The Sun.
London, England, 1828-02-08 00:00:00

from any moveable feast, which
sometimes happens too
eaxl3haxid sornet;emes happens too late,. and always leaves
those intereet,ed in a state of uncertainty. I see no incon-
venienon; which could possibly arise either with regard to
tee festival of Easter, or to the most pious Christian, if
re term was dated after the 25th of March, which is
a festival always falling upon the same day. I know
not why, in this truly Protestant country—always truly
Protestant, but never mere so—than, unders the pee:
sent Commander in Chief :(A laugh)— there should
le any dread of meddling with the festivals which
pernliarly apPertein to the Romislt Church.—
Let Easter Teem then he . hied.. for , the 10th of
April, and let an end be put' at
,i,see to that state of umor-
. eainty, which produces both inconvenience and confusion.
Nothing can be more foolish than the vulgar but common.
-
-error, that-the Snore yon oppress and keep down the law
'vera, and the feweir_boons or benefits you confer upon them,
'the more advantages you secure coo the country..., But are
" act these short sighted men. r;e-norant of the poinoiple, that
the more you iera.r at,yyrOfestuou disreputable, the less
chance you have of induteng moo of honour and integrity
to risk chVaaotee by entering themselves among its
members ? You compel unen to cuter into the.counting-
house of tin- inerchent, or to betake themselves to the study
of inedicien, or divinity; or to any 'other pursuit; while you
fill the "Bar with bad professional Men, inferior in rank, in-
- fericos in character, interim- in accomplishment"; and feel-
ineas to those engaged in the other liberal pursuits of life.
And, more than all that, these are the men out of whom
you must of necessity eelect your Judges—the men ono„
whose probity and honour, and upon whose cnnscientious
administration of the laws, your liberty and property
mainly depend. 'Upon every consideration, therefore, tio;t
is valuable in the era of a wise man, and still more upon
principles of public benefit and public convenience, I say
you
ought to afford every facility to the study and practice of the
law. Fix, then, a day earlier or later—the earlier, however,
think the better, but let it he a day certain and unchangeable.
if I may he permitted to speak of mYself, I would say, that
I ;lid not get home from Lancaster, at the termination
of
the last Assizes, till the 20th or 22d of September, having
left home in the October of the preceding year. I oSes,
therefore, just about eleven months on my profesniotal du-
ties. The Sittings in London were, however, fixed for
the 9th October, a time which would have gust left me about
one fortnight of vacation; and I was vertainly one of those '
who joined in a requisition to my Lord Tenterden, entreat-
ing, him to postpone thew, in order to afford a slight respite
to the Bar. For that disti.nguished Judge I must say, that
no man who ever preeseded him in his high office—and, I
may add, no man :oho ever sat on the Bench—can, or
could have die played, on all occasions, a more conciliating
manueo to the Bar and to the suitors of tit Coutt—a more
lainrieus attention to the painfully fatigenig duties of his
situation—or a more manly, honest, ant, undeviating rec-
titude in the dispensation of justice. Such, indeed, is
the unwearied attention of Lord Tenterden to the de-
mands upon his time, that he seems to reap his greatest
a-ratification from feeling, at the end of a long trial,
that he has been enabled to devote so many hours to the
furtherance of the business of his Court—(Hear,
His Lordship's reply to that requisition was, no doubt, ex-
ceedingly consoling to those loll() had prayed a slight relief,
for he declared that lie had great satisfaction in being able
to do any thing which could prove a matter of convenience
to the Gentlemen of the Bar ; and he would, therefore,
postpone those Sittings from Tuesday the 9th to Tuesday
the 16th of October, but not for one day finger. Fo-r that respite I, as well as others; was muter an obligation;
but what I Wieli to impress upon the House is, that if two
Judgea were sitting at one time on these occasions, and it
was rendrrerlcompulsory upon them to take only one
species of business in each Court, they might soon weed
oet all that trumpery mass of cases upon Bills and Pro-
missory Notes, and other debts of that description, which
now occupy the time of the Court, and waste needlessly
those hours which might, with so much advantage, be
devoted to lausiuess of a very different description. With-
cut some such arrangement it "was impossible either for
the Profession, or the Bench, with the number of hours
which can be devoted to business, to get through all that
'presses upon them even dnring.an uninterrupted period of
eleven months. I think if it was arranged that one Court
should take nothing but one species of business—say all
real actions, I mean by that al/ actions for real property,
including all actions of ejectment ; and that another Court
was to take all actions of a different descriptiot--ninch the business note in arrear, and much of that which usually
crimples the time of the Court, might be got rid of with-
out retarding the settled busioews of the Term. I think
too, that if the Act of the 57th ofetinelate King—l wean
that which went to empower. the- court of Exchequer ta
hear motions in equity—was carried, which it never yet
has been, fully into effect, a great deal tvould be dime to
relieve the labours of the other Courts. At present, the
business of the 'Exchequer in Equity was scarcely to be
mentioned, an; principally carried on through bills, while
of motions there were few or none ; although it was not
possible is find a more able or efficient Equity Judge than
the ;:assent Lord Chief Baron. Have then, I say, the
Card Baron sitting in Equity ; have another Judge of the
xchequer, learned in the Common Law, to dispose of a
certain description of Common Law business ; have another
Judge to sit upon Exchequer cases; and so with the others.
