amounted to 501.
And another gentleman, Mr. Bissau., thus stated
his own expenence of the devouring operation of
copyhold court-fees :
Not many years ago he bought four small houses far 501.
It cog the trustees 1//. to surrender, and he had to pay 131.
to be admitted. He remonstrated, and wee told to call upon
the steward ; he did so, and he got, be thought, 21. returned.
Thus the charge was 281. upon a property which had been
bought for 601.
And again
Mr. Bolton adverted to the ease of the house in which
they were, on which a mortgagee had paid 1121. be. to be
admitted for a mortgage of 3001., although the lord had an-
other mortgagee a tenant for a mortgage of 6001., and thus
the lord, illegally, had two tenants instead of one. If the
mortgage bad been for only 501., there would have been
about 1001. to pay.
So Mr. BEN said, in the instance of a
Property only about 150 yards distant, and the case was
perhaps known to others present as well as himself. I
nn
the year 1803 this property paid 3s. charge and 31. relief,
the whole fn. ; in 1808, 101. were charged as the surrender
fine ; in 1812, 121.; in 1246, 201. ; and, in 1847, 271. Thus,
from 1803 to 1847, this Property had Passed through the
court and paid fees no lee than are times.
Truly may it be said of the copyholders of Bilston,
that their inheritances are devoured by fees. And
these charges, be it observed, are independent of the
lord's fine, which being arbitrary amounts to at least
two years' improved value of the property, though per-
haps four-fifths of that value conaista of outlays of capital
just effected by the copyholder. We do not hesitate
to affirm that the copyhold system is one of spoliation.
Nor are we without warrant and authority for that
assertion. In the report made by a committee of the
House of Commons, in 1838,0 f which Lord Castesam,
then Attorney-General, was chairman, they say :
"This tenure is ill adapted to the wants of the pre-
sent day, and is a blot upon the judicial system of the
country. They consider that the peculiarities and in-
cidents of copyholds (which have their origin in the
villeinage of the feudal system) are at once highly in-
convenient to the owners of the land and prejudicial
to the general interests of the state." And they come
to the conclusion " that the abolition of this tenure
would not only be a great public benefit, but should
be made a national object." And the committee ex-
pressed an opinion " that no plan which merely leaves
the option to the parties to enfranchise will meet the
exigency of the case." They accordingly recommended