The Sun.
London, England, 1864-04-16 00:00:00

y
o.Vgrnt

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1864.

Men prayed for rain and Jupiter sent a flood.
We asked for legal education, and the council de-
puted to consider the subject have published a
scheme of examination which makes us shudder at
the bare recital of the work which the unfortunate
students are required to " get up" ere they can aim
at the honours of the profession. To be sure, the
quiet souls can slip through, as in bygone days, by
attending during one whole year the lectures of two
of the readers, or else passing a year in the cham-
bers of a barrister or special pleader. And, still
more lately, young men entering as students on and
after Hilary Terra
Latin, 1864 are required to pass an exa-
mination in Lati the English language, and
general history. As far as it goes, the alteration is
an improvement. one would be inclined to say
a priori that there was a better chance of
learning something of law from an attend-
ance of two courses of legal
lectures, as also
from one year's attendance in the chambers of a
barrister or pleader, than from eating ten
or twelve good plain dinners in an ancient
‘iothic hall. Still all men who have had a length-
ened experience of public schools and universities
are sufficiently aware of the injurious character of
certain minds. Speaking from our own knowledge,
we could quote instances in which the whole period
from ten to twenty .two years of age has been spent
in the nominal study of the classical languages, and
a young man has come out of the process utterly
unable to construe two verses of the Greek Testa-
ment or half a dczen lines of Virgil in a creditable
'manner. The passive power of resistance to
instruction which lies in idleness and inca-
pacity is inconceivably great. We conclude, then,

that as long as such a loophole is left open to
idlers, and to young men who aim at the degree of
barrister purely as a matter of social distinction, but
very little change fr'om the old system will in reality
have been effected. Under that old fiery-port and
leg-of-mutton method the young men who regarded
the study of the law as a means of obtaining their
future subsistence, or who were inclined to enter
upon it from still higher motives, did their best to
obtain a competent knowledge of the subject. The
changes of the system can scarcely be intended
exclusively for their benefit. If we understand
aright tho motives which led to the alteration
in our forms of legal education, they may in
the main be summed up in this one sen-
tence—that it was a scandal that a young man
should be admitted to the honours and practice of
a liberal profession, when there was no security
that he was in the slightest degree acquainted with
the simplest rules of the science which he possessed.
We examined our young candidates for holy
orders, our surgeons, our physicians, our attorneys,
our sea officers, our graduates in the various facul-
ties in the universities, why, it was asked, should
" barristers " constitute the solitary exception ?
There is really no reason to be urged in favour of
this singularity, which would not apply with equal
force to all the other castes. Twelve years ago, in
Trinity Term, 1852, a new system was propounded,
which made it compulsory upon all students who
had not then kept more than four terms
either to submit to an examination, or else
to attend one year's lectures of two of the Readers
duringfour consecutive terms. And, later still, fresh
regulations have been propounded by the Benchers
of the Inns of Court, commencing as they did to all
students entering for the Bar on and after this last
Hilary Term, bat alas, under it we find that
the door is left as wide open as ever to all
idlers who would come into the feast unprepared.
It may be that the authors of the scheme trust to
indirect influences, but in such matters the plainest
and shortest way is ever the best. There surely
could be no hardships in requiring from all candi-
dates for the degree of Barrister at Law, some little
proof that they are acquainted with the rudiments of
English Law. A smatters have stood for the last 12
years, and still stand, they may at their pleasure
undergo a public examination at which such posi-
tive proof is required, or they may if they simply
give their attendance ata couple of lectures, or even
avoid doing this provided they pass one year in the
chambers of a Barrister or Special Pleader, and
so slip unnoticed—through. It would have been
by far a more obvious course to have made it
incumbent upon all to undergo a moderate
bat sufficient examination, and then to make
any farther arrangements which might seem fit for
the encouragement of more ambitious and distin-
guished students. Such an improvement in the sys-
tem cannot be much longer delayed, Once admit
the principle of testing capacity as the condition of
admission to the degree of barrister, and who shall
remain unexamined ? As much as the arrangements
are too laxly conducted in one respect, so do they
appear to be constrained in others. We know not
of what metal the young students are made who are
aiming at forensic distinction, but we are very
confident that some 30, or even 20 years ago their
predecessors would have stood aghast at the bill of
Fare which the Council of Legal Education are in
the habit, three times a year, of preparing for their
scientific sustenance. For example, the more
aspiring candidates are generally to be examined
under the head of constitutional law and legal
history in the following books, or rather works
—" The State Trials, The Parliamentary
History, Clarendon, Burnet, Millar, Rapin,
Tindal, and Blackstone Commentaries." `,:hey
are to be intimately acquainted with the pro-
gress of our institutions and the changes in our con-
stitutional government. They must make them-
selves so well acquainted with the history of the
I period that they shall be as though they had lived
through the reigns of HENRY VIII. and ELIZABETH,
and had taken share in the great constitutional
struggles which were acted during the dominion of
the STUARTS and in the reign of WILLIAM
They are to have more—particularly the stormy
discussions and open air contests during the reigns
of EDWARD 111. and RICHARD ll.—at their fingers'
ends. They must bo ready to give an account of
any point which arose in the course of the State
Trials down to the reign of Queen ANNE, as though
they had been in Court taking notes of the pro-
ceedings. Surely any one of the subjects named
is enough to exhaust the efforts of an industrious
and well-spent life. But, even so, the subject of con-
stitutional law constitutes but a section of the mul-
tifarious matters to which the law student must
direct his attention. Let us presume him to have
mastered the Parliamentary History, the State
Trials, and the other little works above mentioned,
he must then remember that the reader on juris-
prudence and civil law will have something to say
to him, For this gentleman, he must prepare himself
in the Roman law of persons of real, verbal, and
consensual contracts, and in the course of his studies
upon this point, he may, if he will avail himself,
" Commentari Juria Prevail Romani" of Warn-
koninz. He must then freshen up his Grotius on
ownership, promises, contracts, and oaths, not
forgetting the little treatise, "De jure Pacis et
Belle," Dr. Whewell's edition. He should next
turn his thought to the digest, and when tolerably
familiar with this little work he may relax his mind
with "Kent's Commentaries on the Law of Nations."
For fear this somewhat antiquated law should at all
interfere with his future utility, he must consider
the knowledge he has acquired in connection with
the modification introduced into the general inter-
national law by the practice of the Crimean war.
When he has done all this, he will be in a pretty
frame of mind to " tip up," as our American cousins
would say, with "Story's Conflict of Laws," so far
of jurisprudence and civil law. When the diligent
student has placed himself in a favourable condition
to lay an intellectual backfall or two with the rea-
ders on constitutional and civil law, a third an-
tagonist awaits him, the toughest of the three.
He only escapes from the clutches of the two
dragons named, to fall into the talons of the griffin
or harpy who presides over the knowledge more
especially available in the High Court of Chancery.
This knowledge, as all men are perfectly aware,
is of a highly refreshing and delectable
character. First, in order to get just a foretaste of
future bliss, let the student take a snap at " Smith's
Manual." When his palate hath been thus whetted,
let him quickly degustato " Fonblanque on Equity,"
a delightful work. After so much mental relaxa-
tion he can scarcely complain if he be required
thoroughly to master the " Act for the Improve-
ment of Equity Jurisdiction, 15th and 16th Vic-
toria." A bonne boucle, however, awaits him to
make amends, in the shape of " Mitford on Plead-
ings in the Court of Chancery," a work of which it
tray justly be said that it is well calculated to
superinduce a calm and contemplative frame of
mind. "White and Tudor's Leading Cases," with
all the notes, and Pothier's little trifle
upon "yartnerahip," will conclude all that it
may be necessary for the student to know
under this head at his outset in h s profession.
Thus far of constitutional law, of the civil law,
and of equity. The young man who aims at

