The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-25 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sts,—l have a poor relation, who, under an order of
the Court of Chancery, is entitled to an annuity of about
401., payable half-yearly, on the 24th of February-,
and the 24th of August ; but for the payment which be-
comes due on the 24th of August, she has every year to
wait till the 2d of November.
I have also a cousin who is entitled to a rent of about
2501., which the Accountant-General was some years
ago ordered to pay him by quarterly payments on the
four usual days ; but he has always to wait till the 2d
of November for the quarterly payment which becomes
due the 29th of September.
I am myself entitled to the dividends of some Reduced
Annuities, which, if the fund were not in Chancery, I
could receive at the Bank on the 10th or 12th of Octo-
ber ; but now I must wait till the 2d of November before
I can get them.

There are many thousands of suitors subjected to
these and similar inconveniences, which are surely un-
just and oppressive, and ought to be deemed intolerable,
unless the public good requires them. Yet the only
reasons which the Lord Chancellor gives for their con-
tinuance are such as it is impossible to listen to with re-
spect or even with patience. They are an outrage upon
Icommon sense and common decency.
Every year his lordship issues a general order for
closing the Accountant-General's office from the 19th of
August till the 28th of October (which, for all purposes
of real business, means the 2d of November, the first
day of Michaelmas Term) ; and the reasons for issuing
such order are stated on the face of it in the following
recital :—" Whereas it is proper that the accounts kept
by the Accountant-General of this Court should be exa-
mined and compared, in order to settle the same ; and
whereas it will require considerable time to perfect such
examination, and it is necessary that a time should be
appointed for closing the books of the said Accountant-
General for the purposes aforesaid."
Now, sir, the Accountant-General (except that he
cannot misapply or of himself dispose of the funds and
cash placed in his name) is neither more nor less than
the banker and stockbroker of the suitors of the court.
It is no doubt necessary that his books should be accu-
rately kept and their accuracy ascertained, and most
splendidly, not to say enormously, does the country pay
Lord J. Russell's accomplished and immoveable cousin
the present Accountant-General (whose public spirit
would " freeze a salamander"), for seeing this done. But
fancy, if you can, the Bank of England, or any private
banking-house, or any firm of stockbrokers, giving notice
to their customers that their offices will be altogether
closed for ten weeks, to enable them to " examine and
compare, in order to settle" their accounts for the cur-
rent year. Would not any persons that could issue such
a notice be considered fit to become inmates of Bethleni
or St. Luke's ? Yet this is the course of the Court of
Chancery—part of that admirable system of administer-
ing justice under which Lord St. Leonards (one of Mr.
Disraeli's " great statesmen"), declares that the country
has arrived at an unparalleled degree of prosperity !
Well, indeed, might Sir Samuel Romilly observe to Lord
Campbell—" The number of suitors in Chancery is no-
thing compared to the community, or the Court would
long ago have been abolished as a nuisance."
But the thing is really worse than it appears. The
Accountant-General and his clerks are bad enough in
all conscience (nor is this to be wondered at, seeing that
the pernicious system of gratuities was retained in the
Accountant-General's office for nearly twenty years after
it was abolished everywhere else) ; but still they arelnot
such imbecile creatures as the Lord Chancellor's order
would make them appear. They do not require ten weeks
every autumn to examine the year's accounts, and, in
fact, they do not consume three weeks out of the ten
in any such dull work. The rest of the time they are to
be found, not in Chancery-lane or Threadneedle-street,
but at country seats, at watering places, and on the
Continent. The recital I have copied is only a pious
fraud—an annual work of fiction with which we poor
suitors may entertain ourselves, while we are kept out
of our money—in fact, a mere lie, intended to deceive
that many-headed but unreflecting dupe, the. public, and
signed by the Lord Chancellor only as a matter of
course. If written with candour and truth, it would be
expressed in some such terms as the following :
" Whereas this Court thinks fit that the Accountant-
General and his clerks should have many holidays, and
deems it inevitable that they should all take their
holidays at once."
This, however, would be seen to be too bad, and there-
fore the Court is driven to the hard necessity of making
the Accountant-General and his clerks seem a little
worse than they are, in order to enable them to steal
away for six weeks' or two months' holidays, under the
false pretence that they are all the while examining ac-
counts in Chancery-lane. In the middle of the
nineteenth century this is our administration of equity—
this our public morality ! _ _

it is, I conceive, impossible to be guilty of a contempt
of Court in writing or speaking of these matters. What-
ever may be the amount of contempt, public or private,
which such abuses may call forth, there can be no guilt
in it. The offices of the Court of Chancery were all,
until recently, a disgrace to the country, and the Ac-
countant• General's office a disgrace to all the rest—a
thing fit only to be annexed to the odious Ecclesiastical
Courts, and to share with them the fate of the Star•
Chamber and the Palace Court.

Out of the Court of Chancery, who would believe that
an office instituted for such purposes as the Accountant-
General's, would be absolutely closed against the suitorg
for a hundred working days every year (which is what
the four vacations amount to), in order that the officials
might all take their holidays simultaneously ? Or who
would believe that, at the best of times, while the Bank
of England and all private bankers pay cheques from 9
till 4 (some of them till 5), and even the office of the
Accountant in Bankruptcy is open from 10 till 4,
Mr. Russell (who is about the best paid public func-
tionary in the kingdom) cannot deliver out cheques for
more than three hours a day—viz., from 11 till 2 f
Does any man in the country doubt that the Accountant-
General's office (if it must continue to exist) ought to be
open for a reasonable number of hours every working
day in the year just as the bank and private bankers' and
stockbrokers' offices are ?
In November last, Lord St. Leonards, in the House
of Lords, after acknowledging the justice of the com-
plaints which had been made respecting the close of the
Accountant-General's office for the autumn, promised
that "arrangements should be made to meet the just
demands of the public and to clear the Court from that
imputation." But he resigned the great seal, having done
nothing on the subject. Sir Samuel Romilly wcied
have corrected the abuse without a speech. Lord St.
Leonards makes a very nice speech, and leaves the abuse
untouched.

