1831.] Affairs in General 203 



facilities afforded to practice in the superior courts, thus at once to withdraw 

 from them two-thirds at least of their ordinary business, subjecting it to a 

 new and experimental tribunal, and superseding much of the labour derived 

 from the elaborate machinery of Westminster Hall, \yith no compensating 

 reduction in the expense of working it. 



" Although personally, after a drudgery of nearly thirty years, much with- 

 drawn from active practice, and meditating at no distant day entire secession 

 from it, I feel too much sense of gratitude, and I hope a laudable esprit da 

 corps in favour of an employment which has afforded me the means of com- 

 petence and independence ; to be altogether insensible to the degradation to 

 which the profession of an attorney will be reduced by the operation of your 

 proposed new bill, which, 1 repeat, will necessarily bring into action a large 

 class of low practitioners, who, having no fair means of adequate remunera- 

 tion, must and will resort to trick, if not to fraud, to supply the deficiency of 

 profit, no reasonable allowances for which (in keeping with the general pur- 

 view of the bill) will afford a return for the education, skill, and attention the 

 conduct of the business of the local courts will require. 



" While on this subject, it is with great regret I would allude to the tenor 

 of your speech, as reported in the Times, on the occasion of your giving notice 

 of your plan ; you in it assumed a tone of unmeasured contempt for the at- 

 tornies, imputing to them, in the aggregate, and without exception, gross 

 ignorance, and the most selfish motives, while you at the same time, in equally 

 unmeasured terms, lauded the bar as actuated by the highest, noblest, and 

 most liberal principles, with a possible exception of one in a hundred as not 

 quite perfect. 



ce Both positions, to your knowledge and mine) are equally unfounded ; for 

 while, as regards one of them, I can name a Frere, a Swain, a.Freshfield, a 

 Vizard, a Teesdale, an Amory, with scores of others of equal claim to con- 

 fidence and respect, and a fair promise of succession to them from a large body 

 of liberally educated and intelligent articled clerks, now deriving improved 

 instruction from the law-lectures at the University of London, I could, in 

 contravention of your other position, name scores of barristers influenced by 

 the most sordid motives, and seeking and promoting multiplication of fees 

 with the most heartless rapacity. 



" If I could for a moment think it possible that the Local Jurisdiction Bill 

 could pass into a law, in anything like its present shape, I should observe on 

 the preposterous amount of salary to the judge of 2000 per annum, thus 

 constituting a valuable object of ministerial patronage and borough influence, 

 like a Welch judgeship, rather than having the direct view of getting some 

 useful plodding man for the situation, as is the case in the County Palatine 

 Court at Preston, where Mr. Addison, for 400 per annum, does as much, and 

 as well, as can be expected from any county judge. 



" The total absence of qualification for the office of registrar is fraught with 

 liability to abuse ; some son or nephew of the judge will hold it in sinecure ; 

 and the duties will be performed by the clerk, who will make it pay better 

 than is in the contemplation of the act. 



" The registrar, to give knowledge, experience, and efficiency in the conduct 

 of the business, ought to be an attorney of at least five years certificated 

 standing, and strictly debarred from practising directly or indirectly. 



"The summary jurisdiction of the judge over the attorneys exceeds that of 

 the superior jurisdiction ; and the power of mulcting them is an arbitrary 

 novelty, fraught with the most mischievous consequences of subjection and 

 oppression, and only of a piece with the whole apparent scheme for degrading 

 to one uniform standard of low cunning and subserviency the great bulk of 

 country practitioners. I remain, dear Sir, c. WILLIAJI TOOKE." 



" 12, Russet Square, June 23rd, 1830." 



The last year has been unusually marked by the deaths of Sovereigns. 

 Europe has lost George the Fourth"; the King of Naples ; Pope Pius VII.: 



2 D 2 



