1826.] [ 27 ] 



CHANCERY. 



A WORD on the Chancery — We are no Lawyers ; but not for that are 

 we to be barred of our riglit of inquiry. Of tliis all-griping court the 

 evils are confessed, enormous, desperate, almost " past man's cunning." 

 It is the deep and acknowledged interest, immediate or possible, of 

 every individual in the kingdom, above the condition of a pauper, to 

 contribute to their removal. LaAvyers alone are thought equal to the 

 task : but from them relief must be hopeless, and from equity' lawyers 

 the expectation of it is, besides, absurd. We say not this invidiously : 

 they live and fatten on the spoils of the victims, and will not, of course, 

 cut away the drop beneath the feet of themselves and their successors. 

 Let them not affect the improbable suicide. Nothing short of thorough 

 changes in the very constitution of the court will work any satisfactory 

 benefit ; and nothing but petty and unavailing modifications can we an- 

 ticipate from lawyers ; modifications — conceded, at first, to blind, or 

 perhaps to conciliate, but only, afterwards, to be querulously depre- 

 ciated or peremptorily scouted. Effectual remedy must come Ironi 

 other quarters — it must come from the public itself; they, and they 

 alone, can enforce the changes for wliich thousands groan. But in 

 spite of all that has been written and spoken, the public, generally, are 

 profoundly ignorant on the subject ; the whole business of equity ap- 

 pears to them enveloped in the thickest cfouds of professional obscurity. 

 Particulars, fresh and fresh, must be supplied ; general discussions 

 fail of making adequate impression — such discussions are, besides, pre- 

 mature. Information more complete, more minute, more tangible, is 

 demanded ; reiterated, persevering exposure is indispensable to awaken 

 any thing like potential interest. To aid and accelerate this exposure 

 is a leading object with us, and we have a confident hope of being able 

 to dart a few rays of light into the den of Cacus. 



Let it be allowed, that the main cause of the intolerable delays of this 

 interminable court is at.ributable to multiplicity and incumbrance of 

 business. Is this incumbrance irreducible? Much of it, we affirm, 

 might be reduced by a little division of labour — much of it might be 

 removed by converting equity into law — and more, by rejecting all 

 cases that can be legally heard elsewhere. 



Of the procrastinating causes, which spring from the machinery and 

 mystery of the court itself, few will make any inquiry, and fewer still 

 will listen to the necessary detail. With these we have no concern : 

 we leave them to the analogous sagacity of the common lawyer to 

 detect, or to the apostate and the briefless of their own courts to 

 betraj^ But there are others more obvious and intelligible, which may 

 bring home to the conviction of every reader of a paper or a magazine 

 the necessity, and, at the same time, the easy possibility of reform. 

 The court has as yet sat a very short period this season : but, short as 

 that period has been, it has already presented several cases that at 

 once will justify our affirmations and illustrate our views. We will 

 refer to three of them. 



1. Moore v. Fitzgibbon. This was a case arising out of a divorce. 

 Two children, born before the divorce was accomplished, were given 

 by the mother to the adulterer. Moore is the legal parent — Fitzgibbon 

 the reputed natural one. The natural father seeks, by settling a sum 

 of money on the children, to make them wards of chancer^', and thui 



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