The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-18 00:00:00

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to the police and to those for whose 0447-417t-V4,
_the police are employed. These hovels an --iicskulgstyar-1 ...'
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rookeries encumber acres of land and extesurTack
towards Lincoln's-inn-fields. They must Es opened up
in some way, just as the region of dens on the banks
of the Fleet-ditch was opened up. Government are
about to propose to raze these all to the ground, to
purify both the physical and the moral atmosphere
of the spot, and to build a complete set of Courts,
where Justice may sit with all her satellites around
her, and where something like dignity and order
may prevail. TO are disposed to think that the
natural site for the great Hall of Justice would be
Lincoln's-inn-Fields, and that the demolition of the
alleys would necessarfiy follow the presence of the
Courts in their neighbourbood. Let this, however,
pass for the moment. Government have also found
out a means of paying for this great building.
There has been for many years in existenee!a large
unappropriated Sum of money called " the Suitors'
Fund,"—an unappropriated sum of money which
has been like a bit of " flotsam" in a river. All
the minnows have ben nibbling at it at all times;
but, strange to say, no great fish has ever swal-
lowed it bodily. We must explain this almost
incredible fact. •The first thing the Court of
Chancery instinctively does when such a process
is possible, is, of course, to get the money in' dis-
pute into its own clutches. It now has some forty
millions of such moneys. Now, it is open to the
unhappy people who pay in these sums either to
have them immediately invested in Stocks, ,'and
take their chance of Stocks rising and falling,' but
of course receiving interest, or to pay in the
money simply, and take the same money out again
without interest. When they adopt the latter
course—which many'do, either from a careless hope-
lessness, or from a fond confidence that the cause
Must be decided before much interest can accrue—
the Court, knowing better, invests the sum upon
the Court's 'own risk, taking the interest and
gathering it up into a Suitor's Fund,butincurring
all responsibility in' case the -Funds should ,fall
when the money is: to be paid out. ' Now, if it
should ever happen that our Funds-Should go downs
to 50, as they did in the last war, this would be a
very losing transaction ; but as for the lasts half-
century the Funds have rather gone up, uptm the
whole, this has been 4. very- painful transactions and
the Suitors' Fund has 'been a temptation for general
plunder of.a lawful kind. Pensions have, of course,
been fixed upon it. The rent of the wigwam in
Lincoln's-inn has been paid' out of it, and it.has
been reduced in various ways and under Use autho-
rity of various acts of Parliament. Still, however,
law is so gainful a business that there is prow
a " rest " of nearly three millions, which is
liable to what the Commissioners call " the
shadowy - and unsubstantial risk" of being
called upon to make up deficiencies to the suitors:
Unless the Funds should suffer a very great fall,
and unless the Court of Chancery should at the
same time shut its doors and pay off all its suitors
at the same moment, this risk is nothing. The
suggestion is that out of this money the new Courts
should be built, and that the Legislature .should
guarantee that if ever the unlikely contingency
which this "rest" was created to meet should arise,
they will make good .the funds required to pay the
suitors. The arrangement seems to us to be per-
fectly unobjectionable. Whether we build in Carey-
street or in Lincoln's-inn-Fields, we shall get
rid of a horrible neighbourhood, we shall get a good
set of Courts, we shall pay nothing for them, and
we shall remove from the eyes of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer, legal reformers with compensation
designs, and others, the temptation of a large sum
of money possible to be conveniently used at any
pressing emergency. We shall incur nothing
but a risk of being obliged to repay some part
of the money in the case of an event which is,
in the nature of human events; impossible to
arise. This is the proposition which Lord St.
Leonards came down to the Lords to denounce
on Friday night, and which he did denounce in
a set speech. As, however, every Peer upon Lord
St. Leonards' side of the house departed during
the course of the speech. we suppose we may take
it for granted that the dispersion of the Judges is
not likely to become a party question, and that Lord
St. Leonards' lamentations over the poor people of
Ship-yard and Shire-lane who will be turned.out
of their lodgings arc not likely to impede a mea-
sure which, if well carried out, will do more lasting
credit to the present Government than anything
, they have yet done.— 7isses.

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