The Sun.
London, England, 1829-09-11 00:00:00

LAW TAXIS AND LAW REFORMS.

OLD BAILEY, SEPT. 10

i
We arc iaormed, that in consequence 'of James Taylor, a miserable-looking man, 33 years
some recent proceedings, and of several measures of age, was indicted for stealing a coat, value 205.,
with respect to the present state of the law, which the property of the Right. Hon. Robert Peel.
are expected to be brought forward in Parliament
The prisoner was seen by Lord Farnham's porter
following Mr. Peel's carriage in Whitehall-place,
during the next Session, it is in contemplation, and afterwards returning with the coat in his pos-
on the part of many respectable solicitors and session. It was a footman's outside coat, arid had
beenier
declared he
ibireihiintd.nthe carriage. The pri-
public meetingthe vacation before the Burin
Jury, fafteer some deliberation, returned a ver-
commencement
of the Session, to consider the ; diet of Not Guilty.
propriety of uniting to promote several reforms, I Henry Willa, aged 19, and Mary Field, aged
ng, and tileli..
and to resist those measures by which the inte- ; 22, were indicted, the former for stealing,
rests of the public and of the profession at large latter for receiving with a knowledge that they had
. been stolen, several handkerchiefs, gown-pieces, and
will be reciprocally affected. other articles of mercery, value 81., the property of
The first of the expected measures which there John Verey. Wilks was in Mr. Verey's employ-
is an intention to resist, if it be persevered in, is ment as shopman, and his master having.some rca-
the
increase of the tax on the annual certificates son to suspect his honesty had him watched. 110
was traced to a pawnbroker's, where he offered
required from attorneys, pleaders, and others
some of the stolen property to pledge, upon which
practising below the bar, and also the taxes on ihe was taken into custody. The prisoner, Mary
admission to the profession--all of which, it is Field, had been some time previously also in Mr.
understood, are to be doubled by the proposed j Verey's service, but was at this time residing. with
new Stamp Act. These taxes, it is objected, an elderly couple, who protected her as if s!:e were ,
their own daughter. Wilks had promised her mar-
must ultimately be charged by the successful riage, ill contemplation of which he lodged some
practitioners upon their clients, and thus operate money in her hands to keep for him, and made her
as an additional tax on justice; on the unsuc- presents from time to time. An officer having
cessful practitioners they must fall as an - addi- j called at the house and demanded the goods, which
tional infliction. The chief argument adduced were the subject of the present indictment, she i
in favour of the increased impositions is, that stated that they had been given to her by Wilks,
and instantly delivered them up to the officer. Both
they will tend to make the profession more select she and the male prisoner received excellent eharac-
and respectable : the answer is, that they would tees from a great number of witnesses.
only swell the number of them, or irregular The Jury found Wilks Guilty, and acquitted
practitioners, and that the profession cannot be Field.
made either select or respectable by menus of George Keene and Samuel Keene, brothers, were
monied qualifications. indicted for stealing a quantity of segars, snuff, and
The next subject agitated, is the expediency tobacco, value 171., the property of James and
of petitioning the Legislature for the abolition I Simon Foot.
of all fees paid the officers of Court, or other I The prisoners are young men who kept a to-
functionaries concerned in the administration of in Brydges-street, Covent-garden. The
b prosecutors are the proprietors of an extensive snuff-
public justice. It is the bidden interests sus- manufactory in the Minories, which is carried on uri-
tained by these fees which cause the mention of der the firm of Lundyfoot and Co.
useless or mischievous points of practice, and f The fury, a::er having retired for some time, re-
create the most formidable obstacles to real and turned into Court with a verdict of Not Guilty.
beneficial reforms in the law. It is contended _
that the functionaries should receive salaries, or
compensation, where they can prove themselves
entitled to it ; or, that the practice or the fees
ought to be abolished on the demise of the pre-
sent holders of the offices. These fees increase

ST. DUNSTAN'S CHURCH.

