of it cheap, has had a full experience in America; and greater practical curses were never inflicted on any country! *** The Pennsylvanians have done away with nearly all the technicalities of the law; there are no stamps, no special pleadings, and scarcely any one is so poor that he cannot go to law. The consequence is, a scene of litigation from morning till night; lawyers of course abound everywhere, as no village containing about 200 or 300 inhabitants, is without one or more of them. No person, be his situation or conduct in life what it may, is free from the never-ending pest of lawsuits. Servants, labourers, every one, in short, flies off, on the first occasion, of difference or misunderstanding, to the neighbouring lawyer, to commence an action. No compromise or accommodation is ever dreamt of; the law must decide everything. The lawyer's fees are fixed at a low rate; but the passion for litigating a point, increases with indulgence to such a degree, that these victims of cheap justice, or cheap law, seldom stop while they have a dollar left." Hear another witness to the same point :

*

"Litigation frequently arises here from the imaginary independence which each man has over others; to show which, on the least slip, a suit is the certain result. It is bad for the people that law is cheap, as it keeps them constantly in strife with their neighbours, and annihilates that sociality of feeling which so strongly characterises the English."

Though several attempts have been made, in late years, to re-establish in England a system so vicious, they have failed, and are not likely to be renewed; especially after

* Faux's Memorable Days in America.

the enactments of the recent statutes relating to the law of Debtor and Creditor, and of statute 3 & 4 Will. IV., c. 42, § 17—19, for the trial of issues &c. under 201. before the sheriffs. We may thus regard the existing system of administering justice throughout the kingdom, personally, by the judges of the superior courts, on the circuits, as not likely to be in any way seriously disturbed. The following practical information concerning these

CIRCUITS OF THE JUDGES,

may be useful and interesting to the reader: but it must be observed, that some alteration in them is contemplated, owing to the alleged inconvenient magnitude of one of them (i. e., the Northern Circuit). A Commission has been appointed by the Crown to enquire into this matter; but the result of their labours has been most unsatisfactory.-In what follows, therefore, the reader is to understand that we speak of the old arrangement of the circuits, as it existed immediately previously to the appointment of the Commission in question, in the spring of 1845.-There are EIGHT circuits, which commence towards the close of February, and early in July, in each year, and last, on the average, about six or seven weeks. Two judges go on each of the eight circuits, with the exception of those of North and South Wales, to each of which one judge is found sufficient. Where there are two judges, they preside simultaneously in the civil and criminal courts-but the judge who takes the civil side in one county, takes the criminal side in the next county; and so alternately throughout the circuit.*

In presiding in the Criminal Court, the Judge sits robed in scarlet and ermine, and wears a full-bottomed wig; but in the Civil Court, he wears a black silk gown, and a short wig.

There appear, by the Law List of 1844, to be 756 counsel attending the various circuits, in the following proportion :

The above list comprises a small number of provincial counsel. The NORTHERN Circuit includes Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire.-The HOME, Hertfordshire, Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.-The WESTERN, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, Cornwall, and Somersetshire. The OXFORD, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Herefordshire, Monmouthshire, and Gloucestershire.-The MIDLAND, Northamptonshire, Rutlandshire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Warwickshire.— The NORFOLK, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, and Norfolk.-The SOUTH WALES, Glamorganshire, Pembrokeshire, Cardiganshire, Carmarthenshire, Brecknockshire, Radnorshire, and Cheshire.-The NORTH WALES, Montgomeryshire, Merionethshire, Carnarvonshire, Anglesea, Denbighshire, Flintshire, and Cheshire.

The expense of attending these circuits, particularly the distant ones, is very serious; but since the increased facilities for travelling, that expense has been, of course,

much diminished. The charges for lodgings, however, are often extravagantly high. In each of the leading circuits there is a bar mess-the average cost of which, to each person, is about nine shillings per diem. It is not compulsory on the members of the circuit to dine at the mess: no one can dine there unless formally admitted: and whoever is rejected from it, is not recognised as a member of the circuit. To those who, desirous of doing so, do not succeed in obtaining employment, attendance on circuit is inexpressibly irksome and disheartening: but by patient and watchful observation of the business going on in court, is to be obtained a valuable store of professional knowledge and experience, which may at some future day repay its possessor for all the anxiety, self-denial, attention, and perseverance, bestowed upon its acquisition.

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CHAPTER XI.

DEPARTMENTS OF THE PROFESSION

I. CIVIL DEPARTMENT.

PART III.-CONVEYANCING.

In this silent but important department of the profession, is to be found a class of men discharging duties of a totally different character from any which we have hitherto considered, or shall yet have to examine. While pleaders, and counsel, whether at the Common Law, Criminal, or Equity Bar, and advocates in the Ecclesiastical Courts, are almost exclusively concerned in conducting litigation, in all its stages, whether in court, or out of court, -the Conveyancer is engaged in his tranquil vocation, far removed from the hubbub of wordy war, for the exigencies of which he has probably neither the inclination, nor, possibly, the requisite qualifications. While the former classes of practitioners are called into action “post litem motam,” the conveyancer's chief functions are being exercised "ante litem motam,"-in fashioning the weapons, and originating the occasions, of litigation, by creating those rights and liabilities, in respect of every species of property, which, in the course of events, come afterwards to be respectively disputed and enforced. How vast are the interests thus entrusted to his keeping! How much depends upon his learning, skill, and caution! How many millions of persons have had their last moments calmed by their confident reliance upon the