382 - Court of Chancery. ‘[Ocr. 
objection only under that existing harmony of evil which pervades the 
whole Court of Chancery, and, consequently, that it is capable of being 
removed by a thorough reform. But even under the present state of 
that court, the argument is more specious than sound. The court only 
decides upon written depositions, but so under the system we are advo- 
cating it might still continue to do. The evidence might originally be 
taken viva voce, with the proper securities, and the depositions be 
reduced to writing, in order to enable the judge to form upon them his 
decision. Indeed, this very reduction into writing of all testimony, is 
‘one of the securities which Mr. Bentham has propounded as necessary 
to its perfection. With respect to the objection about cost, we appre 
hend the commissioners had no data for their calculation, and we take 
leave to mistrust it altogether. Throughout every stage of a cause, the 
existing system adds prodigious lengthiness to its proceedings. The 
long rigmarole of testimony runs the gauntlet of office-copies—coun- 
sels’ briefs, et omne hoc genus rerum, while a considerable portion has to 
be waded through by the judge before he can pronounce a decision in 
the case. In every successive instance it increases the cost of each, and 
has, moreover, the additional property of consuming the time of the 
court. Mr. Parkes, in his history of the court, has a calculation of the 
mass of writing contained in the affidavits alone of fifteen causes, the 
aggregate of which amounted to the enormous quantity of six thousand 
one hundred and ninety-four folios, p. 433. Still, though so lamentably 
deficient in the greater part of its system of evidence, it has one redeem- 
ing feature, and rather than part with which, we would willingly forego 
all for which we have been contending—Thank God! there is at least 
one court in the country where a defendant cannot shelter himself from 
withholding from a fellow-citizen his right or his property, under the 
shallow absurdity that no man can be heard in his own cause. “ Vile 
maxim of technical jurisprudence,” might Mr. Bentham well exclaim, 
in reference to this atrocious absurdity, “ there is not a man, there is 
not even a judge, who. has the least regard to it, in what passes in the 
bosom of his family.”* This is, indeed, the bright feature of the court ; 
but it only serves to make the darkness more visible around it. 
The system of pleading demands renovations scarcely less than that of 
evidence. The mode of dispatching, we were going to say, but we 
prefer the term—slumbering over business in the master’s office, should 
be completely changed ; and there is not a subordinate office of the 
eourt which does not require thoroughly purging. 
The obvious modes for the infusion of new strength into its judicial 
force, are either the addition of new functionaries, or a better husbanding’ 
of the powers of the old. The requisite amount of the former will neces- 
sarily in part depend upon the extent to which the latter is carried ; 
and, in either case, the figure suggested must partake somewhat of the 
random character of speculation. Even with the command over the 
whole time of the present judges, four or five new ones might not be 
more than the purposes of dispatch require, and with the present dis- 
traction of their attention, possibly six. 4 , 
- We leave this, however, for the less conjectural ground of pointing 
out how the powers of existing functionaries. may be rendered more 
efficient. ; 
* Traité des Preuves Judiciarcs, tome i.,-p. 192.- 
