discharge of, and control over, the interlocutory business of such courts; while, on the other hand, in the upper courts, this is cheaply and satisfactorily administered by the judges on summons at their chambers.

5. That such an administration of justice involves either incessant appeal, or universal vagueness and laxity of legal principle.

6. The plan is directly opposed to the rational principle of acting in reforms on the basis of established institutions, and can only be carried into effect by the dislocation and degradation of whole classes of society; classes, too, to which the deepest interests of almost every member of the community are committed, and from which the occupants of the most responsible offices must be selected.

The supposed advantages of the project are denied, or met by counterbalancing inconveniencies.

1. The theory of domestic justice proceeds on the supposition of disputes lying between neighbour and neighbour; whereas, in a commercial country like this, the large dealers have customers all over the kingdom, whom they must follow, with their witnesses, into the courts of the respective districts, and, of course, through the agency of as many local attornies.

2. The plan gives no greater frequency of trial of causes than the present two circuits in the year afford.

3. As to cost-the legislature will be in the dilemma of either giving insufficient remuneration to practitioners, from which would arise one of the worst pests of society; or, if they are allowed a sufficient remuneration, it may be asked why it should be assumed that the practitioners in the upper courts require more? For all other purposes of business, concentration is, from choice, resorted to, as both a convenience and a saving of expence. Office fees must, in order to maintain a judge and his establishment in every county in England and Wales, be on a higher scale than would be necessary to remunerate the existing town establishments for doing the duty, especially as, whether they do the duty or not, they must still be kept up. The sweeping away of the Welch courts, and transferring their business to the upper courts, did not render it necessary to give to the latter one officer more.

4. The proposed appeal to the judge of assize is objected to, as being not only necessarily exceedingly expensive and dilatory, but inadequate to the purpose; it never being expected that very sound law can be administered in the hurry of an assize. There is no doubt that even a motion in Term would cost less than a journey to an assize town for such a purpose; and an application by summons to a judge in chambers may be made at a small fraction of the expence.

The other functions of the local judge, though much extolled by the eulogists of the measure, are probably mere speculative makeweights. Arbitrations will go on quite as satisfactorily without them; there is no want of arbitrators if parties wish for them ;and the functions of a referee are both inconsistent with and noxious to the judicial character of such an officer. The courts of "Reconcilement," in the only country whose extent of dealings renders it at all parallel to this, are considered a mere jest, and deserve to be so. As to the Legacy court, no common law judge can usefully handle the majority of cases which would arise, and he would be continually in conflict with the Equity courts, which can easily be armed with a summary jurisdiction, quite as cheap, and much more efficient.

To help out the project, arguments in favour of it have been drawn from the supposed success and efficiency of an alleged parallel jurisdiction in the Sheriffs' courts of Scotland. The precedent, however, has been searchingly examined by our "Quarterly Law Magazine," and the less that is said on that head the better for the discretion of those who could venture on calling into court such evidence. A better parallel might have been found in Ireland; where those who best know what has resulted, testify that it would be far better for the country if debts were wholly irrecoverable.

If it be considered desirable to try the effect of having causes of an inferior amount tried nearer home, and before judges of a lower degree, there are means of making the experiment at small cost; preserving all the advantages of the despatch, secrecy, and cheapness of the central conduct of interlocutory business. Let the experiment be tried of reviving the county courts, by somewhat extending their jurisdiction, and giving the sheriff a competent assessor. He might make progress through the principal towns two or three times in the year, at intervals between the assizes; and, in addition to the records of his own court, he might receive and try such of the minor records of the upper courts as the parties chose to entrust to him. There would be no difficulty in fixing, from the first, a lower scale of official fees, in the upper courts, on actions for the recovery of small debts; and these would form the class of actions in what the plaintiff was entitled to try before the sheriff's assessor, when coming into the district where the parties or the witnesses lived. Any complaints as to what occurred at the trials could be summarily heard, at the smallest possible cost, y summons before a judge in town.

LETTER VI.

Nov. 1830.

In following up our view of the past, by an estimate of the probable future course and results of reform, I come next to its "Real Property" branch. We have seen that the Commissioners began by opening the whole ground in form, and showing more relish for theoretic than practical projects;-that Sir R. Peel fell in with their idea of doing nothing till their budget was complete; and that they were the first to find out that they were on the wrong scent, and to endeavour to get out of the train, which, when once announced and partially acted on, it would perhaps have been as well to have adhered to, in order that the public might have had before it a connected plan of operations.

