ordinary education; and yet a judge and an abbé have given it to the world.

The two most interesting passages in the book are the account of Napoleon's delight at the war breaking out in 1792, when he said that ideas passed through his mind which he dared not communicate lest he should be supposed a madman; and his answer, when First Consul, to the Municipal Council of Montpelier, who voted a monument to his father's memory, buried in the church of that town. All had been arranged, the sculpture, the inscription, summoning the deceased to rise from the tomb by the words, " Son fils t'élêve à l'immortalité ;" and the "respect, love, and devotion" of the inhabitants were testified through the Minister of the Interior, when the Consul answered, with his wonted good sense, "Don't let us interrupt the rest of the dead; leave their ashes in peace. I have also lost my grandfather and my great grandfather. Why is nothing to be done for them?" He added, that had his father died the other day it would have been different: "Mais il y a vingt ans ; cet évènement est étrangé au public; n'en parlons plus."

Lord J. Russell's publication of T. Moore's Letters and Diary has been made the subject of severe, and, as it seems to us, exaggerated censure. No one has doubted the purity of the motive which induced him to undertake the office of Editor. It was an act of kindness towards the destitute widow, and in performance of a promise given to her husband. The principal objection to his taking upon him the office, is that he had no time to perform its duties; but we have not heard it alleged that he has suffered more than one or two things to appear which could give pain, or in any way do harm; and nothing can be more handsome than the reparation which he made, without the least hesitation or reserve, in the only instance in which his inadvertence has been complained of. A great deal must have been suppressed, probably full as much as he could withhold, unless he entirely neglected the interest of the widow; and it must be recollected that had the publication been entrusted to other hands, the same delicacy would in all likelihood not have been shown, or the same discretion exercised. That Moore suffers, and suffers much by

the publication is certain; but he bound his editor by a promise; and perhaps the worst of the charges to which he has exposed himself, is that he collected the conversations and other anecdotes of the private society in which he lived and listened, not known to be a reporter, and then left his report to be published for the benefit of his family,-an example which has been so generally and so justly reprobated in this case, that it will not be followed by any person of an honourable mind.

ART. XIII.-COUNTY COURTS.

We believe there is hardly any difference of opinion in the community respecting the great benefits derived from the late important changes in the law, by which justice has been brought home to every man's door in the vast majority of cases. Even the very members of the Profession are fain to admit this, and only struggle against further extending the jurisdiction of local judicatures. That some extension at least is required, cannot reasonably be doubted; the only question must be as to the point to which, and the direction in which, that shall proceed. But when the judicial business of the country is in a kind of transition state, and with it the fortunes of the profession, it becomes of the greatest importance to consider how far the expense of the new system has disclosed defects which may be removed, and how far the establishment of local courts ought to affect the constitution or the proceedings of the superior tribunals. We purpose shortly to deal with both of these subjects of inquiry.

I. The manner in which the Act of 1846 was passed, the Bill going through both Houses in four weeks at the very end of a long and laborious Session, when only a few members of either House remained in town, -the weeks, namely, between 28th July and 25th August, rendered many oversights and defects almost unavoidable; and it is

too probable that the corresponding haste, not to say hurry, in making the appointments, led to the choice of some unfit persons for filling the many important offices created by the Act. But the subsequent Acts, and still more the course of proceeding under them, has been productive of further evil consequences. The experience of the first three years appears to have been thrown away; and we are now left to wonder at the anomalies which the system exhibits. A few of these shall now be recited.

1. The Secretary of State, with consent of the Treasury, is authorised by 13 & 14 Vict. c. 61., to settle the fees which shall be taken either under that or the preceding Acts; and those functionaries thought proper to appoint the same fees upon judgments by consent, as upon judgments on the hearing of the cause without a jury. This rule is absurd and unjust; it is an invitation to a defendant to take the chances of a hearing for the purpose of delay; the chances at a hearing being the absence of witnesses, the absence even of the plaintiff, the neglect on the part of the plaintiff to bring books, &c.

It also occasions an enormous waste of the time of the Court. The defendant should be invited by a diminished charge to abstain from contesting a just demand. It must not be forgotten that in many cases it is alleged by Attorneys to be cheaper to proceed in the Superior Courts, under the Procedure Act, than to sue in the County Court. If the scale of costs shall be published authorised by the Act 15 & 16 Vict. c. 54. s. 1., and the amount of these fees shall be added to the present costs, the expenses of County Courts to suitors will be intolerable. There is really nothing which those interested in the useful operation of the County Courts can regard with greater apprehension, than the publication of the new scale of costs without an alteration in the present rules for charging fees.

2. An inquiry is certainly necessary, in order to ascertain the disproportionate amount of costs at present charged in different districts. For example:

That is, 5,9671. more was recovered in circuit 4. in the year 1851, than in circuit 31., and yet there is only 47. difference in the amount of the costs! The High Bailiffs' fees in circuit 4. were 9067., and in circuit 31. were 9227., showing that the milage in the two districts was about the same, and therefore the difference of the costs is not to be ascribed to any difference in the extent of the two circuits.

The High Bailiffs' fees in circuit 13. were 1,555l., and in circuit 25. they were 1,4527., showing the milage to be most in the district in which the costs are, nevertheless, the least. In the Greenwich district even, circuit 48., the amount of monies for which judgment was given was 21,0017., and the costs were 4,280., bearing a fair proportion to the costs of circuit 13., and proving a disproportion of the costs in circuit 25.

3. Another point deserving of notice is the disproportionate number of causes heard in some Courts to that in other Courts.

4. The necessity of the officers employed ought to be carefully examined. The bailiffs' fees form a great proportion of the whole sums thus levied, between one-fourth and one-fifth; and of these fees those of the high bailiffs, in serving process, could probably be saved by making service through the Post Office.

5. The treasurers are a body of some twenty persons, whose salaries and travelling expenses exceed 20,0001. a year, some of them having as much as 7007. or 800%, one gentleman charging two shillings a mile because he travels in his own carriage. It is believed, that by arrangements with the Stamp Office similar to those which have effected considerable saving in the Bankruptcy Courts, the greater part, if not the whole, of this expense might be saved.

6. But the great evil is, the payment of such officers as are absolutely necessary by fees levied on the suitors. On this crying abuse-this abdication of its office by the Government-this refusal to protect the subject except at his own expense-this throwing upon those least able to pay it the cost of distributing justice—we have often enlarged, and shall now only state the fact as it appears in the papers before Parliament. In 1851 there were levied 272,000l. of fees, the sums recovered by judgments being 815,000%, and the sums paid into Court without judgment 100,000l. The sums sued for amounted to 1,624,000l. But it is manifest that the only sums upon which there existed the pretence of exacting fees were the 815,000l. and 100,000l., and that on the portion of the residue 709,000l. obtained by payment on suits being commenced, perhaps 500,000l., the most moderate fees should have been charged, probably were charged; namely, those on the service of the summons; so that the fees really bear the enormous, the outrageous proportion of nearer one-third than one-fourth of the sums recovered in the Courts, and one-fifth of the sums obtained either in Court or out of Court both by suit and by threat. So monstrous an abuse, when brought before Parliament by Lord Brougham early in the Session after Christmas, was admitted on all hands to be altogether intolerable: and it was universally admitted by the Government, as well as by