The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-09 00:00:00

q./.rbsiji

LONDON, MONDAY, MAY 9, 1864.

Rather than make the confusion they have made
about him, Ministers had much better have left
GARIBALDI alone altogether. 'Tie certainly a very
pretty quarrel as it stands, and we wish them joy
of it! This confusion of tongues (in regard to
GAItinALDT) between the working classes and her
mAsEsTY's Government. There is statement and
there is couuter-statement. Each of them at cate-
gorical as possible. One says one thing, and the
other says exactly, diametrically the reverse. Hot
and cold, black and white—the discrepancy, here, is
not one iota less flagrant. Which are we to believe?
General GARIBALDI or Mr. GLAnszoNE ? The
on this committee, or the
working men generally,
pious Bari. of SHAFTESBURY. We won't say, of
course, that there is hard swearing upon both sides,
or for that matter upon either side. But, really, if
-we are to call things by their right names, there is
something as nearly as possible equivalent to it.
For example—the Way in which the matter is put
forward by the Earl of SHAFTESBURY (every one
will remember What we are going to say who has
at all watched this discussion) the emphatic
way in which the matter in dispute is put forward
by the Earl of SHAFTEsBURY is (such a needless
emphasis one would think under the circumstances 1)
vpon his, the Earl of SHAFTESBURY'S honour as a
gentleman ! A strong way of putting it, cer-
tainly. In fact so strong a way of putting it that
the stitPment an put will be accepted among gentle-
men as (what we have already implied it to be)
equivalent to a statement upon oath. The same
might be said, more or less, in regard to all the
other statements to the same effect upon that same
side, the side, namely, of those extremely solicitous
friends of General GARIBALDI'S, who took more
tender, one might almost say coddling care of Gen.
GARIBALM's health, than he was evidently inclined
to take himself. The most they con d, any of
them, venture to say about his health,
amounting at the same time, after all,
to this=-That General GARIBALDI looked fagged
and that he ,was troubled with a boil or two!
Fagged !" Poor fellow !—what a pity they never
ur4elr to have thought of supplying him with a
vinaigrette I "Boils !" Well, really one would
have conjectured that, even among old women, a

poultice might have suggested itself as an instant
means of obtaining alleviation. However, No!
Vinaigrettes and Poultices are nothing to the pur-
poses in this extraordinary case. [An Irish echo—
Very extraordinary !] 9ARIBALBI was looking
fagged—GARIBALDI, upon close examination, was
found to have a couple of boils on his arm ! Away
with him ! Let him take ship at once for Caprera
Let him at any rate. quit London immediately, or—
there would be no answering for the consequences •
A consideration for his health alone, in fact,
prompted any interference like this with the
general arrangements. They all said so. The
most eminent surgeon living put it as plainly as
possible, to that effect, in black and white. The
GENERAL'S immediate removal from all this excite-
ment was, he said, of the utmost consequence. The
professional letter plainly asserted that, it will be
remembered—though it spoke of nothing more im-
portant as visible reasons for the assertion than a
couple of boils and an appearance of fatigue. Mr.
GLADSTONE and Mr. SEELY stated pretty much the
same thing, quite as distinctly, though in a different
way. And, as a climax to everything, came the
almost clerical Earl of SHAFTESBURY with his ultra
positive statement to precisely the same effect" upon
his honour as a gentleman." So much for that side.
Now for the other—namely, for the side upon
which it was maintained, upon which it has all
along been maintained, upon which it is still
as emphatically as ever maintained, that
considerations of health had next to nothing at all
to do with GARIBALDFs licensed departure.
And at the head of those who were and are upon
this side of the argument, who upon earth do we
see all along but the principal personage in the
whole malter under dispute P—the fatigued looking
hero with the two boils on his left arm—General
GARIBALDI himself. Really, if he oughtn't to
know anything about his own health, who ought ?
It is for all the world—under a more picturesque
aspect, of course, but otherwise precisely the same
—it is for all the world poor SANCHO, with the
banquet, with even the table-cloth, snatched away
from him, while his appetite is still
strong upon him ! Yes—here, on this side,
first and foremost, stands General GARIBALDI
himself! From first to last nothing will induce
him to give the "state of his health" as a reason
for his Hurried Departure. From the draft of the
letter he is asked to sign,specifying that as a reason,
he strikes the mention of the state of his health
out altogether. Requested to say so and so, what
are we now told to have been his point-blank reply ?
—" My lord, I won't tell a lie." Then come the
other declarations of committee men, of working
men, and so forth, distinctly corroborative of the as-
sertions of GARIBALDI himself, and directly in opposi-
tion to the statements of Mr. GLADSTONE, of Mr.
SEELEY, and of the Earl of SHAFTESBURY. Else-
where will be found, in our columns, this evening, a
detailed report of these extraordinary counter-
statements. But still, " elsewhere, this evening,"
it is to be earnestly hoped—meaning in the House
of Commons—that Mr. GLADSTONE will be good
enough to offer his explanations thereupon. His
explanations are really required—these asteundieg
counter-statements being so very distinct, positive,
and categorical.

