The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-10-13
LAW AND LAWYERS.
The Bar Of Ireland.


barrster who pleads occupies superior status
10 the attorney who gets up the case, collects
the evidence, and prepares the statement in
bTiet on which the other acts. Under no cir-
cumstauces can an attorney, however well qua.
li6ed by knowledge, experience, intellect, and
character, aspire 10 seat on the ludlclal
bench. That privilege is reserved for the bar
Tister.
To be admitted to the Irish bar, all that man
need do ls to enter his name ut Kings Inn, Dub
lin "a sort of pseudo-legal seminary, where
nothing is taught); pay fine OF six hundred
dollars; eat q lew nice dinners during eacn legal
term with his fellow-students in the Old HAIL.
at the end of two years eat an equal number S Oh
term-dinners in the halls of one of the four Inns
of Court in London, and then, without any eS-
animation, or any other test OF his capacity OF
requirements, present himself to the benches OF
the Kings Inn, in Dublin, who admit hlm forth
with to the dignity OF utter, or outer Darrlster-
at-law, which entities him to be spoken OF as
1.-The learned gentleman" for the rest oil MS lte
That he has eaten forty-eight dinners at legal
ordinary in four years is all that he need SHOW.
This knife-and-iork practice Is called keeping
his terms" OF course, great many embryo
baIristers actually employ these tour years in
the study of the law, but they need not take
that trouble, unless they desire to succeed at
the bar.
apprentice fee to the master who undertakes to
teach him the practice of the law, and has also
TO pay heavy stamp duty (seven hundred dol.
lars) on the indenture by which he is 'articled."
At the end of five years he has to present him
self before a board of examiners, with his claim
to be admitted to status of attorney y-at-law. The
examination, which lasts for several days, is
strict and searching. Many candidates fail to
pass it, and are sent back for six or twelve
months. If admitted, the young attorney has
to pay another seven hundred dollars for the
stamp on his certificate, and an annual sum of
from fifty 10 one hundred dollars for license to
practice. The baIrister may become Queens
Counsel, Sergeant-at-Law. Attorney-General,
Solicitor-General or Judge; but once an attorney,
almost always an attorney. lf he aspire to be-
come barrister he must cease to practice as an
attorney for two years before he is permitted to
commence ''eating his terms" for three years.
Yet ii is the attorney who literally instructs the
barrister, always in the facts and sometimes in
the law of each case; for it is held mira dig. in
Ireland and in England for the barrister to hold
the slightest intercourse before or during trial
with his client OF the witnesses. The attorney
gets all the required information, and hands it
over to him. The barrister's fee is only an homo
Tdriun1-a gift to which he has no legal claims
(though he usually makes point OF getting the
fee before he reads a line or utters a word for
his client, while the attorneys bill is one of the
institutions OF the country He may sue for it:
IT may be taxed, but it must be paid, aud he
may detain his clients papers until it is paid.
There are now seven hundred baIristers in
Ireland, including about one hundred and fifty
who hold various judicial and other offices, and
at least as many more who do not practice at
all Ofthe six hundred who practice, one-half'
attend the circuits-the thirty-two Irish coun-
ties being divided into five circuits, and the
assizes are held twice year in each county.
There are about sixteen hundred practlcing at
OF the barristers. Custom has divided the class
attorney into solicitors and attorneys; the
solicitors attending to equity and chamber
practice, and the attorney to nisl prius and
common law. w.t. who was asked to state
the distinction between the solicitor and the
attorney, sarcastically repled:-" The same
difference as between an alligator and a croco
Ireland rejoices in full staff of well-paid
judges. The Lord Chancellor has $4,000
year, with fees, and the chances of putting all
hIc TNnlD nftuno inNA tNni1
Unlike the English Chancellor he has no
church patronage; the appointment OF puiSne
Judges does not rest with him; whereas The
English Chancellor nominates all the judicial
officers except the Vice Chancellor the Masters
of the Roll, the Lords Justice of Appeals, the
Judge of the Admiralty, and the Chiefs of the
Courts of Queens Bench, Common Pleas, and
EXcbequer, to all Of which the Prime Minister
appoints. There is no Chancellor in Scotland.
When the Irish Chancellor resigns, which
rarely happens, except when there is a
change OF ministry, he is gently soaced with
life-pension of 100000 per annum and this
whether his stay in office has been long or
short. Thus Mr.. George Ponsonby held office
in Ireland for few months in 1906, and when
his party went out accompanied them, receiv-
ing this large pension until he died, in 1917.
Sir Edward Sugden in 1885, was Irish Chan
cellor for three months, and then resigned on
the pension. In lS4l, when the English Whig
Ministry were dead beaten" and could find no
legal sinecure for Sir John Campbell then At
torney-General, they actually compelled their
ehancellorship, pensioning him of course, and
appointed Campbell, whose duration of Office
was six weeks in time, though all his sittngs on
the bench occupied only sixteen hours, during
which he partly heard four cases. and then re-
tired, obtaining not only the pension but peer
age. He eventually became Chief Justice, and
finally Chancellor of England, dying in that
office few years ago. 1t should be added, how
ever, that any one who has been judge III any
part of the British empire never can return to
practice at the bar The pension to judge,
removed on political grounds, is TO compensate
him Tor loss of income from his practice as a
lawyer.
So much afraid has the English Government
been of having Irishmen at the head of Irish
affairs, that from December, $780, until 1889, a
period of one hundred years, no native lawyer
was appointed Chancellor in Ireland. Then
Fitzgi6bon, afterward Lord Clare man of
undoubted ability, whatever his political faults,
was the first Irishman who held that Office
Out Of fifteen ChancellOrs appointed since 1889,
the only lrishmen were Plunket, Brady, Black
burne, and Napier. AS a general rule the highest
Judge in Ireland was taken from the English
bar. But while Irish lawyers submitted to this,
English lawyers steadily and successfully re-
sisted any like application OF the same principle
In 1927, when Mr.. Canning appointed Plunket,
then the best OF Irish lawyers, and perhaps
without superior IN equity In any country, to
the judicial office OF master of the rolls in Eng
land, the English bar refused to appear before
him because he was only an Irish lawyer and
the appointment had to be Cancelled. An Irish
barrlster cannot plead, an Irish attorney can
not act in any English court of law, except
the ultimate Court of Appeal in che old coun
Try" as the Supreme Court at Washington is il
The United States, Nay, il was actually pro
posed only twelve years ago that the important
cases always tried before the Superior Judges IL
Dublin should be thenceforth tried in LondoI
than which n thn