which there is no appeal-on all points of nursery practice. Next comes the guardian in socage-so called, perhaps, from the quaint notion that guardianship generally extends to those who wear socs-or socks-which is further borne out by the fact that guardianship in socage ceases when the child is fourteen years old-which is about the age when socks are relinquished in favour of stockings. These guardians in socage are such as cannot inherit an estate to which a child is entitled, for Coke says that to commit the custody of an infant to him who is next in succession, is "quasi agnum committere lupo," to hand over the lamb to the wolf, and thus says Fortescue, in one of those rascally puns for which the old jurists were infamous, "the law, wishing the child to escape from the lupo has left a loop-hole to enable him to do so." Selden has cleared this pun of a good deal of its ambiguity by changing the word lupo into loop-ho, but Chitty and all the later writers are utterly silent regarding it. By the 12th of Charles II. confirmed by 1st Victoria, any father may appoint, by will, a guardian to his child till the latter is twenty-one; but it is twenty to one whether such a guardian-called a testamentary guardian-will be able to exercise proper control over the infant. Guardians in chivalry have been abolished, and so have the guardians of the night, who on the lucus a non lucendo principle, were called watchmen from the fact of their never watching. The Lord Chancellor is the general guardian of all infants, and especially of idiots and lunatics, for as Chancery drives people mad, it is only right that Chancery should take care of those who are afflicted with insanity, and who may be called the natural offspring of equity. Having disposed of the guardians, let us come to the wards, or, as Coke would say, having got rid of the wolf, let us discuss the lamb in an amicable spirit." A male of twelve years of age may take the oath of allegiance; but this does not apply to all males, for the Hounslow mail* can take nothing but two insides and the letters. At fourteen a boy may marry if he can find any one fool enough to have him, and at twenty-one he may dispose of his property, so that he may throw himself away seven years sooner than he can throw away his money. By the law of England a girl may be given in marriage at seven, but surely this must mean the hour of the day at which she may be married, and not the age at which the ceremony may be performed. Formerly children might make their wills at fourteen, but as they could not be expected to have a will of their own, it has been enacted that no will made by a person under twenty-one shall be valid. Among the Greeks and Romans, women were never of age, and if they had their way in this country a good many of them never would be. This law must have been the civil law, for its consideration towards the fair sex on a matter of so much delicacy as a question of age betokens extreme civility. When this wore away, the Roman law was so civil as to regard them as infants till they were five-and-twenty which was meeting the ladies half-way by treating them as little innocents for the first quarter of a century of their precious existences. Infants have various privileges, such as the common law privilege of jumping over the posts at the corners of the streets, and playing at hop-scotch or rounders in retired neighbourhoods. Another infantine privilege is the juvenile amusement of going to law, which a child may do by his guardian or his prochein ami, or next friend-though, by the bye, he must be a pretty friend who would help another into a law-suit. A child may certainly be hanged at fourteen, and certainly may not be hanged at seven, but the intermediate period is one of doubt whether the infant culprit is hangable. Hale gives two instances of juvenile executions in which two infant prodigies were the principal characters. One was a girl of thirteen, who was burned for killing her mistress; and the other a boy still younger, who, after murdering one of his companions by a severe hiding, proceeded to hide himself and was declared in legal language, doli capar-up to snuff-or, to follow the Norman jurists, en haut du tabac, and hanged accordingly. It is a fine maxim of the English law, that an infant shall not lose by laches, or, in other words, that the stern old doctrine of no askee no havee does not apply to a child who is entitled to something which he neglects asking for. An infant cannot bind himself, but he may be "stitched in a neat wrapper "that is to say, a Tweedish wrapper-at his own cost, if he thinks proper to go and pay ready money for it. An infant cannot convey away his own estate, but he may run through his own property as fast as he likes, for if he has