Give each of the Judges a certain description of- busi-
ness, with which the habits of his . life have rendered
Inn conversant, and you not only relieve the King's
Bench from that which now presses upon it so heavily,
but you, at the same time, get that business per
crmed in that greater perfection which never fails to
result from a just division of labour among those
best qualified for each particular departuient...--(Hear,
bear, bear. )--I now pass to what is called the Civil
La*, and I must confess I approach it with a tender, and,
I may say, a trembling hand, nut only from the great
:leery and complexity of its arrangements, but from the
remembrance of what has come to my own personal know-
ledge, by a slight degree of practice in the Court of Dele-
gates and the Cockpit. Of all the observations which
such practice has suggested to me, I mean to trouble the
House with but a very few. The first has reference to an
appointment, against which, with reference to the Learned
Judge who holds it, I can have no objection, but that I
consider it as strangely and dangerously underpaid. 1
think that such an office as that of the Judge of the High Court of Admiralty—the highest in point of rank, and the
most important in station, if we look to the immense, the
fearful amount of property upon which he is called upon to
adjudicate—is wofully underpaid upon the salary of 2,5001.
a year, for that is the sole amount of his stipulated sa-
lery—the remainder, whatever it may be, arises out of
feet. These fees are not regulated upon any limited scale,
but I have heard that the. average amount in time of war
is about 7,500/. a year. This, however, is in war only;
in peace they are nothing. Now, Ido not like to see a
Judge, who is called upon to decide upon so many nice and
,delicate questions connected with our Foreign relations; who
is called upon, in fact, frequently to give his advice on mat.
ters involving the most important and eventful results in
reference to our friendly connexion with Foreign Powers;
I do not think it right or safe, 1 say, that any such
influence should act upon that Judge's mind, or by any,
even the remotest, possibility affect the counsel he gives the
Government, as the difference between 2,5001., the extent
of his income in peace, and 10,000/. the amount of his
receipts, if that peace should happen to be broken. (Hear,
hear, hear.) I do not mention this with reference,
'I re-
peat, to the Judge who now holds that situatu?n, still less
do I mention it with reference to auy thing which hashap-
Pened ; but Ido say again, thatit is not seemly—it is nut
decent, that the salary of a Judge deciding Property
" such value and extent, should. be
control
.ent uponcr-
ennostance3 within his own possible control, and still loss
that the great increase of that salary should ie. made to de-
pend upon
: 'IV such condition as the extension and pro-
traction of the horrors of war. (Hear.) The next ob-
servation I
appointment of
have to offer upon the Civil Law relates to the
a Judge holding a
im-
portant as that of the' situation almost as
We have now, at least
Admiralty
I hope, no fear of Popery
retain, in the case of
Court of Arches, one of the
(heary. and a laugh) ; and yet we
silliest and worst renmane,-„f
thing where all tive
cerulidereil Popery,bad. The
called upon
.to take into
eeusideration all questions of M.ar-
riq;e and Divorce, and to a..; Judge who is
--de upon eti-estions of Wills,
iiirolving. the largest amount of
PrOp&ty, both real and
I,creenal—questions often the
difficult; that Judge is appointed--tby
most delicate and the most
the authority of
the Crown—not even upon the responsibility of the Lord
High Admiral, for he appoints the Judge of
the -Ad 'ralt •
of the •Gn'''''e
Court, and is therefore, it may be said, ek,,,0
infoir
his
rliament ; but can Ttfernment or
actions-:—not on the responsibility
under the authority
upon the authority of the Archbishop of Ci:lntbe:beredited,
the Bishop of London. (Hear, and a latigh.)---uoreY it is
dicial situations, not only ;1:
also with many other. high
Londan but in the country Court of
The Consistorial C
York is in the same manner at the disposal of the Arch...
bishop of York,. and many other important °
Court, f.
Judicature are in the same situation.
~ To be sure they
might he told there was always a
Co m (Slott of ,
who Appeal fro
any erroneous judgments pronounced
pre-
sided over these Courts. There was an appeal to e
by those
.the
Court of Delegates. But did the House understand tn
nature of the constitution of that Court ? Were they aware
of its being one of the worst constituted Courts, and one of
the greatest pieces of mockery of appeal which could well,
be imagined for the purposes of deception? The very
nature of its construction shews, I think, beyond all gun,