The Sun.
London, England, 1830-05-03 00:00:00

the same proceedings would have cost in the Connuis,an
Court.

The result is, justice, strict and impartial justice, is
obtained cheaply and speedily in the Commissary Court.
It can never he got too cheaply nor too quickly. Tin
very names of the Consistorial causes show that in then,
this is peculiarly necessary. Notice, for instance, the cc
tions. of adherence, and all alimentary questions between
husband and wife, and actions of separation on account
of danger of life. For obvious reasons the Northern
Editor does not once allude t any of these cases. bat
would consign them all to the delays and expence of the
Court of Session : and why ? because "collusion" may
exist in cases of divorce, though be does not aver that it
can exist in any other case.

As to the alleged fear of collusion in cases of divorce,
this learned Editor surely knows that any evil which he
may conjure up as resulting from cheap justice is guarded
against in Scotland by a variety of simple and efficient
checks.

1. An existing Scotch Statute prohibits the guilty
party from ever marrying the individual with whom the
guilt was committed, and for ever bastardises the pro-
geny of such illicit connection. And-
2. By the law of Scotland in all civil questions which
can occur between the divorced pair, the guilty party is
held to be civilly dead, so that a guilty wile has no claim
for aliment against the husband, and a guilty husband has
no claims against tie wife's estate.