We have now Lord Cranwortb, whose perfect good
sense on all ordinary topics it is so delightful to listen
to, but whose adversaries represent him as being hope-
lessly deficient in executive talent. They seem to think
that his Lordship is no more equal to the great task of
law reform than an Addison or a Roscoe would be to
the work of a Luther or a John Knox. I sincerely
trust and believe that they reckon without their host ;
and that at all events, when he is asked to sign the gene-
ral order for closing the Accountant-General's office this
long vacation, he will have courage enough to pronounce
the monosyllable "No."
remain,l beg
sir,
aypoolliorgviseeryfoorb
obedient
nitensge
rtvhanotf, this letter, and
COMMON SENSE.
Highgate, July,

THE CHURCH AND THE POLICE.-011 Friday about
fifty of the A. Division waited on Sir Richard Mayne.
They stated that, however inconvenient, they were com-
pelled, at the risk of being " spotted," or incurring the
displeasure of their superiors, to go to church, of what-
ever religiousup
atoe na
wdr
persuasionthlii
gtthhteehyen
aneai
nh
itv
hibs
oet
awt
told them that he believed some intimation of the kind
Walpole at the Home-office ; but he believed it was a
pareiitlyOF
R
satisfied.TE
STRIKE iSiotihnrd rßoefiwchMaardrp...
mwaasttedrissoefin
HULL POLICE.—HULL, SATURDAY.—
An agitation has been going on for some time past in
this town, amongst the police, to obtain an advance of
their wages from 18s. sd. and 16s. sd. a week, to 21s.
sd, and 19s. sd. The watch committee have refused to
accede to the request, and the consequence is that about
thirty of the men have resigned, and about fifty refuse
to do duty, but will not resign. The watch committee
have this day been sitting to receive applications for
the vacant situations, but they had not had a single ap-
plication.
PRINCE ALBERT AND PSALMODY.—The Christian
Times says :—" It was lately announced by the court
newsman, that a piece of sacred music, composed by the
King of Hanover, had been performed in the Chapel
Royal. This occurrence was nearly coincident with
another, which is not likely to reach the world through
the medium just referred to, but which may not on that
account be less interesting to many of our readers—we
allude to the fact that the Prince Consort has presented
a dissenting congregation with two pieces
music of his Royal Highness's composition. Th
ntleemeeirn-
cumstances were these :—A committee
ohfogoke for the
were engaged in compiling a new tun_toi,
of sacTl
h use of of the congregation referred to—the
.W
tunewas
in nw
ricebkyi t
other side
in aof cotlhleectiAontlanotfict,untheesyohfotaninndef
ofnreomthe
attri-
buted to Prince Albert. The gentlemen in question
twoerietslaruigdhatblyowainiexri,euhs,,it niont
novne,lryyt
no a
saes s
rnade i n the proper guar-
An application was therefore
practicable, to obtain the ownci s permission for its use.
accompanied by the additional offer, upon the
ter, and the origin. of the piece. was placed beyond a
y
doubt by the permission which its royal composer imme-
royaliroyal highness, another of his musical
diately granted for its use. That permission was
AUSTRALIAN EMIGRATION.—Six vessels have taken
their departure from Liverpool for the A ustralian ports compositions, which was, of course, readily accepted,
during the week. On Saturday the Goldfinder, one of and accordingly Prince Albert's Gotha ' and a Christ-
the " Fox Line," and the Tasmania, one of the "White mas Hymn form a portion of the tune book just
Star Line," cleared out, the former with 576, and the I adopted by the Weigh-house. The first three pastors of
latter with 440 passengers. They are both fitted out this congregation were clergymen ejected from their
with every convenience, and the whole of their pas- livings by the Act of Uniformity, and were repeatedly
sengers have expressed themselves satisfied with the ar- imprisoned—sometimes interrupted in the performance of
raugements made for their accommodation. The Tas- divine service, and taken from the sacred desk to gaol.
mania will be succeeded by the Mooresfort, a new yes- Gratifying is the contrast thus presented between the
sel, that in appearance and sailing qualities is said to fortunes of a non-conformist church in the Stuart era
equal the smartest clippers afloat. She is now on view I and under the benignant sway of Queen Victoria."
at the Salthouse Dock. There are now three shipsload- I CRIM. CoN.—An action for crim. con. is brought
ine• Adelaide,
at Liverpool for of an aggregate tonnage against Mr. Barry Baldwin, the ex M.P. for Tot-
of 1,102 ; 17 for Melbourne, 9,888 tons ; 1 for Moreton nes. He employed a gentleman, an attorney, to go
Bay, 1,309 tons ; 1 for Port Philip, 1,040 tons ; and 6 to Totnes to collect evidence in support of his petition
for Sydney, of an aggregate tonnage of 3,599. Such against the lion, gentleman who defeated him ; and is
has been the effect of the recent articles in the Times, I charged with having seduced the wife of the attorney
respecting shipments to. Australia, that it is credibly., while he was so employed at Totnes. The lady is young
stated that the price of ships has been increased from enough to be Mr. Baldwin's grand-daughter, it is said.
ss. to 10s. a ton. —Western Times.