The Sun.
London, England, 1865-03-06 00:00:00

We have shown that the interposition of a third
party does no good. We have, at any rate, a right
to expect that, with the exception of the additional
expense and delay, it should do no harm. The

person in whose hands those who require legal ad-
vice place their case, acquired by that

single Act the virtual power of directing and

managing the whole affair from first to last.

He is not trusted by halves. But to this trust there

exists a corresponding duty, great in proportion to

the extent and completeness of the confidence re-
posed. It becomes the duty of the attorney not
faithfully to administer the funds of his client, but

to apply those funds in obtaining for him the very
best legal advice and assistance which money can
procurelThis is no question of patronage or favour

—the duty is clear and explicit ; and in proportion
as other motives than the fitness of the advocate or
adviser selected are allowed to enter into the choice,
the client is injured and the trust betrayed. How
have the attorneys to whom is delegated the trust
of selecting from the whole Bar of England the men

most competent to assist their clients, discharged
this delicate and important trust ? The truth is

only too notorious. At first, and before a roll of
men grew up habituated to the new system, merit
was allowed its due weight, and the man who knew
how to improve a fair trial and opportunity sprang
at once into fame and opulence. This golden age
was gradually surrendered by a period in which
merit was less:regarded, and indirect influence more.
But the days in which practice could be obtained
by servile compliance are also gone, and in the iron
age in which we live the spirit of nepotism is
completely triumphant. Attorneys, and those too
occupying the most reputable places in the profession,
have sons, brothers, sons-in-law, and grandsons in
abundance among them to divide the only profits
entrusted to them by their clients for obtaining the
ablest legal advice. At the present day the happy
cadets of these great legal houses are almost the
only persons who can be said to obtain a fair start in
the profession. It is not failure that the Barrister
has to apprehend : it is the impossibility of obtain-
ing a trial. Many years ago we remember a legal
periodical stating that "of the 3,400 barristers
whose names appear in the Law List,' how few
are there in the present day who are allowed to enter
the lists for the prizes of the noble profession. The
race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong,
because the swift and the strong are doomed to
stand idly by and see the prizes which ought to be
theirs contended for by the public and by the slow."
So wrote a legal periodical some 14 or 15 years ago,
and we may in good truth say it is as true now as
when it was written all those years ago. What is
this but a miserable compromise between duty and
inclination. The public have a right to get
the best men for their money, and this
they certainly do not get under the present
system. The broker who, undertaking to go into
the market for them, deals with his relations,
and only too frequently obtains a worse
article at a higher price. It has been said by a
facetious judge, that everything is now given ac-
cording to the statute of distributions, and so
completely has this patronage come to be consi-
dered appurtenant to an attorney's practice, that
it was virtually once reported to have made the
subject of a settlement, in which the father-in-
law intended to give his son-in-law £l,OOO per
annum practice, or, failing that, to making it up
out of his own pocket. Would CICERO, DE-
MOSTHENES, ERSKINE, or FOLLETT have competed
successfully with the son-of-law of this honest
gentleman? Nor is this all ; not merely is the
discretion of siluting advisers and advocates thus
notoriously abused, but in either case the money
of the client is misappropriated. This is a very
old and serious charge of many years' standing, but
nevertheless we will give an authority for it. In
an old number of the Law Review, for the year
1851, a periodical of the highest respectability,
will be found a list of cases which sufficiently
establish that it is the practice of many firms,
and those of the highest apparent respectability, de-
liberately to withhold from counsel fees which have
been paid to them by their clients. By virtue of
their control over the Bar, and through the impu-
nity afforded by the foolish rule of etiquette which
treats a fee distinctly promised and honestly earned
as a mere gratuity, the payment of which cannot be
enforced, it is now evident that very large sums of
money on allowance of fees have been oftentimes
interrupted and misapplied. It is not necessary to
comment on such a fact, nor to show how such a
system, offering temptations to peculation, which
have been found so irresistible, tends to debauch
the morals of our honourable professions, and to
render its culpable members unfit for the confi-
dence of honest men. This is not merely a ques-
tion between the two branches of the profession.
The public has an interest that money obtained
from it for one purpose should not be diverted to
another, and that the Bar should not sink into
a mere appendange of the lower branch of the
profession, or into a mere band of sycophants,
content to have doled out to them as a favour a
small portion of that which belongs to them as a
right ; and if these things are not indifferent to
the public, much more are they important to the
bar, which by this self-denying ordinance has
m respect-
ableeonsuris
uit,
contrived to plac3 itself in a position at once so
dependantduty andof t
h e ladishonourable.wyeris that of jo most
and to the voluntary resignation of this duty by
the Bar the disorders and abuses which we have
pointed out may be traced. We trust they will
lose no time in resuming the position of which a
mistaken feeling of delicacy has deprived them.
rt I

Mysterious Case of Poisoning.

The little village of Emborough, which lies between Bath
and Wells, has been the scene of an inquiry of a very re-
markable nature.

It appeared from the evidence at the inquiry before Dr.
Wybrant, coroner for East Somerset, and which was seve-
ral times adjourned, that the deceased was Wm. Coles, the
son of Charles Coles, respectable farmer at Emborough,
aged seven months. The first witness called was Hannah
Gulleford Coles, the mother, who said that about a month
previous to the Bth ult, he bought a packet of soothing
powders, one of which she gave to the deceased, and it
seemed to do him good. On the evening of Feb. 8, between
9 and 10 o'clock, she gave the child another of the powders
from the same packet. Beforo the spoon from which he
took it was taken from his mouth, he coughed, and made
a noise in his throat ; his tongue began to swell and get
white, and he died in ten minutes.
The father, Mr. Charles Cole, was also examined, and
stated that he kept poisons, including mercury, for farm-
ing purposes, but they were always securely locked up.
The medical evidence showed that death had resulted from
the administration of some corrosive mineral poison, and
that on testing one of the remaining powders a small portion
of bichloride of mercury was found in it, but not in the
others. Another witness proved fetching the powder given
to the child from a cupboard, but which was not locked, and
anybody could have access to it. Other evidence was given
as to the mode of the preparation of the powders, which
were a patent medicine, which showed that they were
quite innocuous in their composition, and that mercury
' could not have been introduced in the process of com-
pounding. Ultimately the jury returned a verdict that
deceased had died from the effect of poison substituted for
the powder by some person or persons unknown.

THE CONSTABLESHIP OFTHE TOWER.—The
Constableship of the Tower, vacant by the death of
Lord Combermere, will either not be filled, or will be con-
stituted an honorary office. The salary, £947 a year, will
resolve itself into nine good service pensions of £lOO a year
each, which will be shortly distributed among the senior
officers of the army as rewards for distinguished or meri-
torious services. The post of deputy lieutenant, held by
Lord De Roe, falls within the same category of sinecure
offices, to be abolished as vacancies occur ; and had the
authorities made his resignation of it a condition precedent
to his appointment as colonel of the 4th Hussars, seven
more of these rewards would have become available for
the old and distinguished officers who are not yet in the
way of obtaining regiments.—Army attc/Nary OWN.