A contemporary (the Tinzes), in commenting on
Mr. Brougham's able speech of Thursday night, ob-
serves—" We would also venture to suggest, that
while an appeal is allowed, except under very special
circumstances, it is hopeless to expect speedy or
cheap justice. A very little dexterity in an attorney
can swell a 101. debt to 201., and a very little know-
ledge can discover a legal quibble for discussion be-
fore a superior Court. There should be no appeal,
except there is gross error evident on the face of the
whole proceedings." Cheap justice is good, but
then it ought to be justice. Now we are confident
that the greatest injustice would be constantly taking
place in local courts if there were no appeal to a su-
perior tribunal. With respect to small sums
(though no doubt, as Mr. Peel said, " the sums
trifling to one man might be important to another,
and he who appealed for the recovery of his
wager, the amount of which might appear to
some of little concern, might feel the loss of
his few shillings more severely than those who
legislated might feel the loss of 1001."), a Judge
of the rank of those now proposed cart hardly
be supposed to be under any improper bias
in his decision ; and it is upon the whole, perhaps,
as well that, under the limits fixed by Mr. Brougham,
the decision should be final. But what security
would there be for a proper decision, where the
litigation related to large sums, if the Judge were
not to have the knowledge that a superior Court
was overlooking him ? To say nothing of local in-
fluence, a Judge would relapse into laziness, and fail
to make himself acquainted with the changes of the
law, were he not to have a flapper now and then
from the Court above. The Solicitor-General in-
deed, with admirable inconsistency, thought that a
local Judge, however respectable at first, " would
degenerate from year to year ;" but still, " as to the
appeal to the Judge of Assize, with whom he was
to sit during the hearing, he thought nothing could
be more objectionable, because nothing could more
strongly tend to lower this local Judge in his own
opinion, or hi that of the persons amongst whom he
administered justice." This is a very strange appli-
cation of the doctrine of judicial infallability. So,
became Judges residing in their districts, and
not in constant communication with the bright
luminaries of the Common Law, and Chancery
Courts, would degenerate, and because the
only mode of preventing their degeneracy—the
correction of superior tribunals—would lower them
in their own opinion, we ought to have no Local
Courts, and consequently the people ought to be
altogether without justice. Admirable logic ! Mr.
Brougham's plan is essentially necessary, both to
the impartiality of the tribunal, and the uniformity of
the law; for the Court above will prevent all deviation
into anomalies, which might otherwise be the case
hi the different districts, without appeal. But while
we contend fur appeal, as a sine qua non in judicial
matters, we would wish to guard ourselves against
the endless appeals now allowed both in England
and Scotland. " Then afterwards (says Vulture, in
the farce) toss him through all the Courts of West-
minster like a tennis-ball; slap from the Common
Pleas to the King's Bench, and then hurl him into
the Exchequer, and after souse him over head and
ears in Chancery, and when he thinks he's cockshure
of the game, I turn up an appeal to the House of
Peers." Appeals may be abused, but sure we are
without appeals there will never be good tri-
bunals. It is because there is no appeal from
the Unpaid, or rather because there is such an ap-
peal as from the Chancellor in Chancery to the
Chancellor in the House of Lords, that the
Magistrates of this country act often so very oppres-
sively. We do not see why there should be any
limit to the sum. If a local Judge can determine in
a case under 1001., be can determine in a case above
that sum. However, we will not now enter on that
matter. With respect to Juries, Mr. Brougham
very properly leaves an option to the parties. " If
the Judge says there is no necessity for a reference
to a Jury, and if the parties themselves are willing
to admit that it should not be referred to a Jury,
then I say no mischief can be done by allowing the
.Judge and the patties to dispose of the case in a
manner which may seem most agreeable to them."
We have no doubt that, in general, the decision
of the Judge would be preferred to that of a Jury.
The Scotch, who are less wedded to their own
practices than the English, and by no means indis-
posed to innovations, allowed themselves to be the
dupes of the eulogies on Jury trial, pronounced with
so much complacency by their southern neighbours.
They soon, however, found to their cost what a
Jury trial was; and at present a scoundrel has only
to threaten another with a Jury trial to force him
almost to any terms. At a Meeting of the county
of Renfrew, On Saturday last, one of the speakers,
Mr. Gardner, observed :
" The Jury must be paid. The litigant has not the
power as he has in the Sheriff Court, to take only such
witnesses at once as he thinks may make out his c,:se; but
he must summon every person who he thinks has the
slightest knowledge of the case ; and instead of two, he
may have forty witnesses to pay, besides all tie other in-
cidental expences. The immense expence of the Jury
Court is, in fact, so well known, as to have rendered it
abhorrent to all Scotsmen. But this is not all the evil.
The Judge directs the Jury, who generally nod assent.
They are bound to take the law from the Judge in connec-
tion with the evidence, and they, therefore, wait on the
Judge's opinion. After getting a secondary opinion from
the Jury, it may be that there is a new trial. There may
be bills of exceptions on various grounds, and at the end
the parties are not one whit nearer than if the case had
been left with the Sheriff. At last Circuit there was a
case seat from Paisley, to which fifty witnesses were
summoned ; and, after all, the Judge heard the case and
decided it without one witness being examined. They
had already Juries; appointed in the Sheriff Courts re-
garding roads, bridges, and public buildings ; yet they
were not resorted to. He believed no one preferred it to
the Sheriff Court, where the cases might be decided at
I-10th of the expence. In fact, no one was satisfied with
them. As an instance, lie would mention a case, in
which the Commissioners of the building in which they
were had seven years ago taken possession of property,
which they had nut yet paid for, from the objection of
the proprietor to a Jury ; and he would rather continue
to lie out of his 'money than to go to a Jury. He expected
that those who were so much in favour -of a Jury Court
would have shown that it would decide causes with less
expellee, and with more expedition. He would say Jury
Trial was impracticable, because the parties would require
to have all their witnesses forward in one day; and would
therefore require to have every one forward who knew
anything at all about the case. Witnesses might be
unwell, and the litigants would be obliged to go on and
close their cases in the absence of part of their proof;
or pay the witnesses and the Jury for a double attend-
ance, which it is not likely they are to give for nothing."
These two provisions, viz.—the prohibition against
marrying the party with. whom the guilt was committed,
and the forfeiture of all civil claims at the instance et the
guilty party, impose both a powerful restraint on the con-
duct of the married pair, and also prevent the remedy of
divorce from being abused.
There are also various checks peculiar to the Consis-
torial Court, which are impracticable in the Court of

Sesson ; and on the whole, we believe that, instead of
disturbing the Consistorial law of Scotland, it would be
well were Parliament to consider-how far the law of Eng-
land might he assimilated to it. In that case we wouli
no longer see such scenes in England as the profligate wife
ruining the industrious husband because he is too poor t'
get an Act of the Legislature for his relief—nor be nau-
seated by the demoralising, details of• the rich passing
through Parliament, to the interruption of its public
business.
One word more to the Northern Editor.

