The Sun.
London, England, 1863-08-11 00:00:00

and that a Baron of the ExchN per has become
Chief Judge in ordinary of the l I3ourt of Probate
and Divorce. We desire to belies .e that the selec-
tion has been made deliberately, after the 'idlest
consideration of the excepitenal cii cusistances
,con-
nected with this particular rippoina ment, and we
feel no difficulty whatever in reg,lrdi
Sir James
Wilde as a man who would not have , accepted the
post had he not been thoroughly
t its duties
with success. But the institution of a coCntrY
ability to hold it with honour and conduc,
coo., dent of his
for
tim administration of justice being among t2'e most,
delicat.." and important of all its establishment. a, "a
coming mere frequently and closely into con: act
with individol right, comfort, and prosperity than
the political eone:titution itself, and this new court
being still an expel: went,. with extraordinary func-
tions and powers, the successor of Sir Cresswell
Cress well will be watched i')3T the public with a cri-
tical eye, and the responsibil'ity of the position be
occupies will not be diminislaeo by the tact that, ita
the general estimation, the dec. axed judge left en.
arena in which many were qualified to debate, but
scarcely one, excepting himself, to decide. And even
he, at the outset, had a mountain of pvsjudiceri and
popular fears to climb. The Court of Probate and Di-
vorce began its sittings before the community ivaa
altogether reconciled to the strange authority it pro-
fessed to wield. There were no precedents ; there was:
no body of practice ; the races heard were often re-
volting, and always painful. Sir C. Cresswell,
indeed, descended into the horrid depths of family
discord, marital cruelty, femini.tte infidelity, the
wranglings of relatives—all the vices, weaknesses,
vulgarities, and domestic abominatiot; s, which, until
then, had been hidden or only occasionally revealed
by a costly process in the High Court of the Peers
of Great Britain. He had to construe a law which,
as Chief Justice Hale expressed it,
Ht not
abidden the test of time ;" he had, in the langVage
d
of the same jurist, " to employ a vast circumspec-
tion" in dealing with the petitions laid before him;
and bow he triumphed over the perplexities, embar-
rassments, and intricate novelties of his situation
the world already knows. In succeeding him, Sir
James Wilde—who was often his colleague on the
bench of the Divorce and Probate Court—inherits
his experience, though not possibly the special and
laborious acquisitions upon which it was founded.
Every point in the career of Sir James Wilde as a
lawyer and a judge is favourable to the chance of
his successful presidency over the new court at
Westminster. But, certainly, few human responsibi-
lities could te greater. He is the judge of families,
of firesides, and of deathbeds. He breaks the bonds
of the Church, when villany or immorality have
polluted them ; he destroys by a decree all that con-
stitute a home ; he takes the son from his father, and
the daughter from her mother; he annuls the con-
tract of marriage ; he peers into the remotest secrets
of domestic life—all its happiness, all its sorrow, all
its eccentricities, and all the anguish suffered when
it withers away. He—with the juries aiding him-
interprets the last wills and testaments, and even
the latest coherent utterances and thoughts of the
dying. Such a judge, presiding over such a tribunal,
should be a man utterly dispassionate, placid, of
unwearied memory, of lucid and logical mind, of
infinite tact and acumen, of quick and yet orderly
intellect, and, above everything else, strictly faithful
to the law he administers. All this was Sir Cress.
well Cresswell. He made no effort to conceal the

loathing with which he was inspired by Dr*
Smethurst, the reputed poisoner of Richmond,
and yet he rendered to that man ungrudging
justice. We trust that, in course of time, the
same merit may be ascribed to his successor upon
the Probate and Divorce Bench. But he himself

must feel that the task is not an easy one—not a
whit the easier because juries in that court have to
be so constantly checked in their displays either of
sympathy or of indignation. They look upon the
child in a state of moral orphanhood, and they for-
get what the decrees of the old consistory were, and
are eager to give the verdict of 12 paladins. In
addition to this, egisiation has not yet simplified or
reconciled all the jurisdictions which bear upon
marriage and will causes. Oar modern matrimonial
law has still in a great degree to be created, and
partly by the new Judge in Ordinary
himself.
Therefore, while welcoming Sir Jas. Wilde heartily
to his inheritance of great toils which may crown
him with brilliant honours, we have a right to ex"
press an anxious hope that the judicial machinery
which has worked so well during the last five years
may work with equal success under the guidance
of a judge whose leading qualification, of course,
must be that he comprehends, and is prepared to
carry out, the system of his predecessor.

COUNTRY MARKETS.

GLOUCESTER-AUG. 8.

-- - - -
The show of English wheat to-day was very good, but
the sales were slow ; and foreign wheat was in limit ed de-
mand, with prices the turn cheaper. In barley there was
no alteration. Oats dull.