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ART. IX. THE LAW AMENDMENT SOCIETY.

WE some Law Amendment Society" the subject of

E take some blame to ourselves for not having ere this

special notice. Our omission to do so was in the first place designed; inasmuch as it seemed expedient that a society aiming at ends of no limited compass, and of boundless importance to the jurisprudential interests of all civilized nations, should be put to the test of time and actual experience in its working, ere any fitting or safe judgment could be passed upon it. If it failed (as many certainly prognosticated it would), its promoters would have deserved, besides the expression of mere pity at their failure, some degree of censure for the magnitude of an enterprise they had no adequate power to work and to sustain, inasmuch as to fail therein would have seriously impeded other and better efforts for the same good objects. A notice which should have been too premature to anticipate either failure or success with any sufficient certainty, would have done no good, and might, had it said anything, have done mischief; either by exciting undue expectations in the public mind, and thus heightening the ill effects of disappointment; or on the other, by discouraging the germs of success with such faint praise as incipient efforts, in the infancy of the experiment, could alone have warranted. The interests at stake were too catholic and important to admit of other feelings being thrown into the scale.

The Society has now far outlived its probationary noviciate. "It is," in the words of its last Report, "no longer a speculation.". It has grown into a degree of efficient and acknowledged utility, such as render praise a public duty rather than a mere act of justice; and though we have long since accorded our humble meed of approval to its labours, we have deferred any detailed notice of them, until we were enabled to attest and fortify our opinion by the best of all proofs of success; namely, the actual fruits the Society has brought to bear.

Before doing this, let us briefly set forth what are the objects and sphere of operation which the Society has prescribed to itself:

Its purpose, to use the terms of its Report, is to collect and diffuse all information which can tend to the simplification and improvement of the Law-to suggest the means by which, it believes, that the administration of justice may be rendered less

dilatory, less expensive, and less uncertain-to add to the value and security of real property, by facilitating its transfer—to aid personal rights, and to defend from personal wrong. Thus when a subject is suggested, being approved for discussion by the council, and investigated by a committee, it is debated in general meeting of the whole Society. It is designed that nothing be done hastily, without publicity, or without opportunity for deliberation. The result has been the printing of reports on many most important subjects, of which several have attracted the attention of the legislature, and some have become the foundation of legislative enactment. It is on this faculty of suggestion that the Society affirms that it mainly relies for its success-petimusque damusque vicissim; it asks hints, not from the learned only, but from all who suppose they see an evil with its remedy or improvement. On these hints they work, and present the results to those who hold such station as may render them effective.

Thus, therefore, the results of individual reflection and experience are gathered in and sifted and made of practical utility by the collective judgment of the whole body.

We apprehend that a better system of reaping, winnowing and harvesting the scattered fruits of a practical science could not be devised, and it reflects infinite credit on the skill and discretion of its originators. It appears to us to have been attended already by a very encouraging amount of success.

We are glad to find the Court of Chancery has especially engaged the attention of the Society, and has, in their estimation, "the unenviable pre-eminence of suggesting itself to popular opinion as the first object of Law Reform," whilst there is another and a "higher tribunal well entitled to dispute its precedence-the High Court of Parliament—not in its political, but in its legislative, capacity-not in any question of the purity of its intentions, but in respect of its incapacity to convey those intentions in reasonable language."

"The Court of Chancery (well observes the Report), inaccessible to the poor, vexatious to the rich, dilatory and expensive to all, with a theory almost perfect in its equities, with a practice almost unequalled in its imperfections, was almost, as of course, the first to receive their attention. That any private Society should have attempted to grapple with this monster evil may be held as no inconsiderable degree of presumption. Royal and parliamentary commissions have failed; new rules and orders, and again new rules and orders, framed with all the skill, experience, diligence and astuteness which judicial talent and integrity of purpose could bring to their consideration, have not

yet produced the desired certainty of practice, the desired speed of procedure, the much-desired cheapness of relief. And yet the Society hopes to succeed, because in addition to competent knowledge they have members who bring to the work of renovation minds unfettered by ancient habit; not working in a groove, worn deep by continual use; minds in which respect has not become veneration; new minds, active in discovering the sources of evil, though as yet immature for the suggestion of remedy."

