it stands; because if it should be conceded that their incidental expenses should be cut down from 800l. to 4001. a-year, and by and by some taxing-master should say to the Skinners' Company-You get 2001. and the Tunbridge tavern bill is to be the barometer, I am very much disposed to think, that the measure of meat and drink which they have meted out to themselves in their character of governors of the Tunbridge School, would upon the same principle prove that the incidental charges of the Irish Society are not beyond the same scale, under which those parties have taken 2001. for this delightful though not very useful visit. But your lordships, because tavern expenses have been too large,-and that economy would reduce those expenses to a leg-of-mutton principle, a leg of mutton and turnips (which I do not object to,— I state it seriously, but then I must say to the gentlemen, you have not acted upon that principle,)-if that is to be the whole extent of the tavern expenses to be served up, and I am to suppose that your lordships, or any one who has heard this case judicially, may say, "We are of opinion that those incidental expenses can be cut down"-I should be very glad to hear upon what principle it is to be said that those institutions which have been well administered in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred (for there is no pretence for saying that the money for the plantation has not been most strictly applied), because one item may be cut down from 500l. to 2007., and a painter shall never hang up the portrait of a man, but for the future there shall be a lower scale of those expenses; I should be glad to hear my learned friend who comes here state, that because in this single item there may have been extravagance, your lordships are immediately to extinguish the rights of both the bodies-the City of London, against whom complaint has not been made, and the Irish Society; and you are called upon by this interlocutory motion to do the same thing as if your lordships had heard the case through and been called upon to decree that the sum is too much. I will suppose the case regularly heard,—but it could not be till Sir John Campbell is heard, or till the other Societies are heard,—but I will suppose

that every thing had been regularly proved before your lordships-what decree could you make? There is not a word in this bill complaining of any other expenditure. They drop the continuance of the trust, they banish the idea of a subsisting continuing public purpose-that is left out of the bill; and I will suppose that every thing has properly passed in this debate, what other decree could your lordships make than to inquire whether the sum of 5007. or 600l. a-year was a sum too large, or whether a part of that sum in point of expense could or could not be reduced?

My Lords, it is upon these grounds, without troubling your lordships further, that I have entered upon the office, which I trust I have not done without utility, of presenting a short analysis of this case. I can only put it to both of your lordships, especially the noble lord who now presides in this Court, whether he ever heard of a motion for a Receiver,—which is in fact to do more than your lordships could do upon a hearing? I maintain that, upon a hearing, the Court would go no further than make it a question for the Master, whether those expenses were too much or too little. Yet you are now called upon to displace the governing body, the corporation of the Irish Society, upon this bare, solitary, and, I take the liberty of calling it, absurd speculation of the Skinners' Company. The whole of this system is to be overturned because a tavern bill has been incurred annually of the amount which might by persons less highly fed than the Goldsmiths and the Fishmongers, be considered extravagant; very likely they might be contented with a tavern dinner upon a reduced scale. On the part of the City I beg leave to state, that when any complaint is made to them of any thing inconsistent in the proceedings of the Irish Society, they will deal with it as governors and visitors of the Irish Society; but from the manner in which this proceeding has gone on up to the present moment of time, I hope that your lordships will dismiss with costs this tyrannical and uncalled-for attempt of the Skinners' Company, which is, without argument and without inquiry, in the fever of reform, to put an end to the Irish Society.

LORD CHANCELLOR.-We cannot proceed any further with

this to-day.

Mr. WIGRAM.-May I ask whether your lordship will go on with this to-morrow?

LORD CHANCELLOR.-Yes.

[Adjourned till to-morrow Ten o'clock.

Wednesday, 17th February, 1836.

Mr. RECORDER.-My Lords, I have also the honour to appear as counsel in this case, instructed on the part of the Corporation of London to resist the present application made to your lordships on behalf of the Skinners' Company. That application may be briefly stated to be, "that the Irish Society should pay into the Bank, to the credit of this cause, the present balance in their hands; that a Receiver should be appointed; and that the Irish Society should be restrained by injunction from further collecting and getting in the rents and profits of the said estates, or any part thereof."

My Lords, the Corporation of London claims to stand in the relation to the Irish Society of Visitors of that Society, and to be in the condition of visitors, to whom no complaint of alleged abuse has been preferred, and whose powers have not been called into action for the redress of alleged grievances, or for the removal of the members of the Irish Society, misbehaving themselves in their offices. This ground has been already preoccupied by my able and learned friend who has immediately preceded me; and in trespassing further upon the attention of the Court, I am fully aware that some apology is due from myself. I am quite confident that the principles upon which the decision of this question must ultimately proceed, and the historical details in which the original formation of the Irish Society, and its subsequent transactions, are involved, have been fully drawn to the attention of the Court, and in a manner to leave little, if any thing, to desire or hope for from those advocates who may be under the disadvantage

of following the learned counsel who have hitherto claimed and possessed the attention of the Court. But I trust, my Lords, that I shall stand excused to the Court in trespassing still further, but shortly, upon its attention. The peculiar relation in which the Corporation of London stand to the Society; the public trusts which that Society, under the visitatorial power of the Corporation, is called upon to administer, require that the officer of that Corporation should not, by his entire silence, appear to discountenance the observations which have been so ably made by those who have preceded him, or to abandon the case when, in their character as visitors, they are called upon peculiarly to administer to the utmost of their ability the trust which the Crown reposed in the Corporation of London.

My Lords, your lordships are aware that the Corporation of London, in the terms of the charter, elect the members of the Irish Society; that they are elected from the members of the Court of Common Council; that the Corporation of London, acting through the Court of Common Council, have the power to remove those who may misbehave themselves in their offices. The terms in which the Corporation submit that they are visitors of this Society are these:-"these defendants submit that the discretionary power as to what acts are or are not requisite to be done, in pursuance of the said charter, is vested in the said Irish Society, subject, as these defendants admit, to the superintendence and control of these defendants. That the charter of his Majesty King James the First, as also that of his Majesty King Charles the Second, give to the Corporation of London, in Common Council assembled, the power to remove at their pleasure all or any of the members of the said Irish Society, not well demeaning or behaving themselves in their offices."

My Lords, I should submit that it would be impossible to state more fully that they claim to themselves the capacity of visitors over the Irish Society. It has been held in a variety of cases, with which your lordships are familiar, that the power of removal may be said to involve every other power that can be exercised by a visitor. I shall by and by very briefly