The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-22 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF - THE PUBLIC JOTJRNALS.

-~-r►---

TIMES.—The new experiment in Law Reporting
is now in active operation, under the superinten-
dence of a Council, representing the three principal
Inns of Court and the Incorporated Law Society.
Two statements recently issued by this Council, the
one addressed to the Judges, the other to the legal
profession, explain the nature of the proposed
reform; and the degree of encouragement which its
' authors have received. For some time past the
increasing bulk and expense of law reports, the
utter want of uniformity in their compilation, and
the extreme irregularity of their appearance had
overtaxed even the patience of practitioners. At
last a meeting of the Bar was called, in December,
1863, and the whole subject was, as usual, referred
to a Committee. The Committee duly entered on
their labours, and, as usual, differed among them-
selves not only on details but on principles. They
succeeded, however, in producing a Report, after-
wards adopted by a second meeting of the bar, re-
commending the formation of a Council, with power
to organise a staff of reporters, to contract with
publishers, and to make all other necessary arrange-
ments for the establishment of one complete set of
Reports, under independent yet authoritative con-
trol. It was an essential feature of the system that
it should be governed by professional and not by
commercial interests, and the advantage expected
from it were greater care in the selection of cases,
with less prolixity and greater promptitude in pub-
lication, at a very moderate cost. The Council
believe that they are now in a position to realise
these promises. Although the number of sub-
scribers and the amount of subscriptions have fallen
far short of their hopes, and although they have
neither obtained a Government guarantee nor con-
ciliated the law publishers, they speak confidently
of their prospects. They have already secured the
assistance of the " authorised reporters" in ten at
least out of the fourteen Courts whose
decisions are to be recorded, have procured the
general sanction of the Judicial Bench, and have
overcome their financial difficulties in a manner
which is said to be perfectly satisfactory to
all concerned. We shall soon possess a specimen
of the results, and if it should justify the expecta-
tions of the Council, the public, as well as the
lawyers, will have much reason to be grateful to
them. Of course such a scheme could not fail to
excite much jealousy and hostility amongst those
whose monopoly is thus invaded. Four eminent law
publishers have forwarded a formal remonstrance to
the Council, setting forth their grievances. They
resent the intrusion of " a new series of law reports,
to be based upon the ruin of all existing ones," and
" implying the annihilation of a considerable por-
tion of their incomes." They submitted that, as
prudent men of business, they could not lend them-
selves to an enterprise " which seemed to be de-
ficient in the elements of financial success," and
threaten to glut a market already overstocked.
They claim the credit of having been the first to
issue " regular " Law Reports, and cast the whole
blame of " their subsequent decline, arising from
protracted appearance and lengthiness," upon the
reporters themselves. They consider it a great
hardship, therefore, that the council should have
enticed away nearly all the gentlemen in their em-
ploy by the offer of higher and fixed salaries, and
should have arranged with Messrs. Clowes, the
printers, for the publication of the new Reports
upon terms " which must utterly exclude the law
publishers, and all others, from the usual trade
allowance." " The retailer's profit," they say, "is
an institution of great antiquity," older even than
the Year Books, and always heretofore respected.
Having thus protested against-these infringements
of their own rights, they conclude, somewhat in-
consistently, with a tender of their services to
the Council, proposing "to become, as a united
body, the publishers" of the obnoxious work,
to secure the widest possible circulation for it,
and to ." discourage whatever opposition may exist
now and hereafter." In other words, having done
their best to suppress competition, and having,
as the Council believe, mainly contributed to pre-
vent the subscription list being filled up, they are
now alarmed at the progress made by an enterprise
" deficient in the elements of financial success," and
want to cast in their lot with it. A more unreason-
able request never was made, and the arguments by
which it is supported would be rejected by the most
bigoted Protectionist. The law publishers deserve
no thanks for establishing the so-called regular
Reports. It was a mercantile speculation of the
most ordinary kind, and the reason why a new series
is demanded is that they have supplied a bad article,
at an exorbitant price, and often too late to be of
use, out of a shortsighted regard to their own profit.
The Council express much regret that no law
publisher would come forward to co-operate with
them ; and it would be monstrous, indeed, if under
these circumstances they were to be precluded from
making their own bargain with another firm. As
for any deviation from the rules under which they
are empowered to act, this is obviously a question
between them and the subscribers, just as the scale
of remuneration is entirely a question between them
and the reporters. The law publishers have no
locus standi in the matter, and the fact that, as they
contend, they are " the only parties prejudicially
affected" is one that it would have been more dis-
creet to conceal. There are other obstacles, however,
quite independent of vested interests, which may
tend to defeat the sanguine anticipations of the
Council. Their scheme is, after all, a compromise
between two conflicting theories of Law Reporting.
A report may be intended to preserve the essential
points of a case for the purposes of future citation,
or it may be intended to furnish the public with a
continuous account of what actually took place in
Court. The latter is the primary object of such
Reports as appear daily in this journal, but it is not
the primary object of those reports which purport
to embody our Case Law. A perfect collection of
precedents would consist mainly of considered judg-
ments in which the material facts should be recited
with the utmost possible brevity. The first condi-
tion of such a publication would be that all import-
ant judgments—that is, all that are worth register-
ince—should be written, and this obviously depends
on the hearty support of the Bench. Until Judges
can be induced to undertake an amount of addi-
tional trouble which might perhaps involve an in-
crease in their number, even regular law reporters
will encroach on the province of the newspaper or
the legal periodical by endeavouring to give a tole-
rably complete history of each case. Besides, con-
densation notoriously takes a great deal more time
than reporting in full, and no salary that can be
offered by the Council is likely to secure the undi-
vided services of an experienced barrister. Private
practice is a dangerous rival of law reporting, and
the same motives which have hitherto delayed the
preparation of reports will continue to operate more
or less until the reporter becomes an officer of the
Court. Nothing but an exclusive privilege of cita-
tion would place the new system altogether above
the deteriorating influences of competition, and
nothing but exclusive devotion to the business of
reporting would ensure unfailing punctuality. At
the same time, this is a step in the right direction,
and bids fair to effect a considerable improvement
in the neglected art of Coke. It will be a pure gain
to the legal profession if a complete set of reports,
superior to any now published, can henceforward
be purchased by a five-guinea subscription. It will
probably hely to " simplify and purify the sources
of the law," by exercising an insensible pressure on
the Judges and subjecting reporters to proper
control. It may thus indirectly facilitate the pro-
cess of digesting, which, as most reformers admit,
must precede that of codifying, while it can hardly
fail to diminish the glorious uncertainty which pro-
ceeds alike from the unscientific spirit of our Com
mon Law and from ambiguities in the judicial expo-
sition of it.

