46 Lord Brough&m's T^ocal Courts. Q.TAN. 



but at a higher cost to say nothing of compensation-pensions was the 

 fruit of the last session, with we know not how many projects, under the 

 same auspices, for fresh offices. Among them was another equity 

 judge a creation of registrars' places for younglings at the bar an 

 extension of jurisdiction for bankrupt commissions from forty to eighty 

 miles of town, implying of course an addition in numbers or emolu- 

 ments bankrupt commissions in provincial towns, at the will of the 

 chancellor more commissions, at the will again, of the chancellor, for 

 the examination of witnesses; and now from the new chancellor him- 

 self, the crowning blessing for this lawyer-ridden country a whole 

 regiment of new judges to preside over new courts in every county town 

 of the kingdom. Whig or Tory, no matter, lawyers are all alike ; ex- 

 tension of professional employment, at least in the higher departments of 

 the law, is the one absorbing object that fills the heads and hearts of 

 every man among them. 



No matter, neither, how contradictory or incompatible the tendencies 

 of these reforms for they are all reforms they create office ; in that 

 they all agree ; there, there is no discrepancy. Good-natured souls, who 

 are ready to confide on the virtues of all who lay claim to virtues, give 

 the proposers credit for meaning all they profess ; and the blame of in- 

 congruous and clashing institutions, if blame be cast any where, is 

 thrown upon those who have had nothing to do with the matter. Here 

 are a half hundred new courts going to be instituted, the object of which, 

 it is said, is to relieve the upper courts, and that just as three of the most 

 expensive class of judges have been added to these very courts, and just as 

 more schemes are on the anvil for facilitating and abridging their labours. 

 Here are a set of stationary courts, or courts confined to one unvarying 

 circuit, just as the Welsh judges have been gotten rid of, expressly 

 because they were attached to the same circuit, and so, liable to form 

 slippery connections. Just, again, as arrests for debt are on the point 

 of being abandoned, because the power of arrest gives encouragement 

 to credit, these courts, in the expectation and avowed design of the 

 author, are to accelerate the process of recovering debts, and by that 

 means, so far, encourage the destructive system of credit. 



But what is the especial, or, more to the purpose, what is the alleged 

 ground for the proposed change ? The overburdenings of the superior 

 courts. What advantages are specifically aimed at and looked for ? 

 Despatch a saving of time and money cheap justice, and justice at 

 your own doors. Well, but these are good things. Thousands are said 

 to abandon their rights through the dread of asserting them. Thousands 

 submit to wrong, because the remedy is worse than the disease. In the 

 recovery of debts, good money is often thrown after bad ; and valuable 

 time is lost in the pursuit of inadequate satisfaction. Therefore, if Lord 

 Brougham facilitates redress saves time and money and secures a 

 remedy for grievances not now to be attained, he is a benefactor and a 

 reformer in the best sense, and we hail such a measure with joy and 

 gratitude. Very well, but let us not be precipitate ; to talk and do are 

 two things, one of which all the world knows the Chancellor can do 

 admirably, but unhappily that is no better than a shadow, if we can 

 imagine such a thing out of the regions of diablerie, that has no cor- 

 responding substance. Let us cast a calm, but it must be a brief, look 

 at the evil and the remedy. The evil is an excess of business, and the 

 expense and delay occasioned by attendance on the central courts of 



