The Sun.
London, England, 1852-02-05 00:00:00

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.
SECOND REPORT, FEES (COURTS OF LAW AND EQUITY,
&C.), ORDERED BY THE ROUSE OF COALS:IONS TO BE
PRINTED, 14TH AUGUST, 1850 (711, SESSIONS,
1850-51).
(From the Law Review for November, 1851.)
Unpopular as the Ecclesiastical Courts are, and
strong as are the public prepossessions against them,
the report which stands at the head of this article will
be received with sentiments of surprise and indigna-
tion througout the country. The abuses it details
will, we believe, be found far to exceed in magnitude
all similar examples in other public departments, and
they present features of aggravated deformity that
must excite a general feeling of perplexity and amaze-
ment at the apathy of the Government and of the peo-
ple which has so long permitted them to exist.
It is our intention to give a brief summary of the
tenor of this report. But previously to so doing we
deem it best to explain our views of the principles
applicable to, this question. Our duties are those of
practical law reformers, and we should not be ful-
filling our appropriate task were we to content our-
selves with an exposition of defects and abuses. It is
incumbent on us, as far as lies in our power, to indi-
cate the remedies that will reach the root of the griev-
ances now under discussion.
We consider the objections to the Ecclesiastical
Courts to apply not merely to their administration,
but to the fundamental nature and constitution of
their jurisdiction. A general concurrence of opinion
has lately been established among enlightened autho-
rities on jurisprudence with respect to the inexpe-
diency of maintaining a separete Equity or Chancery
jurisdiction, a proposition which has been fully dis-
cussed in the present and in other numbers of this
Review. Now, the
_principal objections which have
been 'suggested • against an independent Chancery
jurisdiction may be urged with equal truth against
the preservation of separate Ecclesiastical Courts.
The business of those courts is divisible into two
branches, viz., the contentions (chiefly consisting of
cases involving the trial :of disputed wills of per-
sonalty) and their "common form or non-contested
business " (chiefly derived from the functions ful-
filled by those tribunals as offices for the registration
of wills and the granting of probates.
In suits relating to disputed wills the evidence (as
in Chancery cases) consists of written evidence to
the exclusion of oral testimony and the parties (as in
Chancery cases) are exposed to enormous expenses
owing to the abuses with which the courts abound,
and the distance at which, generally speaking, they
are situated from their residences. For these
grievances (no less than, for those which the Court of
Chancery inflicts) local tribunals alone can afford an
efficient remedy, a proposition on which it will be
needless for us to dilate as our various articles on
Chancery will apply totidem verbis.
With respect to the " non-contested business " of
the Ecclesiastical Courts (as offices for the deposit of
wills and for granting probates) it will be self-
evident that those ends may be most conveniently ful-
filled (especially as regards wills of poor persons) by,
means of the different County Courts' offices, com-
bined, perhaps, with a common index in London.
These observations we have thought it necessary
to make in connexion with this report, because there
are some cases in which an exposure of the more sa-
lient features of public abuses may have a tendency
to divert the attention of the community from its pri-
mary sources unless those sources be at the same
time plainly indicated. We may here remark, there-
fore, that we consider it certain that the extinction
of all the sinecures and the reduction of the court fees
of the Ecclesiastical Courts would not suffice to render
those courts cheap and accessible to the suitor, be-
cause he would be still exposed to the heavy charges
of proctors and attorneys, from which it must be im-
possible to exempt him except by local courts and
offices near his own home, in which he could act for
himself.
We have been assured by a Judge oft the County
Courts that there is no greater grievance than the
difficulty and expense which are at present imposed
on the humbler classes of society in obtaining pro-
bates and letters of administration. Poor widows
(according to our informant) are in this manner fre-
quently robbed of the small unpaid earnings of their
husbands at a time when they may form their chief or
only resource. Without probates or letters of admi-
nistration they cannot sue in the County Courts,
while the expense of taking them out would com-
monly swallow up the outstanding debts.
No difference of opinion can, we belive, exist
among impartial men as to the necessity of remedy-
ing the abuses to which the Ecclesiastical Courts give
rise. Hitherto, the gentlemen interested in those
abuses have, nevertheless, succeeded in thwarting the
Government, controlling the Legislature, and setting
public opinion at defiance. But their success has
obviously been attributable not to their own inherent
strength but to the apathy of the constituencies on
the subject of law reform, an apathy that happily has
ceased to exist. The establishment of the county
courts, which have practically taught the electors the
feasibility and the advantages to a cheap administra-
tion of the law (combined with the reiterated debates
that have lately occurred in both Houses on various
measures for the improvement of our legal system)
have given a new impetus to the cause of law reform.