TO THE RIGHT HON. THE LORD MAYOR, ALDERMEN,

AND COMMONS OF THE CITY OF LONDON, IN COM-

the practitioners' bills enormously, and bring the
profession into great discredit with the public,
who do not discriminate between such costs and
the remuneration for the skilled and necessary
labour ; a remuneration which, if viewed by it-
self, would seldom be found excessive. The
cost of legal proceedings thus produced operates
as a denial of justice in an immense class of cases,
where the hazard and cost of the remedy form a
greater amount of evil than the wrong sustained.
The evil may be illustrated by one case, by no
means peculiar in its nature :
A man some time since brought an action,
and obtained a verdict for 241., the value of a
horse. Having, in the first instance, paid about
that amount to his solicitor (a gentleman of emi-
nence and respectability in the City), to carry
on the suit, he went in great glee to get the
amount returned, together (as he supposed)
with the value of his horse. The change in the
posture of the fortunate, or rather unfortunate,
client's features, may be conceived, when he
found, on inspecting a long bill which was put
into his hands, that he was yet the solicitor's
debtor to the amount of several pounds. He gave
way to a fit of rage, and with no measured lan-
guage answered the assurances of the solicitor,
that every thing which was correct and proper
to be done in this case had been done, and that
the bill was invulnerable_ And so it proved.
The fact was, that on the first appointed day of
trial the cause had been put off, in consequence
of the accidental absence of a material wit-
ness on the part of the plaintiff, who had
therefore to pay the day's costs of the defendant.
These, with the plaintiff's own taxed costs,
amounted to double the value of the " chose
in action."

MON COUNCIL ASSEMBLED.
The Memorial of the undersigned Inhabitants of the
Parish of St. Dunstan in the West, Fleet-street,

in the City of London,
Showeth,—That an Act has lately passed the
Legislature for enabling your Memorialists to pull
down and rebuild their Parish Church, it being at
present in an unsafe and dilapidated condition.
That in the said Act powers are given to
your
Memorialists to change the site of the said Church
to a more convenient situation if deemed expedient;
to purchase such additional ground as may he re-
quired for that purpose; and to sell and dispose of
such as may not be required.

That your Memorialists are desirous of bringing
under the notice of this Honourable Court the fa-
vourable opportunity that thus presents itself of
effecting one of the most important improvements
that can be made within the City of London ;
namely, the widening to a sufficient extent the great
western entrance to the said City.
That the necessity which has long existed for ren-
dering this great thoroughfare more accessible and
convenient for the purposes of trade, has been con-
siderably improved by the improvements which have
been effected, and are still in progress, in the western
parts of the metropolis, and which have already con-
siderably diminished the business of most of the re-
tail traders residing ►within the limits of the city of
London.

That the present general width of Fleet-street
varies from 50 to 60 feet, but is so much narrowed
by the projection of the old church of St. Dunstan's
in the West as not to exceed 35 feet in that part
—a width which is quite insufficient for the accom-
modation of the public, and occasions frequent stop-
pages, accidents, and other inconveniences.
That an increase of the width of the street at this
spot, to the extent of 60 feet or upwards, necessa-
rily involves an alteration of the site of the said
Church, which can only be effected by purchasing
at a considerable expenee premises adjoining the
present Church on the north side.
That, were not this the case, your Memorialists
would gladly effect such improvement at their own
cost, by surrendering the ground required without
remuneration ; but the circumstances in which the
parish is at present placed render this obviously
impossible.
Being now burdened with a heavy debt, and hav-
ing to provide means for the erection of an entirely
new Church, it will be cut of their power to incur
the further cost of providing a new site except they
can receive from the public the value of that part
of the present site which is required to effect this
great public improvement.
Your Memorialists therefore pray your Honour-
able Court to take this subject under your serious
consideration. And your Memorialists shall ever pray.
Signed by the Churchwardens, Overseers, Inha-
bitants, &c.
September 7.

The remuneration to the professional gentle-
men engaged in this case was trivial. The great
amount %vas made up partly in consequence of
certain portions of technical procedure which it
must be the business of future Jurists to remove,
but the excess was created mainly by those fees
of Court. This cost and uncertainty is such,
that the most respectable solicitors have a per-
fect dread of going into Court, and seldom do
so but with extreme reluctance. In all those
cases where the amount to be recovered will not
compensate for the hazard of the proceeding,
they advise their clients to submit to the loss ra-
ther than attempt to recover the amount. It is
well known that numbers of respectable retail
tradesmen in the metropolis have large balances
on their books, made up of debts of from 101. to
201. and 301., which they abandon, rather than
risk heavier losses byattempting to recover them.
It constantly occurs that when a verdict is re-
covered against a man in feeble circumstances, to
make it his interest or compel him to take the
benefit of the Insolvent Debtors' Act rather
than pay.
The operations of this Act, which is about to
expire, has, in many respects, been found so
favourable to male fide creditors, without pro-
ducing corresponding advantages to the bona fide
class, as to call for the exertions of the trading
community to procure it revision and additional
securities against the former description of cre-
ditors ; which securities, it is conceived, might
be found without the continuance of the existing
practice of arrest on mesne process in its present
form.