Following up the subject of compulsory examina-
tions for the bar, it has long been felt that all the
suggestions which have been made for the promo-
tion of legal education have been merely palliatives.
The full and complete remedy had yet to be dis-
covered and applied. Now, such a remedy the
Commissioners appointed some ten years ago to
inquire into the arrangements in the Inns of Court
and Chancery, thought they had hit upon at last.
It was, in a word, the application of the University
system to the training for the bar. In the same
way that Christchurch, Trinity, St. John's, are
academic colleges, so Lincoln's Inn, the two littm-

pies, and Gray's Inn would be legal colleges.
In the same way that the' colleges of Oxford and
Cambridge are combined into uniformity of action
by the intervention of a governing body, and col-
lectively receive the name of a University, so would
the various Inns of Court and Chancery be com-
bined, at least for the purposes of legal education
and a legal University. This now and important
body would have its chancellor elected for life, its

vice-chancellor, and its senate. The senate would
consist of eight members elected from each Inn of
Court, five of whom, benehers elected by members,
would represent the aristocratic element of the
profession, and three, barristers elected by barris-
ters would represent the views and feelings of the
general body of the bar.

This, in fact, would have been to throw the
regimen of this new University into the hands of
the barristers, as upon any point of difference they
would divide as 20 against 12. Whether this would
have been a wise regulation or not, it is useless,
after the lapse of several years, to atop to inquire.
Such was the proposal of the Commissioners of 1855.
The Commissioners did not propose that the jrris-
diction of their University should have extended
beyond the incidence of forensic education. In
point of fact, they laid it down in their 21st pro-
position that the Inns of Court should not be corn-

pelled to call to the bar even the students who
have passed the ordeal of the University examina-
tions. The Inns were to have retained their former
powers At only as to the admission of students, but
even as to the disbarring of them after examination,
subject to appeal to the judges. As far as
admission is concerned this proviso would neces-
sarily be a. dead letter, save in the case of enormous
and notorious criminality. With regard to the dig-
barring of members of the bar, the powers exer-
cised at present by the benchers might with ad-
vantage be revived. The appeal to the judges has
ever practically been found to be of little avail, it is
so encompassed with doubts and uncertainties, and
the judges are so reluctant to move, that the powers
of the benchers in the various inns of mut amOnnt
to despotic authority. A
We suppose the aforesaid retort was lost amid
the din of the Crimean War, as nothing has
been heard of now for many years. We will, '
however, as we have lately pointed out in two
leading articles, that there was last Hiliary Term
appointed preliminary examinations in Latin the
English language, and English history)—just state
what the resolution of the Commissioners nine years
ago relative to the education of bar students
was. Their legal university was to have appointed
reaolar examiners who would have organised a
examination of candidates for admis-
psiroenlianiinsstaY
urdents.
After' this was to have followed

a more serious examination, or series of examina-
tions, which every person who was desirous of
having been called to the bar mast of necessity have
passed. The needful knowledge was to have been
divided into two branches. The first was to have
comprised constitutional law and legal history.
The second embraced as subjects the common law,
equity, and the law of real
property. A pass
or certificate for a call to the bar was to have
been obtained by passing one subject
in each
branch. The candidates for honours and for the
higher degree of Master of Laws must
have resolved to have grappled with the
full difficulties of the subjects enumerated
above. Toere was to have been one studentship,
worth £5O per annual, retainable for four years, to

arouse the emulation and tempt the ambition of the

students.

For further particulars of the proposition of the
Commissioners, we must refer to the abstract of
their report published about nine years ago. Suffice
it for the moment to say, here was the University
system of education imported into the metropolis
and applied to the study of the law. Without
pledging ourselves to an opinion upon any single
question of detail, we hasten to record our warmest
approval of the general principle. It is a fact that our
two great Universities do every year turn out good
mathematicians and classical scholars. It is another
fact that the Inns of Court in London have hitherto
not given any legal education at all, or it has been of
so permissive a character as to amount to a nullity.
How can we expect to have a succession of good
lawyers if we will not be at the pains of training
them ? Many reproaches have been showered, and
with perfect justice, upon our system of laws in
England. They are illiberal, they are illogical,
they are patchwork, they are out of date, they are a
mass of frivolous formula and tiresome technicalities.
The question is who is to make them better ? It is
is vain for a layman to enter upon the task, for all
the owls, bats, and spiders of Westminster Hall will
do their worst upon him if he dare to invade their
holy precincts with the faintest corner
of a duster visible beneath his coat-sleeve. Are
we to look for assistance to the lawyers themselves?
They are men who have been educated in two ways.
They have been shut up for a couple of years or
more in the chambers of pleaders or conveyancers,
with no higher objects of study than the draughts
of pleas and conveyances, which it was their duty
to copy and re-copy usque ad nauseam. When
well saturated with these abominable forms, the
aspiring young lawyer puts on his wig and gown,
and for a time in the .back rows of Westminster
imbibes more legal knowledge from the lips of the
judges—in other words, he learns to do just what
his predecessors had done before him. It is ob-
vious that from such a man little can be expected

for the improvement of our laws. We have hitherto
been employed in tinkering away at our laws as
best we could to overcome the resistance of the pro-

!"ession.

From the moment that a sound system of legal
education is at work we shall find our task all the

lighter. We must train up workmen fit for the work
which an enlightened community has a right to
expect at their hands. The Bar has hitherto been
rather an illberal than a liberal profession. There
has been plenty of hair spliting, plenty of acuteness
in cross examination, and of sharp practice not a
little, but with the exception of half a dozen great
Judges and Advocates, our lawyers have been
rather behind than before the great mass of the edu-
cated community. Another advantage which would
probably follow from the system of public examination
and public honours in law would be that it would
have a tendency to diminish the evils of nepotism
and attorney favour. Attorneys are often enough
unjustly blamed for preferring their own proteges
to strangers, but how are we to select from among
the younger barristers in the back rows the men
who are really most likely to do them good service.
Surely the senior wrangler, in law will have a
chance given him at a far earlier period than the
mute inglorious MANSFIELDS who have pined and
died in obscurity under the present most disgrace-
ful system.