The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-16 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 10, 1863.

We mast leave it to time to test the soundess of such
reasoning. Meanwhile this very peace panic has
sufficiently demonstrated, I believe, that the dread
of the crash to come is the uppermost feeling in
most men's minds and hearts. Can any one doubt
that the longer the war continues the more tre-
mendous the crash is to be ?

week was therefore 18.7 deg. The mean daily range
was 8.5 deg. On three days the range was only 6
deg. The difference betwe3n the mean dew-point
temperature and air temperature was 4.5 deg. The
mean degree of humidity of the air was 85, com-
plete saturation being represented by 100. The
wind was nearly always in a south-westerly point.
Rain fell to about 1-10th of an inch. The mean of
the highest temperatures of the water of the Thames
was 44 9 deg. ; that of the lowest was 42.7 deg.

THE NEW JUDGE.

(From the Times.)

We believe that the public, no less than the
legal profession, will rejoice at the elevation of
Mr. Sergeant Shee to the Judicial Bench. When
merit is to be passed over in favour of private inte.
rest, it is by no means uncommon to plead deference
to public opinion in excuse of the job. There can be
no doubt that the real claims of Mr. A. are superior
to those of Mr. B, but then Mr. B has the good for-
tune to have an aristocratic name, or to have been
placed, by some previous abuse of patronage, in a
prominent position, and so it is supposed that the
public will acquiesce in his promotion more readily
than in tbat of the better man. We have learnt
to put more confidence in the character and intelli-
gence of our countrymen. It is our conviction that
an appointment exclusively founded on a regard for
the public service will very soon be appreciated,
even though the name should at first take people by
surprise. It is the duty of those in power to discover
modest ability as well as to reward ability which can
take care of itself, and the reason why the advance-
ment of obscure men is generally unpopular iE that
the motives of such advancement are generally seen
to be unworthy. At the same time, no other test of
capacity can be compared to that of professional
success in the selection of a judge. Such success, if
it implies less in one sense, implies a great deal more
in another than any but practical lawyers can under-
stand. It may not imply literary genius or philo-
sophical depth, or even profound learning and lofty
eloquence, for these are not qualities which the
ordinary practice of the English Bar developes,
or which English attorneys delight to honour;
but it certainly implies a rare combination of nerve,
c )mmon-sense, discretion and self-discipline.
There /may be many briefless barristers who have
boasted these gifts without having had the
opportunity of displaying them, but the in-
stances of those who have won their way with-
out them are rare. When, therefore, a man has oc-
cupied for 20 years such a place among cur advo-
cates as Mr. Sergeant Shee, with the hearty approval
of his brethren, it is a very strong presumption of
his possessing the legal virtues in an eminent de-
gree. To have been designated again and again for
vacant judgeships by his own profession is the best
title to the preferment whichhe has at last obtained.
The qualifications for the Bar and the Bench may
not be identical, but it is in the contests of the
Courts and the social intercourse of the Bar that
the judicial character is formed and recognised.
The more we look into the only objection that has
ever been urged against Mr. Sergeant Shee, the
more futile will it appear. He is known to be a
Roman Catholic, and although the Emancipation
Act expressly opens all judicial offices, except the
Lord Chancellorship, to Roman Catholics, it was
whispered, rather than argued, that it would be
better not to make the experiment. No Roman
Catholic had been made an English Judge since the
Act passed, and therefore—such was the tacit non
sequitur—none could safely or properly be made at
present. It would shock Protestant feeling, and
shake the respect of Protestants for the integrity and
impartiality of the Bench. Why should not the
Rumen Catholics be content with au aimost entire
monopoly of judgeships in Ireland, and leave us to
be judged by persons of our own faith ? These were
quiet times, it was true, but religious troubles might
arise, in which the conscience of a Roman Catholic
might be put into a very awkward dilemma between
his temporal and spiritual allegiance. If their pre-
judices were not stated, they were felt by some
zealous Protestants, who measured the enlighten-
ment of the community by their own. It is difficult
to deal with them seriously, but it is never super-
fluous to expose a fallacy honestly believed. As to
the want of precedents, then, it has to be shown that
a fit case for the creation of a precedent has ever
before arisen. If any Roman Catholic lawyer as
distinguished as Sergeant Shee has been excluded
from our Bench on religious grounds, we are very
sorry for it, but we know of no such example. We
should be the last to recommend the gratuitous
nomination of a Roman Catholic of second or third
rate reputation for the sake of establishing the prin-
, ciple, but when we have oneof the highest standing,
whose "call" dates from a year before the Emanci-
pation Act, and who is otherwise most eligible, we
think it would have been a miserable piece of
cowardice to supersede him. We utterly deny that
Protestant feeling is the fanatical and ignorant
thing that is thus travestied. It is scarcely con-
ceivable that any subject on which the difference
between the two Churches would be material
could come before a modern Judge. a Catholic
were called upon to enforce penal laws against
Catholics, his scruples might bias his judgment—
not altogether in the wrong direction ; but in these
days the nearest approach to an ecclesiastical deci-
sion that he could well have to make would be on
writs of Habeas Corpus in disputes about the cus-
tody of children, or on such points as the right of
ringing chapel-bells at unseasonable hours. Even
if a possible case could be suggested in which a
Catholic judge might be tempted to waver, how un-
reasonable it would be to treat this as an absolute
bar to his appointment ! The whole course of jus
tice is carried on subject to such risks, and on the
presumption that honourable and responsible men
will be proof against them. When a board of
country gentlemen try a poacher, when a jury of
householders pronounce upon the guilt of a man
charged with housebreaking, when a judge has to
apply a law against the policy of which he has
perhaps written pampnlets or made speeches in
Parliament, it requires an effort to avoid partiality.
That effort is one of which minds of average strength
and candour are not incapable, or we might as well
abandon our whole judicial system. To people who
are not used to distinguish between their wishes
and the conclusions of their intellects, it must some-
times be painful. To a highly educated man with a
legal training, and exposed to the criticism of an
acute profession and a vigilant Press, the effort
must be comparatively easy, while the consequences
of not making it would he highly formidable.
On every ground, personal, professional, and poli-
tical, Lord Westbury deserves credit for having
done justice to Mr. Sergeant Shee. It is well
known that the responsibility rests with the Lord
Chancellor alone. No pressure was needed to in-
duce Lord Eldon to abstain from encouraging the
aspirations of Liberal lawyers, and his successors
have, as a rule, given the lion's share of their legal
patronage to those of their own party. There is
much to be said against this practice, though it may
be fair for both sides of the House, inasmuch as it
feuds to make a seat on the Bench a reward for
Parliamentary support. Still, it has never been car-
ried so tar as to injure the integrity or prestige of
the judicature. As Lord Beougham truly says, " for
the last century and upwards no whisper has been
heard against the spotless purity oft he ermine," and
no modern Junius has repeated the reckless slanders
that were launched against Lord Mansfield, One
reason of this has been that judicial appointments
have rarely been tainted with jobbery. They have
generally been given to the best man, or nearly the
best man, of the right politics, and sometimes to a
man of the wrong politics or of no politics at all. No
questions have been asked about his religious
opinions, if he was understand to be a Protestant,
and no one has yet given even a plausible reason
why any question should be asked upon this point.

