The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1833-06-25 00:00:00

THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.

clause is entrusted to the management of Mr. STANLEY,
who seems to monopolize in his own person the offices of
Chancellor of the Exchequer, Colonial Secretary, and
Secretary for Ireland. Why was Mr. LYTTLETON not.
charged with the duty more especially belonging to his
office, and for the non-discharge of which he is in the
receipt of a handsome salary ? Does be stand in awe of
,his friend Mr. O'CONNELL; or has he some qualms as to
the propriety of rashly identifying himself with the pre-
sent measures ? These scruples bespeak a sensitive
mind, which calculates chances, and has a presentiment
of events. But the right honourable Secretary need be
under no apprehension. The danger is more remote
than it was a fortnight ago, and his coronet is secured.
The present manoeuvre is quite in keeping with the po-
licy of the Whigs. The Minister who originates a bill
is seldom permitted to carry it. Lord GODERICEI was
removed in order to get rid of the precocious Lord
HOWICK, and Mr. STANLEY was called in to complete
what they in their wisdom, or rather in their ignorance,
had commenced. For the same reason, perhaps, Lord
ALTitonP gives way to his more impetuous colleague,
and poor Mr. LYTTLETON is- told to stand by, like the
dog in the play, and look on. Look on, .but be silent,
Mr. LYTTLETON !

It is expected, and we hope the ,expectation will be
realized, that Lord BROUGHAM'S bill for the establish-
ment of local courts will either be pulled to pieces or
die a natural death in its transit through the Upper
House. The people who use' the whip, as well as the
people who are whipped and driven in the "march of in-
tellect," are passionately fond of pompous words, and like
the Mandingo slaves, will endure any burthens, provided
they are allowed to listen and dance occasionally to their
native music. The pompous and delusive title of the
LORD CHANCELLOR'S bill is music of this kind. It is
called a bill to bring cheap justice to the poor man's door,
and hence it is extolled by the nine hundred and ninety
nine of the multitude, who know nothing at all about it,
and who imagine it to be fraught with every blessing
simply because it emanates from one of the most seduc-
tive and successful quacks of the present day.
A greater delusion than this bill, or one calculated to
do more harm, or become a greater nuisance to the mid-
dle classes of society, never was attempted to be palmed
upon the public. By this bill all actions for debt where
the claim does not exceed £2o—and all actions for da-
mages in which these are not laid higher than the above
sum, are to be tried under this bill, in local courts, be-
fore six jurymen, and before Judges who are to receive
fixed salaries out of the public revenue, or perhaps out of
the poor rates. The decisions of these courts may be
appealed from to the courts of Westminster under cer-
tain limitations, and if not permitted to be appealed from,
the parties will be compelled to submit to whatever
wrong may be inflicted.

Now, supposing that these courts and their juries were
qualified to administer impartial justice, and that the
demi-judges who preside in them were as good lawyers
as are to;3be
,found in Westminster-hall, which, by the
way, is not likely to be the case, (for remember, reader,
this, too, is a Whig job,) but, assuming all this for the
sake of argument, still we contend that these courts
would give rise to endless and vexatious litigation, in
which neither party, the successful as well as the unsuc-
cessful litigant, would • consider they had obtained sub-
stantial justice. Heaven knows we have lawyers, trad-
ing lawyers, sharp and hungry lawyers, and swindling
lawyers in abundance ; but, if this bill should ever pass
into a law, we shall have a new and more numerous race
of this worst species of the human shark. At present we
have instances of rapacity daily committed by attorneys.
Actions are hourly being commenced for no other earthly
purpose than to pillage the public and put fees into the
pockets of these persons. In three cases out of four the
proceedings are instituted, not in the hope of recovering
the plaintiff's debt, but securing the costs to the attorney.
In our brief experience we have known. hundreds of in-
stances in which the lawyers' costs were the only costs
sought to be recovered, under circumstances wherein no
damages or any other costs could be recovered from the
defendant. Look at HUNT'S case the other day, against a
Liverpool and a. London newspaper. Forty shillings,
or, in other words, nominal damages, were awarded by
the jury; and forty. .shillings were far more than the full
value which HUNT should have recovered; but, in de-
fending. the two cases, paying. the sharks' costs, the fees
of court, &c. &c., it will take near two hundred and fifty
pounds to defray the expenses incurred. HUNT gained
nothing by the action—not even a morsel of reputation,
for that to him would have been something—but, on
the other hand, the honest attorney whom lie patronized
gained his costs. If HUNT were blackened before, he
certainly is not whitewashed now ; and, as for the de-
fendants, they are fleeced, while the attorney carries off
the spoil, laughing in his sleeve. . -