The modest "hopes" of the Society that it will succeed, have been already crowned with practical proofs of its utility. Here is a list of the actual effects produced by it in this one branch of its labours, which, for greater clearness, we have thus tabularised :

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9. Insurance of titles. Dec. 2nd, 1846 .. Considered by the Conveyancing and

Registration Commissioners, but not for the present adopted. 1st Report, ut supra. This plan has been attempted to be carried out by several private companies, none of which, however, has had the sanction of the Society, or of any of its members.

10. General map of the April 28th, 1847.. The adoption of a map, in connection lands of England and

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with a register of deeds, has been recommended by the Conveyancing and Registration Commissioners. 1st Report, ut supra.

The recommendations contained in these Reports have been adopted by the committee of the House of Commons on Agricultural Customs (Report printed 3rd July, 1848,) and a bill founded on this Report has twice passed the House of Commons.

This appears to us fully to warrant the praise we have awarded to this painstaking and useful Society, and on which alone they may safely base their appeal to "the public for a larger measure of co-operation and support."

As some inaccuracy as to the time at which the Society was founded has occurred, it may be proper to mention that its first meeting was held on the 4th of January, 1844.

It appears to be peculiarly important that all lawyers and statesmen, who feel that they can add any kind of aid to the objects of the Society, should at once join its ranks. Whatever may be meritorious in their views and suggestions will derive form and strength from its collective power of modelling and making known. Whatever is crude and impracticable will, after due consideration, be extinguished, with perhaps as much benefit to the author as to the public.

We shall in another article complete our summary of the actual results of the Society's labours, and also offer some additional comments on the probabilities and capacities of its future and still more extended utility.

ART. X.-THE PAPAL AGGRESSION.

The Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster and the new Hierarchy. By George Bowyer, Esq., D. C. L. Fourth Edition. London; Ridgway.

An Appeal to the Reason and Good Feeling of the English People on the Subject of the Catholic Hierarchy. By Cardinal Wiseman. London: Richardson. The Queen or the Pope? By Samuel Warren, Esq., F. R. S. Third Edition. Edinburgh and London: Wm. Blackwood and Sons.

The Roman Documents relating to the new Hierarchy, with an Argument. By Authority. By George Bowyer, Esq., D. C. L. London: Ridgway. 1851.

NEITHER the calm and dignified tone of Cardinal Wise

man's masterly Appeal, nor the philosophic temper and legal acumen which Dr. Bowyer brings to the rescue, in this great struggle, must divert us from the paramount duty of upholding Protestantism against a movement as malevolent to its interests and perilous to its ascendancy as ever assailed it since the Reformation. And although we are bound to treat first of the fragment in the question which affects the legality of the Papal Letter, we must guard ourselves from the possible inference that we attach primary moment to that most secondary issue. The great consideration for England is, how it can best grapple with an openly avowed and craftily organised scheme for restoring the minds of the people to the yoke of Rome, and for overthrowing the freedom which was reared on its downfal; and how we may best defeat this new Propagandism of a creed obnoxious to the reason and feeling of a vast majority of the people of these realms. We need scarcely say, that into the respective merits of the two creeds we enter not. Suffice it for our argument that we have still a Protestant people and a Protestant constitution.

It is comparatively a small matter, that Rome should usurp at least the semblance of a territorial jurisdiction to which it has no tittle of right,-or even that it should encompass the country with an ecclesiastical net work of mimic Hierarchies,-were it not for the doctrinal teaching and spiritual power of which these things are the medium, and which, if we err not, they will prove most powerful means of furthering. In the first place, the new system supplies that prestige which the Roman Catholic faith has not hitherto possessed in England. Cardinal Wiseman and Dr. Bowyer affirm its position to have been legally that of Dissent. To a great extent it has. It had long ceased to be the religion of the chief magistrate, nor had it retained the temporalities which belong to its natural character

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