The Commissioners are now most anxious to have the question of General Registration settled.+

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If the decision be in favour of establishing registration, there arises a new field of discussion as to its plan and extent. The Commissioners' scheme of practical details seems ingenious and accurate. But as to their principles, one is rather surprised to see them shrinking from imposing registration as an essential to the formal validity of a deed, and refusing to treat the public register as notice, yet venturing to go so far as to give preference to a registered over an unregistered deed, of which the party possessing himself of the registration had full notice. As far as my acquaintance goes, practitioners, especially in the country, consider that there should be no middle course; that registration will owe its merit to its universality; that the moral wrong which will otherwise be frequently worked, will be more hideous than any ever known in the present system; and that the object never will or can be attained if the registry be not made imperative and essential.

To proceed to the other branches of real property reform. My own conviction is, that as regards expence in the ordinary routine of conveyancing, the direct and immediate savings likely to be effected will be less than may be popularly expected. In the casual, and certainly very vexatious, heads of expence-the fines and recoveries-the miserable waste about administrations, &c.

+ The writer here enters into a discussion of some length on Registration, the policy or necessity of establishing which, in this country, he doubts. We have taken the liberty of omitting this argument, both because we differ from his conclusions, and because, before these sheets appear, the matter will probably have been fully canvassed and examined in parliament. We agree with him in one position, that, to carry the plan into full effect, ensure its adoption,, and prevent fraud and mischief, registration must be made obligatory, and essential to the validity of the instrument.-ED.

with regard to terms of years-and some other obvious nuisances of that sort, much will no doubt be lopped away. Shortening the period of limitation, and consequently the length of deduction of title, will also effect a good deal.

I will now enumerate a few among the practical points which I consider call for immediate attention; and which, being attended to, would, in my judgment, work nearly as much real good as can be expected. To these I would postpone for cooler consideration at our leisure, all the more speculative projects of the Commis

sioners.

1. The abolition of fines and recoveries (the latter of which, by-the-by, conveyancers could long ago, if they chose, have abolished for themselves, by a simple provision in every settlement).

2. Proper regulations as to passing married women's estates; and as to dower; which should attach to no lands but those of which the husband dies seised.

3. A public register and index of judgments, crown debts, &c. leaving them to expire of themselves, when of a given age, if not acted on by execution.

4. New and shortened periods of limitation of rights and actions.

5.. Some new provision as to terms, and the representations thereto;-if they are to be tolerated at all, and cannot be got rid of by some new and effectual plan of making available charges on land.

6. The establishment of a good parochial or district register of births, marriages, and deaths.

7. Facilities for examining, and taking extracts of, all matters of record, without the enormous fees now exacted.

8. A repeal of the extra duties at present laid on feoffments, and bargain and sales; so as to enable small properties to be conveyed by simple and cheap assurances.

9. A repeal of the statute requiring bargains and sales to be enrolled; with provision for properly indexing such as may be enrolled; confining them to one court, and putting the fees for enrolling, and for copies, on a cheap footing.

Having thus assisted the holders of land, it will become equally proper to assist the enforcement of adverse rights against them, by

10. An improvement in the means of enforcing executions summarily against real estates, and subjecting them in all cases to the payment of debts.

11. Improving and simplifying the remedies of a mortgagee; giving the Court of Chancery power to sell, and to grant execution for any balance still remaining due.

12. Arming the Court of Chancery generally with greater power in sales made under its direction; and in particular making the execution of conveyances by the master a sufficient title to purchasers.

LETTER VII.

Jan. 1, 1831.

My task of correspondence would have closed by taking a short survey of the state, progress, and prospects of Chancery Reform; but an interval has elapsed since my last letter, which gives a new character to the whole work. New actors are on the stage; William the Fourth, after a few months' hesitation, has thrown himself upon the reformers, and their principles are now to have full course. While the results are still uncertain, however, and before we have time to discover what operation the change will have upon the immediate subject of these letters, I shall continue such observations as occur to me on that division of the subject which I had reached.

I have already observed, that the equity courts, in their progress towards reformation, are placed in a position of great disadvantage, by the striking difference in tone and principle, between the results of the Chancery commission and those of the two other boards. The former commission has given us no landmarks; laid out no plans on which any reformer would be now satisfied to act. The public would hardly bear the expence or labour of a fresh inquiry; and yet without it, or an effectual substitute, in the superintendance of some official department, nothing can be looked for but insulated measures, originating with the heads of the court, or with persons who, starting up as amateurs, are found willing to undertake particular projects of their own.

We have seen that, of late, Equity reform has been abandon d to the head of the court. In this work Lord Lyndhurst did next to nothing. Yet it is hardly fair to apply strong language to his mode of proceeding in an arduous task bequeathed to an inexperienced judge, in addition to the usual burthens of a post too heavy, under any circumstances, for common strength to bear. The truth is, that the head of the court is not a fit select, as the originator, on his own responsibility, of effective reform, were it ever so much in his heart.

person to

1. He generally comes from another branch of the profession; and is placed nominally above judges much more conversant with the business than himself, and whose opinions, therefore, if different from his own, nullify his authority.

2. He is obliged to take a great deal,-as to details, every