This we say is the present practice, and a monstrous
practice it is, which if Lord BROUGHAM would reform he
would do himself - immortal honour and the state an in-
valuable service. But the noble and learned lord is not
a reformer of this class. Lord BROUGHAM'S law is writ-
ten in the books of JEREMY the Benthamite, and is totally
inapplicable to the existing state of human :society. In
fact, his bill is calculated to increase in a tenfold degree the
evils he decries. He wishes to inundate England with cheap
law and dishonest attorneys. He wishes to build a court
in every town and hamlet, and locate a lawyer in every
street, whose neighbours are to be his clients, and, of
course, his victims. In,short, he desires to extend the
trade of litigation, to encourage actions, to multiply
writs, to make every trumpery debt, and every frivolous
dispute, and every silly quarrel, and every loose word
spoken in jest or earnest, the subject of a formal trial be-
fore six cobblers, or as many tinkers, or as many 'goat.: ,
herds, or cat skinners, and a grave judge who, questiOn-
less, will be some suckling barrister of the name of Grey,.
Russell, Brougham, Harmer, Drinkwater, Lickspittle,
or some such respectable name. This will never do, and
we implore the lords to kick out the bill with all possible
expedition.
The noble and learned lord quotes Scotland as being a
country where these local courts have been long estab-
lished—where they have worked well, and are highly
prized by the people. This is another delusion. Every
man who knows anything at all of Scotland, knows that
the Sheriff and Town Courts, to which his lordship re-
fers, are an unbearable nuisance. It is they which have
rendered the people of Scotland so litigious in their
dealings, and so much addicted to cavilling in their settle-
ments. 'ln these courts the payment of a just debt may be
resisted and parried off for almost any length of time,
provided the defendant have the means of supplying the
lawyer with the necessary costs. From the court of Sheriff
Substitute there is an appeal to that of the Sheriff Depute,
and from both to the Court of Session, and in three cases out
of five these courts are resorted to in order to shuffle off
a payment until a more convenient period shall arrive
for committing an act of bankruptcy. The local courts
of Scotland are consequently a nuisance in the worst
sense of that word, as would be the local courts contem-
plated by the LORD CHANCELLOR, for the benefit 'of the
purblind reformers of England. But they are a nuisance
in another obnoxious way, as respects Scotland. They
have called into existence those lawyers, proverbial fOr
their sharpness,, and not very distinguished for their.
morale, with which that country swarms to-an intolerable
redundancy. Name a man with whom it is dangerous:in'
reside in the same county nearer than ten miles, and you
must name a Scotch attorney. There are many men of
high reputation and undoubted honour amongst them ;
but in general they are pettifoggers of the worst
.class,
who literally prey upon the poor. These men practise
almost exclusively in
.the local- courts, so unboundedly
praised by Lord BROUGHAM, which_ is a proof that his
lordship either knows nothing of the subject, or has. been
imposed upon. From such courts Peers of England
defend us 1.

On Tuesday last, the members of the True Blue and Conser-
vative Club for the Western Division of the county of Glonces-
ter, dined together at the New Passage -Inn, Colonel Granne in
the chair, supported by Dr. Cooke, Mr. Alderman Daniel, and
Colonel Masters. The company was so numerousthat the room
in which the meetings of the Club are usually held (wherein
about 80 persons can assemble) was found Wholly inadequate to
the necessary accommodation on thisoccasion, and many gen-
tlemen were theretbre obliged to content themselves with dining
in another part of the house.---Fe/i.v Farlgy's Brs:.tol Journal.