The Sun.
London, England, 1861-11-13 00:00:00

SIR R. PALMER WV LAW REFORM:

The Solicitor General presided at the meeting of
the Law Amendment Society, on Monday night.
He said he thought the time was now come when
a greater amount of the society's attention should
be directed to the amendment of defects in the

substance of the law than had hitherto been given
to that part of the subject. No one could help
feeling that the law was unsystematic, and that in
many respects it was productive of injustice. There
was a pretty general agreement amongst that
branch of the profession to which he belonged that
it was in the highest degree desirable to simplify
land transfers and land titles. But he for one felt
that there was a little disposition to shut our eyes
to the inherent difficulties of the object. It might
be desirable that the transfer of land should
take place with the same facility as the transfer
of stock; but then it was not desirable that one man
should have an easy mode of selling the property of
another man. With regard to titles, if any system
of clearing them by Parliamentary process could be
devised without injury to anyone, he should be
ready to apply it to any extent. He did not think
any scheme which would lessen the dominion of the
owner over his property, or which would make it

less valuable for useful purposes, would be accept-
able to the possessors of land, and he doubted if it
would conduce to the prosperity of the country.
Anything which would deprive them of the
power of making settlements, with all those varie-
ties of provision to which they were accustomed,
would be a sacrifice of substance to form. He
should be deeply indebted to the society or to any
others, if they suggested a mode which, without
depriving them of these advantages, would give
them the benefit of simplicity. Whether the Go-
vernment intended to introduce any measure on this
subject he was as ignorant as they were. Were it
otherwise he would not speak of it. If entrusted
with such a measure he should endeavour to give it
effect: With regard to patents, upon the assump-
tion that they were to be continued, there were two
great desiderata. One was that there should be
some rational and satisfactory definition of the
sort of inventions which patents were meant to

protect ; and the other that there should be some
better mode of sifting away those which were ob-
viously useless and bad. If the invention did not
involve a new principle or a new process it ought
not to be the subject of a patent at all. lie did not
think the suggestion made at the Social Science
Meeting of having somebody to decide beforehand
the validity or the invalidity of an invention was
practicable ; but he thought there should be some
mode for rejecting what was frivolous, even by ex
parte process—all showing the applicant for a patent
the right of appeal. The next point on which he
would touch was with regard to the appointment of
a Minister of Justice ; and here he must confess he
was disappointed at the non-fulfilment of the pro-
mise made by the Society that they would digest a
scheme for the establishment of a department of
justice.

INCIDENT IN LORD BYRON'S LIFE.

The following interesting letter, signed "John
Robertson," appears in the Atheneum :—" I have
recently met here in Brighton two Aberdonians
who were schoolfellows of Byron at the Aber-
deen Grammar School. From them I have
gleaned the particulars of an unpublished
and remarkable adventure in the school life
of the poet, Prior to relating it, however,
I cannot omit remarking how vividly and
freshly these septuagenarians still recollect
the scene which occurred in the school when
the name of Byron was first called out, with the
prefix Dominus.' The surprise of his schoolfellows,
themselves generally the sons of well to-do bur-
gesses and professional men, darting into Byron's
mind the conviction that the charm of equality was
henceforth broken between himself and his play-
fellows, the tears started into his eyes as he an-
swered adsum.' Not long afterwards he left Scot-
land for England. But I took up my pen to relate
how the poet was nearly lost in a graveyard during
a snowstorm, when he was but a small boy. The
boys attending the grammar school, who were
simultaneously learning writing, had every day
at twelve o'clock to cross the graveyard of the
parish church of Saint Nicholas on their way
from the grammar school to the School Hill, to
the writing school in St. Nicholas-street. One
memorable day,on issuing from the grammar school,
these boys confronted such a storm of snow and hail
as has but rarely visited even the northern city at
the mouth of the Dee. Under the shelter of the
high wall of the churchyard the boys battled their
way against the wind and the drift as far as the
gate. But, here, the weaker boys were driven back
by the hurricane, and remained, not daring to turn
the corner or leave the shelter of the wall. The
elder and stronger boys alone ventured across the
wide, open, and exposed graveyard. Two of these
offered a hand each, however, to little Byron, and
all three dashed into the blin_ding, avvnadsboenweildofertinhge
drift. My informant, Dr. _
two lads. No sooner had they entered the storm
than the boys were overpowered by it, and let go
their hold of each other, for it was then every-
one for himself. My informant was seated
in the evening with his family, when a servant
came in great alarm, sent by Mrs. Byron to inquire
if anything were known of the fate of her son, who
had been missing since the morning. His school-
fellow could only answer that every one having had
to shift for himself, he had lost him amidst the
snow in the churchyard; the only hope he could
suggest being that Byron had found shelter under a
tombstone,—flat tombstones, resting on stones at
each end, abounding in the churchyard. Dr.
believes, to this day, that men were employed to
search the churchyard and under the tombstones
with lanterns ; that they discovered little Byron
under one of them, only just in time to save his
life. But this is a mistake. The other day I met
a very old acquaintance of mine, known to me as a
schoolfellow of Byron at the Grammar School of
Aberdeen, Mr. Cruickshank, recently clerk
to the County Court at Greenwich. When
I was narrating to him this snow-storm
story, as told to me by Dr. he approved
of the narrative until I mentioned the supposition
of the shelter under a tombstone, when he exclaimed,
No such thing ! I was with him,—the weaker boys
could not get into the churchyard at all. We could
not leave the School Hill, and we found shelter in
Mr. Leslie Cruickshank's hosiery; in whose kitchen
we were dried and warmed, and sat waiting until
in
beautiful Byron,
tale o while
ou
t oaf w
the
our friends fetched us in the evening. It was
whilst waiting in this kitchen that I first perceived
the somethingtime be
ofthtoeld poet
usa
' Arabian Nights.' The slight discrepancy in these
eceounts of the adventure may be easily explain 1,
by supposing that little Byron slipped out of the
hands of his stouter comrades the instant he felt the
full force of the storm, and was then driven to-
wards the churchyard gate."