540 Legal Monopoly. [MAY, 



the Court of Conscience. By decreasing the costs on small debts, this 

 evil would be entirely removed. Now, if the defendant in an action at 

 law be a poor man, he necessarily goes to prison, if the plaintiff be also 

 too poor to pay his attorney the extravagant costs of sixty pounds for 

 failing to recover the said debt of two or three, he may be cast 

 into prison also. Without digressing here to animadvert on so absurd a 

 system, as that which allows the useful members of a community, at the 

 will of an individual, to be thus at once thrown into disgrace and misery, 

 for an attempt to recover a just debt ; we would merely ask, if this be 

 not a law of remedy as ridiculous as it is wicked, which allows any man, 

 not excepting law officers, for bills of costs, so to prey upon his confiding 

 and industrious fellow citizen, or to reduce him to beggary, to paralyze 

 his efforts, and cast him a burthen on the state. 



Whether the resistance to a demand be righteous or malicious, it is too 

 much that the consequences of a failure on either side should admit of a 

 thirty-fold punishment, or the horrors and ruinous effects of several 

 months' incarceration. It may be that it is the plaintiff who fails to prove 

 his claim, and this happens frequently through the chicanery of the 

 attorney, who purposely neglects to inquire about the proofs of the case 

 till the chief expenses have been incurred, and omits to inform the 

 ignorant creditor that he must establish his claim by the testimony of one 

 or more witnesses. It might be, and often is, in the power of an honest 

 debtor to raise the original demand, but that has become a mere nothing 

 when legal proceedings have been commenced. Debtor or creditor may, 

 by pledging or selling his goods, be able to raise a moderate sum for 

 costs, say five or ten pounds ; or they may wring from the humanity of 

 their friends some further assistance : and these means are daily resorted 

 to. But it too often happens, that after every effort of the unfor- 

 tunate victim of exorbitant costs, he is still retained a prisoner ; he 

 cannot scrape together all, or perhaps half the enormous amount of sixty 

 pounds, and he suffers one of the severest penalties the law can inflict, 

 for attempting to recover the wages of his honest industry ! Is not this 

 law as impolitic as it is cruel ? It has become proverbial, indeed, that 

 you had better suffer wrong than go to law ! Should this be so ? Is it 

 not revolting to all notions of right and common sense ? Justice surely 

 was not entrusted with a sword to inflict destruction upon all who 

 approach her. She also holds the scales, and is blinded. Alas ! how few 

 of these abstract attributes should we award the goddess, were we to 

 characterize her from our practical experience. 



We may be reminded that there is a Marshalsea, or Palace Court, where 

 actions for sums under fifty pounds may be brought, and for one-third of 

 the cost incurred in actions commenced in the courts at Westminster Hall. 

 We answer, that we are aware, though many of our readers may not be, 

 of the existence of such a Court, and that the average bill of costs to a 

 defendant is from about sixteen to twenty pounds ; but even this sum is 

 far too large, and, as we shall shew, scandalously unnecessary, and fraught 

 with extortion. Attornies there are, and, we believe, respectable men too, 

 who are found to practice in this Court, low, comparatively speaking, as 

 the fees are, which fact affords a complete answer to those who say de- 

 creased fees would not adequately re numerate professional men for their 

 trouble; and these practitioners, however incredible it may appear, posi- 

 tively pay large sums of money to be admitted to practice there. They also 



