124 



of tbeir clients, of difficulties and losses in the remunera- 

 tion of witnesses. It is forcibly written, and abounds in 

 facts, strongly illustrative of the evil complained of.* 



In 1820, Mr. Frost came again before the public, in a letter 

 to Thomas Thompson, Esq., "on the propriety of equalizing 

 " the Poor Rates at Hull, by assessing the shipping, belong- 

 " ing to the port, to the relief of the Poor." This is an ably 

 argued production, on a subject highly interesting to the 

 town. It proves that the increase of the shipping of the 

 port, and especially the shipping employed in the Fisheries, 

 has materially affected the amount of the poor rate ; and 

 that it ought to be assessed proportionably with other pro- 



* Mr. Frost's pamphlet furnished to the writer of an able article in 

 the Law Magazine, for January, 1831, on Lord Brougham's Local Court 

 Bill, an opportunity of amusing his readers with a legal Jeu d" Esprit in 

 a note, (p. 13) from which the following is an extract : 



" In the Pamphleteer, of 1816, there is a sensible Pamphlet on the 

 remuneration of witnesses, by Mr. Charles Frost, attorney at law. When 

 Mr. Frost wrote, it was a moot point whether witnesses in general were 

 entitled to an allowance for loss of time \ and he seems to think that they 

 were ; quoting (among others) the case of Troilus and Cressida, reported 

 by Shakspeare, to proVe that loss of time stood upon the same footing with 

 travel and expense : 



{ Deliver Helen, and all damage else, 

 As honour, loss of time, travel, expense, 

 Wounds, friends, and what else dear that is consumed, 

 In hot digestion of this cormorant war, 

 Shall be struck (i. e. taxed) off.' 



With all due deference, however, to Mr. F.'s better judgment, we think H 

 most probable that Menelaus proceeded by habeas corpus, in which no 

 such questions could arise ; though, to be sure, he might have brought 

 detinue, beginning with summons and distress infinite, or trover, with capias 

 and attachment ; a presumption deriving plausibility from the circum- 

 stance, that Priam was eventually held liable to execution at his suit." 