He says, "would this writer take the trouble to inform
us in how many defended causes Counsel were not em-
ployed at some stage or other of the proceedings?" We
answer-1. That Counsel were probably not employed in
one out of fifteen or twenty of these defended causes.
2. That Vie case of eleclarator of marriage, mentioned
in the pamphlet, WilB one where Counsel were not em
played on the side of the woman—and where Counsel
were employed on the side of the defendant. who lost his
cause ;—as happened to the party in the only Consistorial
case for whom the Learned Editor appeared.
S. And we can add, that it is, when Counsel are em•
played in the Scotch Consistorial Court, that the case
invariably becomes an expensive one. They are, there-
fore, not employed in every case; and, indeed, we never
knew one c.,:sa in which it (lid not turn out in the end—
that it had been left to the ordinary practitioners of that
Court, who are necessarily well acquainted with its pecu-
liar causes, and who combine the characters both of
Counsel and Agent.-1 remain, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
—Morning Chronicle. A BARRISTER.

We observe that the second reading of the Jews'
ReFel Bill stands first on the orders of the Com-
mons for this day, and therefore we presume that
question will be debated to-night. We have re-
ceived a number of communications in behalf of the
claims of the Jews, and it was our intention to have
inserted some of them this day, had we had sufficient
space at our disposal. The Jews unfortunately are
worse off than they were before the emancipation of
the Catholics; for the oath then imposed by Par-
liament excludes them from professions previously
within their reach. In a letter addressed to us
several days ago, the writer enters into a minute
statement of the footing on which the Jews exist in
most of the Continental countries. In all the
countries possessed of any title to liberality, there is
no distinction between Jews and Christians. Eve❑
" in Austria, the least enlightened of the Conti-
nental States, Jews have privileges. They were
even ennobled, and called to high offices. The
Wctzlars, Ahrensteins, and Rothschilds are Barons
of the Austrian empire; two of the latter are
Consuls-General in Paris and in London." After
this statement of foreign liberality, the writer ob-
serves—

" In England, free England, that boasts, and justly
too, of being the freest country in Europe, the Jews, I
am sorry to say, have not those privileges which they enjoy
in France, in Belgium, and in some of the German and
Prussian States. It is true, a British-born Jew can ptir•
chase freehold property, vote at elections, and .noose
parish officers ; but they are shut out from Parliament,
from the Bar, and cannot even become notaries or attor-
neys, unless they take the oath that Christians take. Ha
Jew serves an apprenticeship to a freeman, he cannot take
up his freedom unless he takes an oath, which, as a Jew,
he cannot take. it is true there are at this time three
Jews Members of Parliament, viz.:—Messrs. Ricardo,
Bernal, and Sir Manasseh Lopez. The late Sir Samp-
son Gideon, his son, Lord Eardley, and Mr. Thompson,
were also Members of Parliament ; Sir Morris Ximenes,
a Jew, was a High Sheriff about twenty years ago; but,
although Jews, they were obliged to take the Oaths as
Christians. Several English Jews are respectably
known as Barristers, Notaries, Attorneys (who must
take the
.Outh as Christians), Physicians, Authors, Poets,
Singers, Artists, Musical Composers, &c. As France,
Holland, Prussia, Bavaria, and Austria have emancipated
the Jews from thraldom, surely England ought not, nay,
cannot refuse to grant Jews those privileges which they
enjoy under Governments less enlightened."