a field he may run across it-in at one end and out at the other-whenever he feels disposed for it. An infant trustee may convey an estate that he holds in trust for another person, though he may not be a party in a conveyance on his own account, yet he may, neverthless, join a party in a public conveyance, such as an omnibus. An infant may present a clerk to the Bishop, but if the Bishop don't like the clerk, he may turn upon his heel; but still the presentation does not fall by lapse into the laps of the Bishop. An infant may bind himself for necessaries, such as food and physic; thus, if he gives a draft to pay for a pill, or contracts with a butcher to supply what is requisite and meet, he will be clearly liable. In weighing the disabilities and privileges of infants, we come to the conclusion, that, to every six of one, there will be about half-a-dozen of the other. OF PLEADING. THE pleadings, though now in writing, were formerly carried on by word of mouth, and the parties used to meet to talk each other down with declarations and pleas, until the court, by giving its opinion, put a stop to the quarrel. He who could jaw the longest, had of course the best chance under the old system. The pleadings begin with declaration, anciently called the tale, though it was by no means like the tale of Othello, a round, unvarnished one." By the way, as a round tale could come to no definite end, the law is perhaps right in disregarding such a tale, as savouring of rigmarole. The declaration sets forth the plaintiff's grievances in a most exaggerated style; and in making his complaint he lays it on alarmingly thick, in conformity with the old maxim, that some is sure to stick when such a plan is resorted to. He, in fact, twists the matter into every possible shape, like the ingenious individual who attends fairs and races, professing to fold "a single sheet of paper into six-andtwenty different forms.' After the declaration comes the plea, in which the defendant sometimes simply gives the lie to the plaintiff, and at other times the latter shuffles and prevaricates to such an extent that the former is completely flabbergasted. The facts of the case then become so thoroughly mystified, that they are lost sight of altogether, and the whole matter becomes a question of law, when the parties themselves, no longer understanding their own dispute, give the thing up to the lawyers, who fritter away the real cause of contention in demurrers and nice points, that are only nice to those who get nice pickings out of them. Pleas are of two kinds: dilatory pleas, and pleas to the action. Dilatory pleas, like the order on board a steam-packet, to "Ease her," are only to make the action slower. Such pleas are soon answered, and the other party can "go on a-head" with the action immediately afterwards. Dilatory pleas are-1st. To the jurisdiction. As, if the Court of Requests should propose to try a right of way, then its jurisdiction might be denied by a plea, unless it was a right of way through the mob, which usually chokes up the path to its own fountain of justice, the commissioner's seat on the mantel piece. 2nd. To the disability of the plaintiff. As, if he should be an infant, or a monk, or an outlaw, or all three at once, he is said to be disabled from coming into court; but a disabled soldier, who has lost his limbs, is not thought unfit to go into legal action, though when he comes into court he may not have a leg to stand upon. 3rd. In abatement. As, if the plaintiff should die, though he may have had a good action, his good actions do not live after him, but must, as Shakespeare says be "interred with his bones." A plea to the action either gives the plaintiff the lie direct, by denying his declaration, or prevaricates, by confessing that there was some truth in it at one time, but that the grievance has been somehow or other atoned for. This is called confession and avoidance; but the avoidance of a just claim too frequently predominates. A flat denial is called the general issue, though to say what the issue will be is generally quite impossible. or Special pleas in bar are very numerous; and one of these is the plea of justification, Sarve him right," as one of the old jurists humorously term it. Son assault demesne, is also a plea in bar, meaning that the plaintiff began the assault; so that the defendant may put his black eye into the pleadings against the plaintiff's swelled nose, and if the blackness of the defendant's eye is older than the swelling of plaintiff's nose, and if the nose can be shown to have been the consequence of the eye, then, says Stephen, the eye will get the aye, and the nose the noes, from the jurymen who will have to give the verdict." Another plea in bar is the statute of limitations, to