1831.] The New Rules of Cotnmon Imw Pruclice. I7I 



a lucid speech (his only one !) on the same subject, and true, too, that 

 Sir Edward Sugden said ditto to Mr. Spence, with great emphasis ; 

 but there it stops : neither lord nor commoner can be induced to lay 

 their shoulders in earnest to the wheel of the ponderous machine, and 

 try in earnest to draw it out of the mire in which it is enswamped. 



The practice of the courts of common law has been not less noto- 

 riously defective and inconvenient, but it has been less loudly com- 

 plained of. The reason of this, among other less obvious, is, that the 

 stakes played for in that court are much less in amount, the interests 

 more concentrated, the delays not to be compared with those in Chan- 

 cery (and quick injustice is, in nine cases out of the hundred, preferable 

 to tardy justice), the costs trifling in the comparison, and folks cannot 

 be dragged into the courts of common law,, by whole families, almost 

 whole parishes, as they may be with Chancery. Still it is only by 

 means of such a comparison that any excuse can be found for the 

 glaring absurdity and injustice of the modes of practice in the courts 

 of common law ; and, in short, in every department of the admi- 

 nistration of civil justice — from the privy council, where enormous 

 expense is incurred by parties in order to obtain decisions, by judges 

 for the most part wholly incompetent to the duties they venture to 

 take upon themselves — down to the wretched farce which is per- 

 mitted to mock the common sense of the metropolis, under the 

 name of the IMarshalsea Court, and which is several degrees below 

 the Pie-powder Court of Bartleray Fair — the whole system is one 

 of abuse and vexation and disappointment, rendered trebly intolerable 

 by reason of the burthensorae expense which is inflicted upon the 

 suitors. 



In such a state of things it becomes us indeed to be thankful even for 

 " small mercies." The commissioners to inquire into and suggest im- 

 provements in the common law courts, wlio annually cost, and for years 

 past have cost, the country sevei'al thousands of pounds (while the real 

 property commissioners cost at least as much more), have made their 

 reports ; Sir James Scarlett brought in a bill, in the last session of par- 

 liament, checking some of the more glaring wickednesses of the system, 

 and at length the judges of tlie common law courts, acting under one 

 of the provisions of that statute, have published a set of general rules 

 for ameliorating and rendering something more reasonable and some- 

 thing less costly, that hocus-pocus, the practice of which has been too 

 long encouraged. It is true these amendments do not go very far, 

 certainly not far enough by many, many degrees • yet, still in the hope 

 that it may be the commencement of that reform which is so loudly 

 called for, and which it requires nothing but the sincere inclination of 

 the judges to effect, we are willing to receive it with as good a welcome 

 as we can afford — better even than, in itself, it deserves. 



We proceed to detail the purport and object of these reformers, of 

 which the first relates to the subject of hail. Every one knows, at least 

 every one whom it concerns,, knows that no greater abuse exists than that 

 by which it is permitted to swindlers and knaves of all kinds, to hire 

 other knaves to become their bail, and to stave off, at great expense and 

 risk, the demands of their creditors. Hundreds of Jews in this metro- 

 polis make a subsistence, such as it is, by swearing in courts of justice, 

 " for a consideration," that they are housekeepers ; when they have not 

 perhaps a place in which they can lay their heads at night, and that 



