The Sun.
London, England, 1850-09-28 00:00:00

Atitt

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 1850.

Among the zealous and energetic legal reformers
of the present age Mr. CHARLES PURTON COOPER,
Q.O , has occupied a prominent position. The abuses
of the court in which he has long practised and at-
tained high eminence have chit fly attracted his atten-
tion, and he has offered many valuable suggestions
for improving the course of practice in Chancery by
expediting the proceedings and materially diminishing
the expenses, so as to render it " nearly as cheap to
obtain the opinion of the Court of Chancery on a
doubtful point as to obtain the opinion of an eminent
e-Junsel." T" "^—•,tious delays in . tho Sloatorg'
Offices, perho,t), io. most harassing of the
and serious impediments that attend the
progress of the suitor for equity, particularly came
under his notice, end he framed a :cries of orders or
regulations, by which the nuisance might be, if not
alt. getter abated, at least considerably mitigated, so
as to render it in some degree tolerable to the parties
concerned.

It could not be supposed that a gentleman who bad
exhibited so much activity in all matters connected
with the amelioration ci the tribunal which he had
selected as the sphere of his professional labours,
should remain indifferent to the constitution of the
bead of the court itself—a question which has assumed
additional interest since the First Lord of
the Treasury announced the intenticn of the Govern-
ment to separate the judicial and political functions of
the Lord High Chancellor of England. The Noble
Lord even declared that he would bring forward the
details of the contemplated measures within a few
weeks, a pledge which shared the fate of lovers'
oaths and electioneeting promises, and which has pro-
bably been consigned to the limbo of broken vows,'
or the place not to be mentioned to ears polite,
which is aphoristically stated "to be paved with
good intentions." it afforded some indication,
however, that the topic which had been
under Ministerial consideration for so many
Sears would be brought seriously before Parliament,
arid perhaps finally disposed of during the ensuing
session, and, therefore, the public attention was di-
rected prominently to the subject.

Mr. CooPER has- treated -In matter in a manrer
highly characteristic of his profession. He has made
Lord COTTENHAPA'S plan, set forth on the 28th of
April, 1836, the ba'is of his observations, and with
singular industry collected the opinions of some of
the leading men of the age, of distinguished states-
men and lawyers, delivered in Parliament, which
he has republished with remarks showing the altera-
tions that have already been effected, and bow far
these opinions are consistent with the ex Chancellor's
prorsal.• We are thus enabled at a single glance to
ascertain the views of Rosimit.r and ItEDESDALE, of
LIVERPOOL, CASTLEREAGH, CANNING, and PEEL, Of
WtTHERELL, LEACH, and ELDON, Of BANRES and
STEPHENS, and Wramasp, and finally, and not the
Itt important., of O'CONNELL, and SUGDEN, and
LitouGuam. It must be borne in mind that many of these
views were promulgated rainy years since, when
many prejudices were in existence which hare gra•
dually been worn away and obliterated by the pro-
gress of public opinion and the increased enlighten-
ment of the age. Bat the compilation will prove a
valuable assistance to the statesman in enabling bim to
arrive at a correct decision on this most important
question.

It certainly appears to be, as Lord BROUGHAM
justly termed it, a "signal and striking anomaly that
the highest judge in civil matters in the country was a
Minister of the Crown, and was removable at the pleasure
of the Crown ; that to him was entrusted, sitting
alone, and without control, the disposal of property of
an immense amount, and of rights and interests still
more dear to the parties than any rights of property,
however important; and yet he was all this time
removable at the pleasure of the Crown, and was also,
whether ha would or not, a political as well as a
judicial character." It is not merely, then, the amount
of duties cast upon the Lord Chancellor—which
are more than can be satisfactorily performed by a
single individual—that require the change, but the sys-
tem i 3 radically defective, and in direct opposition to the
greet constitutional principle which renders the judges
o; the land, so far as practicable, independent of
all external influences ; that withdraws them from all
considerations of party or politics, and makes the
tt nure of office not dependent on the mere will and
i,leasure of the Crown or of the Minister of the day,
kit on the good conduct of the party holding it. This
judicial independence has ever been regarded as af-
fording one of the highest and moat valuable guaran-
tees for the liberty of the subject, and ret it is totally
disregarded in the case of the highest of all he judges,

" " Appellate Jurisdiction of the House ofLor s, Prey
Council, and Court of Chancery." By Charles Purton
Co3per, Esq., Q.C. London; Stevens and Norton.

who, in his original and appellate jurisdiction, deals
with a larger amount of property, and more interest-
ing and sacred rights, than perhaps all the other
judges taken together. In addition, then, to the great
impediments and obstacles opposed to the progress of
every description of legal reform, from the multifa-
rious avocations of the Minister by whom propoied
alterations must be maturely considered before they
can be adopted by the Government, and the great
public inconvenience of a judge going out of office at
the very time when he is most competent to perform
its duties, we find a judge sitting in one court to
hear an appeal from his own judgment pronounced in
another place, and subject to removal at any moment
through a party vote in Parliament. It must, there-
fore, be conceded that Lord Joule RUSSELL was
fully justified in thinking it to be " the common
sense of the subject that there should be, as in the
Queen's Bench and Common Pleat., a permanentjudge
at the bead of our great equity tribunal."