THEMIS'S more distinguished favours must not
forget that there are such noble sciences in existence
as the law of real property and the common law.
We will suppose him, first to begin with real pro•
party, as the subject is not very enlivening, and
doubtless the student would be glad to wash his
hands of it with all convenient despatch. Mr.
JOSHUA WILLIAMS'S excellent little treatise, to be
followed by " Stephens's Commentaries" and
" Sugden on Powers," will well launch him into
the subject. Then come the operative words : the
student will be examined in the practice of con-
veyancing with reference to the framing of
purchase deeds, mortgages, and settlements.
Many excellent collections of precedents
are in existence extending throughout divers portly
volumes, and our young friend could not do better
than give himself up to the copying and recopy-
ing of these mystic forms, from eve.to more, from
morn to dewy eve, by which progress no doubt he
will find his mind materially improved. It does
sot consist with considerations of space, which we
must perforce regard, that we should follow the
rising lawyer through the remaining subjects under
this head to which his attention must be directed,
nor upon his appointed excursions into the more
flowery regions of the Common Law. Candour
compels us to admit that the Common Law pro-
gramme is framed with a better regard to the capa-
cities of the human mind than any of the other
sections it has been our duty to notice. The Council
of Legal Education in right reason expect that
any young man can attain a thorough knowledge
of the subjects they point at so as to be thoroughly
known without converting himself into an idiot at
the end of the process of his labours, are attend( d
with the most partial success. Possibly, it may
be admitted by the public as no insane boast, if we
say that we have in a certain slight degree turned
our attention to the subject of Parliamentary his-
tory, State trials, constitutional struggles, &c., and
we can only say, even now, when the test exer-
tions cf our lives have been given to this single
subject, we should most unfeignedly shrink from
such an examination on it as is proposed by the
Council of Legal Education for the benefit of
young men 25 years of age. We say nothing of
the "Digest" and " Jarman," and " Bythwood's
Conveyancing Forms," and "Fonblanque's Equity
Jurisprudence," &c. ; a man who was well ac-
quainted in middle life, after 20 years of continuous
study, with any one of these subjects must have
lived the life of a recluse, in order to make himself
a learned lawyer.