No doubt, therefore, exists that, when, the state of
the Ecclesiastical Courts shall be brought forward in
the next session of Parliament (as we understand is
intended) the question will be discussed under cir-
cumstances highly favourable to the success of the
advocates of a complete correction of their abuses.
We shall now proceed to place succinctly before our
readers a few of the facts disclosed by this report.
Of the " common form" business of the kingdom
two-fifths passed through the Prerogative Court of
Canterbury. The fees for the year ending March
31st, 1848, amounted to no less than 30,832/., out of
which sum the judge received 3,923/., the registrar
8,5081., the deputy-registrars 2,8031., and the rest was
applied to the general expenses of the office. A sum
of 6,7601. was received in the same year by certain
officer as discount on stamps, a source of emolument
that has since been put an end to.
The office of registrar, which is in the gift of the
archbishop, is a sinecure. So completely is this the
case that it has been the practice to grant it, like
landed property, for three lives. The late archbishop,
when one of these dropped, did not exercise the power
he had of inserting a fresh one ; but the office now is
'full for three lives, the present archbishop having
added another to the two existing lives.
Besides the deputy-registrars there are subordinate
officers called clerks of seals, who do not perform
their duties in person, though expressly required to
do so by Act of Parliament. An attempt has lately
been made to obtain power to impose fresh fees for
payment of the clerks, who actually do the work,
which was refused by the authorities.
In the Chester Ecclesiastical Court the gross fees
on an average of the last three years were 9,1811.;
from which the chancellor received a net income of
1,6521., the registrar one of 4,523/. (together with
2501. commission for money advanced by him for
stamps). No table of fees is in existence.
At .Rochester the 'deputy-registrar executes the
whole duties of the registrar's office, which is held
jointly by two clergymen, who are paid two-thirds of
the gross receipts of the office, the deputy defraying
the cost of the office out of his third. Our space will
not permit us to multiply examples of these abuses
which have been carried to such an extent that in one
instance the office of registrar has been given to, and
is held by, a female,
The greatest and most enlightened authorities on
jduarl ise,phr
auvdee ne co en, c fur
rorme d Jienreerny Bentham
ondemning theto Lord Lan
'practiceg-
of
levying fees upon suitors, even when the amount im-
posed is wholly employed in the necessary expenses of
courts of justice. What then are we to think of the
exaction of such fees for the purpose of maintaining a
most odious system of sinecures ? If sinecures are to
be tolerated at all, it would be far better that they
should be openly extracted from the revenues of the
State than that they should be wrung from indivi-
duals under the pretence of, justice.
We earnestly commend to every friend of law re-
form the perusal both of the report and of the entire
body of evidence by which it is accompanied, and we
cannot doubt the conclusion at which he will arrive.

_---- =-=-=-- -- ----
at BToiridEeaEu?(TwllhOiUchAlLwEeonT
which has taken place in that city. The first occurred in
urs Thursday) 0
earthquake)
574, in the time of Saint Gregory of Tours, when the Kings
IN
is the fifth
Sighebert and Chilperic were disputing the possesion of the
city. The second was in 1427, when great part of France
was in the hands of the English it did considerable damage
to the church <4 Saint Andrew. The third shock was felt
on the 21st of June, 1660, two days before the entrance of
Louis XIV., on his way to Sain Jean de Luz, to marry the
Infanta of Spain ; according to a writer of the time, " it was
so furious that it caused some stones to fall from the belfry
of Saint Michel, and shook the inhabitants in their beds."
The fourth shock took place forty-seven or forty-eight years
ago ; this was not very severe.
SUSPECTED MUItDER OF A CHILD BY ITS MOTHER.
_A coroner's inquest has been sitting two days at Alving_
ton, near Chepstow, to inquire into the cause of death of a
child, the body of which was discovered in a ditch in that
neighbourhood; and a young Irish woman, named Peggy
Barley, the mother of it, has been examined as the suspected
murderess,
The child
appears to be about two months old, b
and from the circumstances that have transpired in evidence,
and theis , contradictory
y the suspected
fully statements made
expected that a verdict of wilful murder
will be re
woman, it
tariacl by thejUry against her.
o