472 NOTES OF THE MONTH. 



incurred ; but a new career of charges is now commenced. Within a 

 few days, an appointment is made by Mr. Blather ; the parties attend 

 with their counsel and witnesses at Mr. Blather's chambers ; eacli 

 counsel gets three guineas for his trouble ; some business is done, and 

 Mr. Blather gives another appointment. The same farce is fre- 

 quently acted over and over again, at the same expense ; and by- 

 and-bye Mr. Blather makes his award, for which the parties pay 

 what he pleases. We recollect a case of reference, in which, after the 

 victims had, as it were, paid for a trial in open court, they were put 

 to the harass, delay, and cost of eleven meetings before the arbitrator ; 

 the charges of each of which to each party were about as follows : 



Attending arbitrator for appointment 068 



Attending to appoint witnesses to attend 068 



Instructions to counsel 068 



Fee to him and clerk 380 



Attending him therewith 034 



Attending appointment before arbitrator 13 4 



Coach-hire and cofiee-house expenses 10 



Total 5 14 8 



In addition to this the arbitrator was paid his demand of forty 

 guineas, for his "amicable adjustment" in the affair. In court, the 

 trial of the cause by a judge and jury, might perhaps have occupied 

 three or four hours : in the arbitrator's hands it lingered for two or 

 three months, at an expense to the parties little short of 200. So 

 much for what we trust we may venture to call the by-gone glories of 

 arbitration ! 



BEAUTIES OF " BERKELEY." A "gallant captain," on the dis- 

 cussion of the Irish Bill, supported the measures of coercion, because 

 his opinion had altered materially concerning the character of the 

 Irish people. He said, that for the last three years he had been " in- 

 nocently occupied" in the sister kingdom, with the sport of fox- 

 hunting, and such was the peaceable nature of the people, that he 

 frequently " stayed out all night ;" but from the year 1831 the noble 

 friend he visited had become unpopular, so that he could no longer 

 " stay out all night !" Such a state of things ought not to be allowed 

 to exist. 



Some tolerable arguments have been urged by Lord Althorp, Mr. 

 Stanley, and Sir Robert Peel, in favour of the absolute necessity of 

 their compulsatory enactment. They have cited murders, robberies, 

 and incendiarism : but the insecurity of " staying out all night" 

 seemed to have escaped their intelligence. Most magnanimous Nim- 

 rod ! great thanks are due to you for such an unanswerable climax to 

 the arguments of your friends. By all means, we say, let these 

 wretches be locked up in their hovels, that gentlemen in, buck-skins 

 may scour the country at night without risk of being kicked. It was 

 doubtless the heavy foot of some ignorant Irish peasant which occa- 

 sions this revulsion of feeling in the breast of this honourable " flyer 

 by night." Gibbet forthwith the unmannerly bog-trotter who would 