The important case of Malt versus Sugar was
argued at some length at St. Stephen's on Tuesday
evening, with results that will be found satisfactory
by most people. The question at issue concerns the
personal convenience of a good many, but we appre-
hend that Col. BARTTELOT will find the number of
his supporters out of doors to be as small in propor-
tion as his minority within the House itself, not-
withstanding the unpopularity of the Malt Tax and
the repeated efforts that have been made to obtain
its repeal, or at all events its modification: Taxes
are at best unpopular things, and war taxes more
especially so. There is probably no impost whose
removal would not be strongly advocated by some
parties, and whose absence would not be felt as a
relief by some classes of the community. This i 3
certainly the case with the Malt Tax, one of the
few remaining Excise Duties, which presses heavily
upon the farmer in one form, and the general public
in another, and is accustomed in consequence to
meet with hearty denunciations from all sides. Still
in cansidering the point at issue on Thursday even-
ing it will not do to restrict ourselves to the con-
templation of the grievances and burdens imposed by
the tax on malt. There is another side to the ques-
tion, and the spirit of tho debate was very truly
expressed by Colonel BARTTELOT in moving his
resolution when he said " The question was, which
would benefit the community most, the reduction of
the Malt Tax, or that the of the Duties upon
Sugar r' To this query the Commons returned an
unmistakeable answer by a majority of 248, and
prominent not only in the list of the voters, but
among the speakers who addressed the House
on behalf of the Budget as it stood, were
the names of such open and consistent advo-
cates of the total abolition of the Malt
Duty as Mr. DISRAELI and Mr. COBDEN. The
former of these gentlemen naturally represents
the strong agricultural interest which suffers from
the continuance of this impost, wbi c the latter op-
poses its maintenance in accordance with those
principles of free trade, for whose advocacy he has
always been so myth distinguished. No single
member was found to defend the continuance of
the Malt Tax in its present form, indeed one gen-
tleman, Mr. WESTERN, oprosed the motion on the
ground that the reduction of only one-fourth of
the Malt Tax, the sum proposed to be remitted,
would give no relief to the agricultural classes. It
was contended by the opponents of the measure
that, while costing the country £550,000 more
than the reduction of the sugar duties, the proposed
diminution of the Malt Tax would not perceptibly
benefit the farmer, and would produce no effect on
beer, which would not be cheapened at the rate of
one farthing per quart, were it carried. Conse-
quently the doubt as to the re!ative advantage to
the public, more especially as regards the working
classes, is very soon disposed of. Labouring men,
❑o doubt, would hail with intense satisfaction the
removal or diminution of any impost which keeps
up the price of their daily beverage—a beverage
too which, drunk in moderation, is no doubt a
valuable auxiliary to their health and comfort ; but
the women and children of the peorer classes, even
the artisans themselves, when sick or feeble, would
find it difficult to replace the treasured cup of tea
with any more stimulating but less refreshing be-
verage. A high authority—Miss NIGHTINGALE—
after speaking of the objections raised by some
scientific men to the use of tea and coffee, very
shrewdly inquires where they will find a satisface
tory substitute for the parched and weary invalid.
To such a cup sugar is an indispensable adjunct,
and in removing some part of the cumbrous duty
upon it which has in some measure diminished the
benefit of the welcome reduction on tea, Mr.
GLADSTONE has given a very substantial boon to
a very large and various number. Yet important
as sugar is in its effect upon the comfort of the
people, regarded in its one aspect as a concomitant
of tea and coffee, there are dozens of other
ways in which it is daily used, and in which its
cheapness will be found of course a very great ad-
vantage. One of the strongest arguments in favour
of this portion of the Budget, was, however, brought
forward by the right hon. leader of the Opposition,
when he reminded the House that they had entered
into a compact with the public for its reduction se
far back as 1855, and that such engagemente should
be faithfully kept. The sugar duty is a war tax
It is a part of the benefits we owe to that disastrous
Crimean war, in which England bought her ad-
ministrative experience at such a heavy cost. We
need not thank it for the legacy, and it is now
surely time that such a burden then imposed should
be removed. It was on this ground alone that Mr.
DISRAELI, one of the most strenuous and consis-
tent opponents of the Malt Tax, and one of the few
who has had the opportunity of putting his profes-
sions into practice during hie tenure of office,