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and if they happen now and then to fail to make a house, as it is called, no great inconvenience, public or private, ensues. But if the House of Lords were to attempt to meet every morning at ten o'clock, and to sit on law business till five, and then on public business indefinitely longer, it is quite certain that, without some -compulsatory regulation, no House would be made at ten o'clock, and the suitors who had feed their lawyers and incurred the necessary expenses for any particular day, would be disappointed, and, we add, defrauded, by the adjournment of the House. The time of the Law-lord appointed to preside would be equally wasted, for he must sit from ten till four, waiting to see whether any extraor dinary accident should bring three peers down, and constitute the court. In order therefore to ensure the despatch of business, which no one would voluntarily attend, and to secure the suitors from the ruinous effects of adjournments, for which no peer would be individually responsible-the House of Lords resolved to compel, under a heavy penalty, the attendance, during the whole day, of a sufficient number of peers. They are chosen by ballot, to obviate any suspicion that the court could be packed for any individual cause, and their attendance is compelled for one day, and not for one case, because, the cases being of various and indefiHite lengths, the peers might be unequally subjected to this duty, to the obvious derangement of their private concerns, and even of their public occupations. Moreover, as the duration of each case would be doubtful, how was the attendance of the next set of peers to be ensured? if a case appointed for one morning should go off by compromise or early decision, how were the peers appointed for the next case to be collected? and if after a case was once begun, one of the lords, by death, or sickness, or any other uncontroulable cause of absence, was interrupted in his attendance, what was to become of the case? and how was the waste of time, the expense, and the anxiety to be repaid to the suitors? The House of Lords, therefore, has judiciously provided by a compulsatory attendance for the daily existence of the court; but the compulsatory attendance of the three nominated peers does not interfere with the voluntary attendance of any others; and if those who have been compelled to hear the beginning of a cause feel themselves inclined and able to give their attendance during its continuance, they may and ought to do so-their right and their duty to sit as judges in every cause is not impaired by their being obliged to attend one or two days in the session to constitute the court. Persons may object altogether to the constitution and practice of the appellate jurisdiction. With that question we have at present nothing to do-it affects the ancient constitution and practice of the House, and is in no wise conected with the new arrangement, which makes no kind of change in the tri

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bunal, but only ensures to the suitors that the tribunal shall exist. GAN YOH! 7* 619 gaybiss y We have thus laid before our readers incontrovertible proof of the vast increase of business which must be performed by the Lord Chancellor, an increase that the assistance of a ViceChancellor, or a Master of the Rolls, (which can apply only to one branch of his labours and that not the most urgent,) does not and cannot countervail; and we trust that our readers must be, as we ourselves most conscientiously are, convinced that the wonder ought to be, not why there is so much arrear, but that there is so little. But that which is little, when compared with what the Chancellor has done, is, we admit, too much, with regard to the interests of the public at large. It is clear from the experience of past years and the future promises to increase rather than diminish the inconvenience-it is clear that the time and strength of any one man are unequal to accomplish all that is now expected from a Lord Chancellor. It has become therefore the duty of Lord Eldon himself and of the government to consider how this evil can be remedied. Our reformers would find no difficulty separate,' they say, the judicial from the political functions of the Chancellor,'-or take away his guardianship of wards or lunatics,'-or relieve him from the cases of bankruptcy,'-or abolish his appellate jurisdiction over the ViceChancellor and the Master of the Rolls,'-or separate the bench from the woolsack,'-in short, do any thing that may lower, dismember and degrade this great office, and the reformers promise that all the evil they complain of will vanish-we verily believe it would! Let the office be shorn of its dignity and circumscribed in its authority,-let it be no longer necessary for ministers to fortify themselves with the king and with the people by their choice of a Chancellor-let that officer be no longer the keeper of the conscience of the former and the first guardian of the rights and properties of the latter-lower, in short, the scale by which Chancellors have been hitherto chosen, and we are perfectly satisfied that this new officer will have no arrear of causes nor accumulation of appeals! That respect, that confidence, which has loaded with petitions for justice the desks of Hardwicke and Thurlow, and overloaded that of Eldon, will cease to operate; and either some new authority must be constituted in the state, of rank, ability, and weight equal to those which now distinguish the Lord Chancellor, or the complaints (not of party rivals or petty practitioners, but) of the whole nation thirsting after the purest fountain of justice, will oblige us to retrace our mischievous innovations and to re-create in, if possible, his pristine authority, a Lord High Chancellor of England. nek But without essentially impairing the office, something may

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perhaps be done by simplifying processes, by curtailing pleadings, by abridging forms, by diminishing the intricacies into which obstinacy and bad faith will try to escape, and from which it is so difficult to dislodge them...

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We have lately seen a case in which the Chancellor desired to be furnished with an abstract of the proceedings to enable him to give judgment-the case was one in which the solicitors on each side might in two hours have agreed on a proper statement the abstract however sent to the Chancellor was a cart toad of papers, which actually covered the floor of his chamber and would have consumed at least a whole month of his time.

These are the real evils of the practice of the Court of Chancery, and they are such as Vice-Chancellors and Masters of the Rolls must obviously rather increase than diminish, and which the Chancellor himself (while he attends to his other duties, or perhaps even if he give his whole time to them,) cannot effectually remedy. They are connected with too many details, and branch off into too many minute considerations to be unravelled by any one man, and we therefore think that Lord Eldon has acted most wisely in advising his Majesty to institute a Commission to inquire into these matters. No commission can give to future Chancellors the solid principles of a Hardwicke, the vigorous decision of a Thurlow, or the deep learning and acute discrimination of an Eldon; but it may produce all that is wanting to make the court of Chancery as perfect in its administration as any human institution can be, namely, the simplification of those proceedings and the diminution of those expenses which occur in the earlier periods of causes, and which from their nature never meet the eye of the judge and even serve to postpone the time when the cause comes under his immediate cognizance. All that a Chancellor could do in this matter Lord Eldon has done, and the practice of hearing and deciding so much on petition and on motion has had a great tendency this way, and has been a main cause why the arrear has not been greater. These things a Commission may contribute to do-at least the experiment ought to be tried we trust that it may be successful, and we are the more anxious for this result, because, with all our respect for the elder professors of the law, and all our hopes from the younger, we confess we are not sanguine that another Eldon will be speedily found; and we are satisfied that whoever is destined (and late may it be!) to succeed him, will require all the concurrent assistance which can be given, to enable him to occupy with any degree of credit that station which Lord Eldon has already filled for more years, with greater diligence and a more established reputation, than any of his predecessors.

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