(From the .Daily News.)
The seat on the Bench which was occupied by
the late Mr. Justice Wightman has already, it is
stated, been filled. If the announcement is true,
and Mr. Sergeant Shee has been transformed into
Mr. Justice Sties, the profession as well as the
public have reason to congratulate themselves upon
the selection which has been made.
It would be unjust, indeed, to the memory of a
most excellent man and an admirable lawyer, if
in announcing the name of the new judge no men-
tion were made of that of his predecessor. Having
closed a career not undistinguished at the Univer-
sity of Oxford by obtaining a fellowship at Queen's,
Mr. Wightman soon acquired a high reputation as
a special pleader, and subsequently joined the
Northern Circuit, at a time when such men as
Scarlett and Brougham were the leaders, and Parke,
Alderson, and Patteson were the chiefs behind the
bar. For some 20 years Mr. Wightman maintained
his position against such rivals. Within less than
30 years every one of that illustrious band rose to
the judgment-seat, and within the same period all
but two have already passed away. Mr. Justice
Wightman was the last who remained in office.
Nor perhaps is there any incident which could more
forcibly illustrate the character of the late judge
than the manner of his death. To die at the post
the
of duty is the wish of every true soldier, and
in the
battle of life such an aspiration is not leas noble.
To the young lawyer courage and Point
essential to success as brilliancy or acuscteore
will un-
pertniesi.
out the man who at the age of
dertake a winter assize—bit
the rack and
fouryscore
after day, in
close courts, his mind constaintro
Yost up to the very
his pen constantly at work; ,
and
tac4nent when the hand 0. death is .. I.lt