prevent actions being brought except within certain periods; "for if there were no limit to the time," says Spelman, we should have the name of the Wandering Jew continually in the paper, as plaintiff in the courts at Westminster." OF THE TRIAL BY JURY. IT is difficult to get the British bosom into a sufficiently tranquil state to discuss this great subject; for every Englishman's heart will begin bounding like a tremendous bonse, at the bare mention of trial by jury. This splendid palladium of our rights and umbrella of our liberties has sheltered us according to some since the time of Woden, but as it is very doubtful whether twelve honest men could be got together in those primæval, or, as Mr. Selden calls them, prime evil days, we must date the invention of trial by jury at a later period. The trial by jury is of course a subject that every true born Briton with a quarter of a pint of Saxon blood in his veins is prepared to revel in; but as the imagination starts wildly off, reason whispers ease herstop her," and feeling our ardour checked we proceed to give a common sense account of what trial by jury really is or really ought to be. When A puts himself on the country and B does the like, then A and B have thrown themselves on the indulgence of a British jury box. When the jurors are called, and sworn, they may be challenged; that is to say, they may be called out of the box, by either party to whom they do not give satisfaction. The challenging being disposed .of, (if any,) and the jury sworn, which is accomplished in three quartetts, all swearing together in unison, the trial commences by the counsel's speech, which is sometimes a very great trial for those After the plea comes the replication, who are obliged to listen to it. If he can or reply, which is the plaintiff's "Yes, support his case by his evidence it is well you did," to the defendant's "No, I and good, until the other counsel makes didn't." The defendant may then rejoin, another speech and brings other testiby saying, "I tell you I didn't," when mony of an exactly opposite character. the plaintiff may put in a sur-rejoinder, This gives the first counsel a right to saying, "You may deny it as you please, reply, which causes much bewilderment but you did though for all that;" when to the jurymen, who are further puzzled the defendant may rebut, by refusing to by the summing up of the judge, the have it at any price, and the plaintiff usher's cries for silence, and the perthen winding up by way of sur-rebutter,petual talking of the briefless barristers. with "You're another; "the parties are In this condition the British jurymen at last supposed to be tired out, and to are expected to agree in their verdict, and have come to an issue. This occurs if they can't they are hurried out of court when there is something distinctly affir- and locked up in a kitchen, or perhaps a med on one side, and denied on the other, coal cellar, till they are agreed, when the divested of any of the rigmarole and twelve honest Britons are released from prevarication by which the parties are for their imprisonment. a long time kept from arriving at anything definite. There is one more plea in bar, called an estoppel, or, as "the boys" would call it, a regular stopper to the action. It arises when the plaintiff has done something or other by which he has estopped himself; as, if at backgammon one party does not take a man that he might have taken, he may be huffed, and is clearly estopped from taking after wards. It would be right down blasphemy to doubt the integrity of a British jury, and, Phinn to the drink put forth his hand, Blood drawed his knife, with accent bland: ax yer parding, Mister Phinn "I Jest drap that whisky-skin!" indeed, "trial by jury" is a popular No man high-toneder could be found THE MYSTERY OF GILGAL. [JOHN HAY, was b. Ill. 1839: educated at Brown University; admitted to the Illinois bar; and in 1861 was private secretary to President Lincoln. For a time after the assassination of the President, he served as staff officer in the army. In 1865 he was secretary of the American legation in Paris, and in 1868 in the same position in Madrid. He returned in 1870 and took an editorial position on the New York Tribune. He has published Pike County Ballads and Castilian Days.] THE darkest, strangest mystery Is 'long of a drink at Taggart's Hall- I've heern the tale a thousand ways, Tom Taggart stood behind his bar, At last come Colonel Blood of Pike, Remarked, "A whisky-skin." Tom mixed the beverage full and far, He went for his 'leven-inch bowie-knife: But I'll drap a slice of liver or two, They carved in a way that all admired, Which caused him great surprise. Then coats went off, and all went in; Like bull-pups, cheered the furse. |