Every office is operi, at present, to a British Jew,
provided only he perjure himself. The very idea of
imposing an oath as a test in order to exclude Jews
fiorn office, supposes them to possess a regard for
truth, and therefore to be the very last men who
ought to be excluded from any office of profit or
honour for which they are fitted. Prince Metter-
nich is said to have a particular dislike to employ
honest and conscientious men, conceiving that
knaves are always more easily managed. We do
not believe that the tests which, ever since the civil
wars, have been so lavishly imposed in this country,
had for express object the excluding all but knaves
from office. Yet it is certain, that if it were in-
tended to demoralize a nation, a better method
could not be devised. Richard Baxter, in his Auto-
biography, tells us that from the introduction of
these tests in the time of the Long Parliament,
men played fast and loose with dreadful oaths, as if
there bonds were as easily shaken off as Sampson's
cords. The Church of England Divines gulped
down oaths like water. They pleaded, he says
" the irresistibility of the imposers, and they found
starting holes in the terms, viz. that by the Corn-
menwealth, they will mean the present Common-
wealth iu gcnere, and by established they will mean
only de facto mid not de jure,andby without a King,
&c. they mean not quatenus, but Etsi ; and that
only de facto po tempore ; q. d. I will be true to
the Government of England, though at the present
the King and House of Lords are put out of
the exercise of their power. These were the
expositions of many episcopal men, and others then
-took it. But I endeavoured to evince, that this is
mere juggling and jesting with matters too great to be
jested with; and that as they might easily know
that the imposers had another sense, so as easily
might they know that the words in their own ob-
vious sense among men must be taken as the pro-
mise or engagement of a subject as such to a form
of Government now pretended to be established;
and that the subject's allegiance or fidelity to his
rulers can be acknowledged and given in no plainer
words ; and that by such interpretations and stretch-
ings of conscience, any treasonable oath or promise
may be taken, and no bonds of society can signify
much with such interpreters." The same distin-
guished individual, in his preface to his Holy Com-
monwealth, addressed to the Army, after recounting
the numerous wheelings, all regularly sworn to, ob-
serves, " And now we are wheel'd about again.—
And would you have had all the nation sworn or
engaged to all these various forms, and-that so sud-
denly before they can feel well where they stand ?
. . . Should we be called to as frequent engage-
ments as you have made mutations in the Govern-
ment, were it not the way to banish conscience out
of the land, and to teach men to swallow any thing
that is offered, and to sin till they believe that no-
thing is a sits .?
honest men will not go against their consciences,
whatever it cost them, when others will : And, there-
fore, unnecessary engagements will strengthen the
unconscionable, and engage you in a persecution of
the best—and who will have the worst of that at
last ?" It is no wonder that Louis the Fourteenth
declared that the English of his day were a
people regardless of oaths, and the Clergy the
worst of all, as they furnished the people with
arguments in favour of peijury. It would no doubt
be no difficult matter for the Jews to imitate their
Christian brethren in the discovery of quibbles such
as those above referred to; but why should they
be exposed to a temptation which even the Clergy
of the Church of England could not resist ? There
is quite enough of unnecessary peijury among
Christians, through University oaths, &c., without
the addition of Jewish perjury. We observe that in
a printed letter the proposition is combated. " That
the admission of Jews to civil power is inconsistent
with the dictum of Chief Justice Hale, that Chris-
tianity is part end parcel of the law of the land.'
In the Correspondence of Mr. Jefferson, it is shown
that this saying of Hale is founded on a gross blun-
der. "It may amuse you (says Jefferson) to show
when, and by what means, they stole this law in
upon us. In a case of quare impedit in the Year
Book, 34. Hen. VI., folio 38 (anno 1458), a ques-
tion was made how far the Ecclesiastical Law was
to be respected in a Common Law Court ? And
Prisot, Chief Justice, gives his opinion in these
words:----' A tiel leis qu'ils de seint eglise out en
anczen Scripture, covient a nous a donner credence;
cor ceo common ley stir quell touts manners leis