232: Court of Chancery. [Sepr. 
the Solicitor, in his evidence before the Chancery Commissioners, “and 
the chief part done by the present house of my name, chiefly consists of 
proceedings in the Court of Chancery of an amicable nature ; family 
concerns, in which the circumstances I have described (alluding to cer- 
tain chicaneries practised in the court) do not exist. In these cases pro- 
ceedings may be conducted with great expedition by consent, but, I must 
add, with lamentable expense. For great estates and great fortunes, 
there is no security so good, and no trustee so safe, as the Court of 
Chancery, but to little fortunes it is ruin.” But these are all matters so 
distinct in themselves, and constituting such separate heads of jurisdic- 
tion, that even were the cognizance of the whole imposed upon one court 
they would require to be delegated to separate functionaries, and cer- 
tainly as far as the parties interested were concerned, whether all their 
various affairs and remedies were administered under separate branches 
of one court, or under courts originally distinct, would be a matter of no 
more difference, than whether the judge who presided in one had three 
tails to his wig, or in the other had four ; or if, indeed (Heaven forgive 
the blasphemy !) neither judge had any wig at all. It is certain that 
many of the American states, after having tried the effect of a consolida- 
tion of their courts of law and equity, have at length placed them upon 
a separate footing. We are, however, not sufficiently acquainted with 
the principles of their jurisprudence, to know whether this necessity has 
originated from causes common to all courts, or peculiar to their own ; 
and, as we consider experience to consist not in the mere knowledge of 
a fact, but in a concomitant acquaintance with the causes in which it 
originated, we know not whether to draw from thence any general argu- 
ment in behalf of a separation of the tribunals or not. 
It cannot, however, be denied, that the great fault of all our courts is 
a want of sufficient separation in the subjects of their jurisdiction. It is 
obvious that, in proportion as the mass of matter to be got through is 
distributed into numerous departments, will be the rapidity with which 
it is dispatched ; and it is, perhaps, the want of attention to this prin- 
ciple of distribution, which makes the Court of Chancery so utterly 
inefficient to the purposes for which it has existence. There are many 
subjects within its jurisdiction of so incongruous a nature, that they seem 
of themselves almost naturally to point to a division. Thus, for instance, 
what can be more distinct than bankruptcy, lunacy, and the custody of 
infants? Bankruptcy alone occupies about a third of the time of the 
court ; and, perhaps, lunacy about a fourth. Of petitions, in these two 
subjects alone, there were actually set down for hearing, in the three years 
1821, 1822, 1823, of lunacy, 929, and of bankruptcy 1667; and these 
are all constantly pressing upon the personal attention of the chancellor. 
Bankruptcy is certainly not very widely separated from insolvency ; and 
yet, we have a court specially devoted to this. Indeed so it may be 
said we have in bankruptcy, by those who call the meetings of the com- 
missioners in Basinghall-street a court. For ourselves, however, we 
should not be inclined to dignify it with any such title; and it may be 
sufficient to stop our readers from doing so, to inform them that, in 
addition to the fact, that the Chancellor is burthened with the original ° 
issuing of all commissions, the bulk of the bankrupt petitions which come 
into the Court of Chancery, are not in the shape of appeals from the 
decisions of the commissioners, but are original applications to the court. 
“ Out of 253 petitions,” says Mr. Cooper, ‘ that were in the Vice-Chan- 
