The Express.
London, England, 1849-01-30 00:00:00

COUNTY COURTS.

The aggregate amount of debts and damages sued
for in the mime county courts of the Wes' Cheshire Circuit,
in the year 1848, was 31,8681, 4s. 10d. ; but even this sum,
Loge as it is, affords a very inadequate test of the real im-
portances of the county courts, as it is well known that, for
one claim that is brought into mart, at least five are now
amicably arranged between the parties, without suit. If,
therefore, West Cheshire be a fair sample of the sixty eremite
into which England and Wales have been divided—end we
select it ae comprising both an agricultural and a manufac-
turing population—it is manifest that many millions per
annum are recovered through the instrumentality of these
cheap and Summary trbunds.
It would be difficult to put too high an estimate upon the
importance of such a boon to the community at large, and
more particularly to tredennen, in times like those (we bops
we may say) we have lately pared through, and we rejoice
in the success of this great experiment in law reform.
No comprehensive enactment of the legislature, involving
new and important principles, can be expected to be perfect
at the oaten ; bat while the objections even to the details et
the new system are singularly few, and may be easily obvi-
ated, we have not heard even a cavil at the threefold prin-
ciple upon which the system is based; viz , dispensing with
written pleadings ; allowing each side to tell his own stery,
under the sanction of an oath ; sad enabling parties by mu-
tual cament to dispense with juries, and leave the matter in
dispute, stripped of all needless technicalities, to the decision
of a competent and experiensed judge. The system has now
had a fair trial, and is universally admitted to be most salu-
tary. We trust, therefore, that her majesty's ministers will
proceed as they have begun, and extend the principle of
"cheap, speedy, and substantial justice." If the experiment
has been so euoeeesful in common law, why should it not be
tried in Chancery ? If parties may be safely heard in their
own causes, why should this privilege, which is common to
all, be limited to causes under 201., or any other rum ? If
rebutters and Bur-rebutters, and all the canning arts of the
special pleader, may with benefit to the public be dispensed
with in any ore, why should they be indispensable in all
ceases above 2W ? If, es in West Cheshire, of 20,418 stilton
ten only have not pre:erred the decision of a single judge to
the finding of a jury, why should they be compelled either
to abandon all claims above 201. or go before a tribunal
which, if allowed I. exercise a choice, they would not select ?
We are no advocates for proceeding too rapidly in an experi-
mental course, and are content that the exclusive jurisdiction
of the county courts should be limited, as at present, to 201.
But where both parties are satisfied with the tribunal, we
can see no good reason why they might not resort to it.
What objection, for example, could be urged (except by the
lawyers) to a plaintiff being allowed to commence his action
for any amount in the county court, with liberty to the de-
fendant to remove all muses above 201. by certiorari, an giving
warily for meta ? We know of none.
la the foregoing remarks we have confined ounelves to
the estrasim and improvement of the civil jurisdiction of
the spumy *arts, but we cannot help thinking that it is
well washy the consideration of the legislature whether a
criminal Julie:fiction might not well be entrusted to the
same judges, as is the case in Ireland, where the system of
sesistaat-barriten is one of the few institutions which works
well. If the judges of the county courts acted as chairmen
of quarter sessions, each disgraceful scenes as have lately
been reported at Preston and at Taunton would not occur.