FRACAS EXTRAORDINARY.

A few days since a gentleman and his friend ar-
rived at Cheltenham by the Paul Pry coach, and
during a morning's lounge in the High-street, was
accosted by an old acquaintance with, " Well, —,
what brings you to this fashionable watering place ?"
" I only arrived in Cheltenham this morning, replied
the other, from London, to settle a little business,
and intend to return in the evening by mail; but
pray excuse me at this moment, as I am in haste."
They parted, and the stranger went to his hotel, from
whence he dispatched his friend to one of our visitors,
whose company he requested with pistols and a
second immediately in a lonely and convenient place.
The aforesaid visitor not much relishing the message
was either afraid or ashamed to send an answer, and
the consequence was a second note, stating that the
challenger had travelled from London tout expres to
light the party addressed, and gave him one hour to
consider of the matter. This was bringing the busi-
ness to a close, but no satisfactory answer arriving
from the individual challenged, the Londoner sallied
forth in quest of his cautious foe, whom he found
sneaking along a back street near his lodgings. The
following agreeable and highly interesting dialogue
then took place:—Stranger—" Sir, I have tra-
velled all the way from London on purpose to fight
you, and am determined not to be disappointed—
will you fight ?" Answer—" Why, I have no friend
here." Stranger—" Well, then, I'll do any thing
to oblige you in that way, and if you have a friend at
Gloucester or any other town, we will go there in
a chaise immediately." Answer—" But I have no
pistols." " There, Sir, I can suit you to a nicety, for
I have a capital brace at the hotel." Answer (with
emotion)—" Why, really, under all circumstances,
that is—you see, Sir, I—I—I—" (this sentence
he finished with a very unintelligible stammer),
which the impatient stranger cut short by—
" Well, sir, I see you have no mind to fight
i and suiting the
—therefore settle the business at once by
giving
youto a
the word,of ahe
licking
carried his infernal
t.r
threat into execution, by forthwith instructing his
action—
confused and stammering fue in the practice of the
celebrated new dance " La Galopade," by a vigo-
rous application of a stout horsewhip to the shoulder
of the dancer; who after displaying great agility
in a few nimble pirouettes, effected his providential
escape amidst the cheers of an audience that was
neither select nor numerous. The cool and busi-
ness-like manner in which the Londoner accom-
plished his object, will be inferred from his meeting
his old acquaintance, of whom we spoke in the ,

The proceedings of the Inner Temple
Benchers, and their tendency to narrow the al-
ready too close monopoly of the Bar, by the vir-
tual exclusion of attorneys and other practi-
tioners below it, are not lost sight of.
The sense of the grievous state of the law is
daily increasing, and these subjects, it is declared,
cannot wait the uncertain results from which
hitherto scarcely anything but mischievous pal.
liation have resulted.
Nothing that is worth the cost has yet ema-
nated. The interests of certain high function-
aries are so interwoven with the continuance of
the fees adverted to, that it can scarcely be ex-
pected that any Commissioners, who have views
M
of promotion, should attack them.
The Managers of the City of London Lite-
rary and Scientific Institution, on hearing of the
intention to convene meetings on the above sub-
jects, have declared that they will give gra-
tuitously the use of the rooms of the Institution
forany meetings which have for their object law
reform.

The new road from Quinton to Hanslope,
Forest, made under the direction of the
Cm
of Woods and Forests, was on Friday week
tt°hbrro°wumgnill'sin
open to
tso the public.--Leicester Herald.

A jet black sparrow was shot a few days since
by a gentleurin of Fisherton. Two white partridges, shot
en •
Tuesday by Mr. SERGEANT, of Norman Court, have
been preserved by Mr. EDWARDS, of Amesbury.—Chel-
tenham Chronicle.