It is seldom that a more important document has
been presented to Parliament than the "Report of
the General Board of Health on the Epidemic
Cholera of 1848 and 1849." It should be not only
perused, but studied by every member of the com-
munity, for it relates to matters which affect the
interests and the lives of every man, woman, and
child in these realms. This report sets at rest the
question as to the contagious or non-contagious na-
ture of cholera; it is abundantly clear, from the evi-
dence adduced by the Commissioners, that the disease
is not contagious, and that schemes cf isola-
tion or quarantine are worse than useless.
It is a disease impossible, or all but impossible, of
cure, and yet most easy of prevention ; and the cause
of the great mortality which prevailed from cholera,
during 1848 and 1849, in this country, was the stupid
obstinacy of the local authorities, who refthetto adopt
the measures of prevention pointed out to them, and
sacrificed many thousand lives to absurd preju-
dices against" centralization." Upwards of 60,000
persons perished of cholera during the year 1848-49
and of these 60,000, at least 40,000 were sacrificed
to a vile system of private jobbing, which
usurps the name of local self-government. In Ply-
mouth, according to Dr. MILROY, although strong
representations on the subject had been made by the
leading medical men of the place many months before
the occurrence of the disease, no precautionary mea-
sures were adopted by the authorities, who when the
cholera did break out spoke of it as
.quite sudden and
unexpected.

"In numerous instances," say the Commissioners,
"medical officers who have attended to the conditions
which influence its localization, have pointed out, before
its return, the particular courts and houses which it
would attack. Before cholera appeared in the district,'
says the medical officer of the Wbitechapel Union,
speaking of a small court in the hamlet, I predicted
that this would be one of its strongholds.' Eighteen
cases occurred in it. 'More cholera appeared in the
district, the medical officer of Uxbridge stated
that, if it should visit that town it would be certain
to break out in a particular house, to the danger-
ous condition of which he called the attention of the
local authorities. The first cases that occurred broke
out in that identical house. In a place called Swain's
lane, in the healthy village of Highgate, Lear London,
there is a spot where the medical officer felt so confident
that the disease would make its appearance, that he re-
peatedly represented to the authorities the danger of
allowing the place to remain in its existing condition,
but in vain. In two houses on this spot, six attacks and
four deaths took place, yet there was no other appearance
of the disease during the whole epidemic in any other
part of the village, containing 3,000 inhabitants.
"Before the appearance of the disease in this country
we Rained the local authorities that the seats cf the
approaching pestilence in their respective districts
would be the usual haunts of other epidemics."

It might surely have been expected that the local au-
thorities would everywhere have adopted immediate
measures to disinfect the localities pointed outbeforehand
as the seats of the approaching pestilence ; it appears,
on the contrary, that they threw every obstacle in the
way of the adoption of such measures. The pecuniary
interests of the local jobbers, and the fussy self-im-
portance of the local magnates were leagued in oppo-
sition to science, humanity, and common sense, and the
recommendations of the Board of Health were treated
either with contemptuous silence or with contumely
and insult. Their warnings were despised, their facts
disputed, and themselves denounced, and in one
memorable instance a local parochial mag-
nate of the metropolis, with a crass ignorance
more than aldermanic, actually denied the existence
of Jacob's Isllnd, because it had been mentioned by
as_ Health
did not flinch from the execution of the duties im-
posed on them, and if they did not succeed in accom-
plishing all that they had hoped, the fault was not in
themselves, but in the law. They thus describe their
endeavours to carry out measures of prevention, and
the cause to which the ill-success of those endeavours
must be attributed. At page 142 of the Report they
say— _ _

Adopting a large remedial interpretation of the au-
thority given under the Act for taking measures of
promptitude, according to the exigency of the case, by
such directions and regulations as the said board shall
think fit fir the prevention, as fur as possible, or rnitiga-
don of such epidemic disease,' we were prepared to issue
directions to special local bodies for the execution of the
measures of prevention; but we were debarred from that
course by the opinion of the law officers, that the general
words of the statute could not be so construed as to
warrant such a combination of the local authorities as
we proposed fur the purpose.
" A review of the general experience now adduced as
to the peculiar nature of preventive measures, and as to
the constitution of local bodies, will suggest one conclu-
sion, that the only chAnce of executing such measures
promptly and efficiently will be by new and special local
and general administrative arrangements, the particulars
of which we may have a fair opportunity of submitting
for consideration, as part of the amendments which may
be required fur the execution of the Pubic Health Act.'
We trust that another session of Parliament will
not be suffered to elapse without the passing of a
Public Health Act, which shall give health officers
the power of properly carrying out preventive mea-
sures. It should be recollected that every member of
the community is equally interested in the immediate
adoption of these measures ; the cholera is no res-
P-e—
-pewer-of persons, and tnelll-c, lasitrprosperous trades-
men suffered during its last visitation more severely
from its ravages than did the very poor ; and when we
remember that those localities in which the cholera
raged with the greatest severity are at all times the
habitats of fever, the necessity fur the prompt adop-
tion of the measures of prevention suggested by the
officers of health cannot hut he abundantly evident.