Courts of Justice within the City and Liberty of Westminster. Seventeen Courts in the City of London. General and Quarter Sessions of the Peace, held by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, eight times a year. Petty Sessions for small Offences, &c. held at the Mansion House by the Lord Mayor and one Al-Daily, in the derman; and at Guildhall by two Aldermen in ro tation. Coroners' Court of the Court of the Quarter Westminster Court. forenoon. To inquire into the causes of sudden deaths, when they arise. Held within the verge of the City by a Steward, appointed by the Constable of the Tower, before whom are tried actions of Debt, Trespasses, and Covenants. A supreme Court of Record, held in Somerset Place, for deciding by the Chancellor of said Duchy, all matters of Law or Equity belonging to the County Palatine of Lancaster. A Court of Record, held by the Justices of the City and Liberty of Westminster, four times a year, at the Guildhall, Westminster, for all Trespasses, Petty Larcenies, and other small Offences, committed within the City and Liberty. Or Court Leet, held by the Dean of Westminster, or his Steward, for choosing parochial Officers, preventing and removing Nuisances, &c. Courts of Justice within the City and Liberty of Westminster. Court of Expense of the Administration of Justice. Held by Commissioners, being respectable House- Court of Re- (Held in the same manner, and for the same purposes; street, Picca dilly. Petty Ses- Police Court A Court of petty Sessions, held by two Magistrates every day (Sunday expected,) morning and evening, for matters of Police, and various Offences, and Misdemeanors, &c. A Court of Petty Sessions established by Act of Parliament, held every morning and evening (Sunday excepted,) by two Magistrates, for matters of Police and various Offences, Misdemeanors, &c. Besides these courts in London and Westminster, there are no fewer than twenty-two courts more in that part of the metropolis situated in the county of Middlesex and the borough of Southwark. The following is a summary statement of the total number of courts of justice in the metropolis, and the number of officers attached to each court. 9 Supreme Courts; to which are attached 270 officers Expense of the Administration of Justice. To this account may be added the following, and we shall have the total number of professional men in the metropolis: King's Serjeants, Attorney and Solicitor Ge neral, and King's Advocate.... Serjeants at Law Doctors at Law 8 14 14 25 10 400 50 50 40 Attorneys at Law in the different Courts.... 1,900 Clerks, Assistants, and others, estimated at 3,700 131 Total about 6,342 This then is the state of the profession in London. From "Clarke's Law List," it appears there are in the country, including England and Wales, 3280 attorneys and conveyancers who have taken out certificates. The number of clerks and assistants attached to country attorneys, cannot be estimated at much less than near 7000; so that the number of persons in the country in the legal department is 10,280; and if we add 6342 for persons of a similar description in the metropolis, we have a total of 16,622 persons, whose sole employment is to render the laws intelligible, and justice attainable to the people in England and Wales. This estimate we are persuaded is a great deal below the truth; many attorneys in town employ more than twenty clerks, and the majority of them employ three or four. Perhaps it would not be too much to estimate the total number of counsel, attorneys, clerks, assistants, &c. in England and Wales, at twenty thousand. In this enumeration is not included the judges in the different courts, justices of peace, the sheriffs, nor any portion of the magistracy, whose office it is to administer justice, and who employ an innumerable number of clerks and assistants. The classes we have mentioned, form only that branch of the profession who owe their origin in a great measure to defects in our legal system. It was the duty of the legislature to render the laws so clear, and the form of proceeding so simple, that any person of common understanding would be able to understand the one and pursue the other, without the assistance of either counsel or attorney. Expense of the Administration of Justice. Instead, however, of simplicity and intelligibility, obscurity and perplexity appear to have been the objects; and the government, as Mr. Bentham remarks, in pouring forth LAW, has been raining down SNARES among the people. It is impossible to give a correct estimate of the immense sums drawn out of the pockets of the people by this rapacious profession. Mr. COLQUHOUN, we have seen, considers £7,600,000 as the total income of the legal classes; this sum divided among 20,000 persons, the supposed number in the profession, would make the average annual income of each individual £330. This, according to the data of the same authority, is more than treble the average incomes of the dissenting clergy, the fariningclasses, and retail tradesmen. However, this can be only considered an approximation. In our List of Places we gave an account of the emoluments and incomes of the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Chancellor, the Judges, and several other wellknown individuals; but the incomes of the profession generally, of counsellors, special pleaders, conveyancers, and attorneys, are so various that it is impossible to fix on any average amount. The late Sir Samuel Romilly, it is creditably reported, netted £15,000 annually from his professional avocations. There are other counsel who probably make ten or twelve thousand a year; others, a half, a third, a fourth, or twentieth part of that sum; and others, again, who make nothing. In the incomes of attorneys there are similar diversities. Some few in London, we believe, make ten or eleven thousand pounds a year; a great many more about three or four thousand pounds; and some poor practitioners who do not clear more than £100 a year. Their clerks experience the same variety of fortune. Some are starving on a paltry £50; others living comfortably on £200; and others riotously on a £500 salary. The salaries of the judges are well known; and for a more particular account of the value of offices in the King's Bench and Court of Chancery, we must refer the reader to what we have said on Chief Justice Abbot and Lord Eldon. The emoluments of the law officers of the crown are enormous, and their salaries have been nearly doubled within these few years. It is related of the twelve judges, that at the time sixteen journeymen boot-closers were committed to Newgate for a conspiracy to raise their wages, they were sitting in their chambers in Clifford's Inn conspiring to raise their own salaries, in consequence of the rise of the necessaries of life. This anecdote reminds us of the fable of the Wolf and the Shepherd. A wolf, says Plutarch, happening to put his head into a hut, where some Expense of the Administration of Justice. shepherds were regaling on a leg of mutton, exclaimed "Ah! what a clamour you would have raised had you caught me at such a banquet." The conduct of the judges would be something similar; they would declaim very eloquently on the evils of combination when committed by workmen, though it might be done by themselves with impunity. Having stated all the facts on which we could depend as to the number and incomes of the legal classes, we shall now speak of the delay and expense attendant on proceedings in courts of justice. MAGNA CHARTA says, that justice should neither be denied, sold, nor delayed. Sir Francis Burdett, in his late speech on parliamentary reform, justly remarked, that it would be better to tax bread than proceedings in a court of justice. With the single exception of guarding the country from foreign aggression, the only object for which governments were instituted, is the administration of justice. It is to attain this end that all taxes and contributions from the people were originally intended. They were not meant to support useless placemen and pensioners, nor to maintain standing armies, nor to defray the interests of debts contracted in unnecessary wars; but to protect every individual in the community from oppression. Justice ought not only to be speedy, but, above all things, cheap. To render the expense of legal process exorbitant, is not delaying, it is abso lutely denying justice to all but the rich it is affording the protection of the law to those who are least liable to injustice, and denying it those most exposed to oppression. In England justice is not only shamefully delayed, but from its dearness in many cases, wholly unattainable. According to the present practice in the Court of Chancery, six years probably elapse before a cause is finally decided. The immense amount of property belonging to suitors, whose causes have not been decided in that court, almost exceeds belief. In the year 1756 the amount of suitors' effects fell short of three millions; in 1818, they had accumulated to nearly thirty-four millions. The following statement exhibits the progressive increase of the effects of chancery suitors from the year 1756 to the year 1818 : In the year 1756 the total amount of suitors' effects was In the year 1766 the total amount In the year 1776 the total amount In the year 1786 the total amount In the year 1796 the total amount In the year 1806 the total amount In the year 1816 the total amount £2,864,975 16 1 * Speech of Mr. Tayler on Delays in Chancery, 3d of May, 1819. |