The Sun.
London, England, 1831-09-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

Last night the Lord Chancellor, pursuing " the
even tenor of his way," introduced his Bill for re-
forming the Courts of Equity. His Lordship's ob-
ject may be stated in one word—to save the suitors
from plunder. His Lordship (lid not use this
phrase, nor perhaps would it be strictly in order that
he should use it, seeing that he was addressing an
assembly, some of whose Members had allowed the
plunder to go on under their very noses for a num-
ber cf years, though perfectly blameless themselves,
except so far as blame attach to that idolatrous re-
spect for precedent which gives reason and pries
ciple no chance in the competition. His Lordship's
Bill, however, though it is only the first blow, is a
home blow—a blow which strikes at the very root of
the evil. The first thrust made by the Bill is against
the enormous expense of suitors in the Master's
Office, by appointing three Masters to sit in open
Court, to hear and determine on the validity of the ob-
jections male to the individual Master's report. By
this simple process his Lordship anticipates that the
hearing of exceptions, a most expensive proceeding
before either of the three Courts of Chancery, will be
prevented in ninet) -nine cases out of a hundred. But
the most important object embraced in the Bill
in the provision which paves the way for the intro-
duction of viva voce evidence into Chancery proceed-
ings. It is surprising that in a country like this, in
which the efficacy of the parole evidence is so well
understood, it should have been so long excluded
from the Court of Chancery, in favour of a system
which more resembles the whispers of aninquisi-
tion than the honest sifting of evidence familiar to
our common law. But precedent—the lawyer's ar-
gument—has always prevailed with minds not ca-
pable of looking further; and when to this we add
the tendency which fees have to perpetuate them-
sslves by the pros!), et which they hold out to ex-
pectants, and the friends and patrons of expectants,
perhaps we ought not to be much surprised at the
long life they have enjoyed. The period, however,
has happily waived at last, when justice is to be
done to the suitors, and when the threat of throwing
a cause into Chancery will no longer be tantamount to
locking up the property for ever. his not intended
by the present measure to adopt the principle of Vices
rote examination in all cases, but to make a be-
ginning, professedly with that ultimate view, by sub-
stituting for a written interrogatory, after the witness
has made his first statement in the usual form,
" the more rational test of a parole examination."
It is almost incalculable what a mass of expensive
papers will be saved to the suitor by the adoption of
such a course, to say nothing of the comparative
facility of coming at the truth. Few people but
those who have unfortunately paid for their expe-
rience, or those who, having profited, are not very
likely to publish the abuse under which they have
grown rich, can conceive what a mass of absurdity,
rubbish, and falsehood, goes to make up the written
evidence in a Chancery suit. If the present Lord
Chancellor shall succeed in bringing about this great
and beneficial change in the practice of the Court
over which he presides, the nation will have an ad-
ditional motive for congratulating itself on an ap-
pointment, the advantages of which have already
outstripped its most sanguine expectations. The
arrangement for paying the high efficers of the Court
by salaries in the place of fees, and only allowing
fees as stimulants to the industry of inferior clerks,
is ose from which great good is likely to arise. We
hope that, after all the carping which a comprehen-
sive measure of the kind is likely to undergo from
inveterate lawyers, the good sense of the Legisla-
ture will support it against all difficulties until it
shall become the law of the land.—Morning Herold.
I, has been actively circulated within these three
dais, that the success of the Reform Bill in the
House of Peers will depend upon the votes of my
Lords the Bishops. For the sake of the B shops,
and of the Church which they represent, provided
they be friendly to the Bill, we do ardently hope
that the honour of carrying it may be theirs—for
should the majority be composed of their suffrages,
never surely was such a debt of gratitude entailed
upon any civilized people, as that by which Eng-
lishmen and their posterity, to the remotest gene-
rations, will have been bound towards these fathers
of our national Church. Should the Bench of Bi-
shops, on the other hand, be unhappily found ad-
verse to the reform of our political institutions, and
in the exercise of that hostility should they blight
the hopes of their countrymen, by adding to the
votes against the Bill just so many as may be suf-
ficient to secure the defeat of it, while, had the
measure been left to take its chance among the
Peers who are laymen, it would have passed into
a law—should, we say, so terrible a disaster happen,
what—what will be the position of the Church
and of the Prelacy ? what the feeling of the
whole British empire towards them ? Oh ! let the
Bishops be wise in time, and not realize, against
our venerable Church, the only possible answer to
that inauspicious question. The Socinian, the Pa-
pist, the Jews are all in port, all exulting in their
own increased security; but the Reformed Church
of England will, by the unskilfulness or obstinacy
of her proper pilots, have been driven from her
moorings in the hearts of the people, and exposed to
a hurricane, the like of which has never blown."—.
" it is the Bishops," will an exasperated nation
cry,—" it is the Bishops, who have crushed our
liberties and destroyed us; but for them we should
have had a free Parliament, a responsible Govern-
ment, and the downfall of an oppressive oligarchy :
our charter is lost, and it is to the anti-national
spirit of the Church we owe this grievous disap-
pointment. How shall we forgive the clergy?"—
No w, that such language may not be heard, we ear-
nestly and devoutly pray, because it is the most
anxious desire of every honest mind that no such
provocation may be furnished. But that if the
offence be given, the anger will be roused, and
will so express itself, there is too strong reason to
apprehend; and we do, with deep and affectionate
solicitude, beseech the Right Rev. Lords in lawn
sleeves to ask themselves, ere the second reading of
this great Bill on Monday next, whether they
prepared to put before the eyes of every public-
spirited man in England the naked alternative—
" which is it best for sue, to do without a Reformed
Parliament, or without the Bench of Bishops, since
their Lordships by their vote inform me that I shall
not have both?" In truth, upon every consideration
of prudence, comprehensive patriotism, and gratitude
to the counts), we make sure in our own judgment
that the Bishops will support his Majesty's Ministers
on this occasion, and his Majesty's people too. As for
the lay Lords, we have little fear for them. They must
feel, when they come to reflect a little, so grave an
interest in breaking up the capricious and invidious
monopoly, possessed by a few borough-holders of
their own body, to the prejudice of all fair competi•
tion for honour or power by the Peers in general;
and they must likewise be so indignant at the certain
odium which will fall upon the whole body, in con-
sequence of a vote for the exclusive benefit of the
boroughmonger minority, that we must presume their
Lordships to be gifted with an absence of discern-
ment, and a lunacy of self-devotion, seldom apper-
taining to full-grown men, if we could conjecture
that, when the trial comes, they will commit such
waste upon the rights and welfare of the Peerage.
Some important accessions have, we understand,
been made to the noble Reformers within the last
forty-eight hours.—Times.

The subject of Windsor Castle and Buckingham
llouse, brought on
ht night
opt ullaitiin the House of
thi
Commons, will oblige cto casti back their
minds
with many
a sigh on
find c
last reign.
instrumentseign. How
proposed
readily do extravagant Kings
of their will ! In 1824, fir. Hume only
that the improvements in Windsor Castle should
not be begun till a plan and estimate were before
the House. Surely nothing could be more reason-
able than this. The Chancetlor of th E
e xchequer
then pledged himself, in every variety of speech
that the human language contains, that the" expences
should not, could not, exceed 300,0001.
He had
no hesitation in saying, that certainly nothing which
was contemplated, nor any thing which, as it seemed