HERALD.—The decision of the Court of Comthon
Pleas in Wigan v. Strange, has, let us hope, put an
end to the prolonged dispute between theatrical
lessees and music-hall managers. The latter, in the
person of the defendant Strange, have obtained a
triumph, but " without costs," so that the former
may still consider they had some reasonable ground
of complaint. We can, therefore, only " hope" that
the question is settled ; but we do so in the full belief
that lessees of theatres will think twice before they
again embark in a crusade against a form of enter-
tainment proved to be strikingly popular with those
easy-going classes of society who like to vary the
close confinement of the theatre with the freedom of
the music-hall. The decision in the Common Pleas
is but a further development of the feeling that
abolished patent theatres; it tallies with the tendency
of modern times to do away with idle restrictions
upon the amusements of the people, and to make the
market for public caterers of entertainment an open
one. Besides this, the public was justly sick of air-
drawn distinctions between ballet d'action and ballet
divertissement, between dancing with a plot and danc-
ing without one ; and it could see only in the dis-
pute a desire on the part of one set of men to put
down another, by taking advantage of a sumptuary
law of questionable value. It was impossible to do
anything but smile at the histrionic researches of
counsel in the cause of their clients, at the endea-
vours of the theatrical witness to prove that the
brandishing of pasteboard daggers and palm-leaves
was a stage play, and the struggles of the music-
hall witness to show that it was not. Naturally
enough, perhaps, these opposing witnesses each
took the colour of the food they lived upon.
The " artist" employed at the theatre saw plainly
the infringement which was completely invisible
to his fellow engaged at the music-hall ; and pos-
sibly had their relative positions been reversed
their opinions would have been reversed also.
This state of things demanded a remedy, and
certainly the only good remedy in these days is to