The Conduct of Litigation in America, and the Sheriff Courts of Scotland.—The Law Times says:-" A correspondent of an American contemporary contrasts procedure in English and American Courts with reference to the settlement of causes equitably in Court. These remarks are founded upon a recent breach of promise case tried before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, in which by consent a verdict for a considerable sum was entered for the plaintiff. One thing worth noting, it is said, 'is the evident desire on the part of the counsel, not so much to succeed in the case as to bring about, in what appears to be an informal matter, a just arrangement between the parties. And another feature remarked upon is the freedom with which the Chief Justice interfered with suggestions and advice, and the readiness with which they were accepted.' On this we might say, that in some Courts the freedom of judicial suggestion is apt to prove troublesome. However, our Transatlantic friend considers this preferable to what he describes as prevailing in his own country. He writes, 'It is not an exaggeration to say that, with a few exceptions, the trial of suits in our Courts is conducted solely with a view to success at the time by any means. Evidence known to be inadmissible is offered and pressed. Propositions of law known to be untenable are presented and argued with apparent sincerity. And this is done with two motives, one to get a verdict; the other to lead the Judge into some error, so that an adverse verdict may be set aside on appeal. In addition to this, there is too often carried on a comment upon the evidence in the way of side remarks, intended to influence the jury, though not addressed openly to them. In short, the faults of pettifogging have taken too much possession of our higher Courts. For pettifogging is not confined to horse suits and justices' courts; it includes all unfair and tricky proceedings in any Court and in any case.' What America wants is obviously an infusion of the strength and independence of the English judicial bench. 'Pettifogging' would then very shortly disappear."

Our contemporary might have added that the defects of the American practice afford an instructive comment on the absence of a distinct Bar in that country. If we are to believe the statements which are often made with regard to local Courts in Scotland, in which litigious business falls too often into the hands of the less experienced or less fortunate members of the "local bar," a similar lesson might be read in the most important of the Sheriff-Courts of Scotland. We must in fairness say, however, that although the system of conducting debates before Sheriffs is said to be often little better than a farce, pettifogging is not, so far as we have heard, more common in Sheriff-Courts than in other tribunals. We believe that one of the hardships of a local judge in Scotland (we speak on the authority of statements made by many of the best of these functionaries themselves) is that the aid he derives from the procurators before them is in the majority of cases inappreciable, because

the gentlemen who are to conduct a case generally come before them unprepared, or with only the faintest idea of the nature of the points of law or fact really involved. In almost all cases of difficulty, the most laborious study is required of the judge himself, lest he should omit to notice a material fact, or overlook a precedent which the bar ought to have brought before him, but the discovery of which he knows from experience has, more probably than not, been left to himself. We are far from censuring the gentlemen who thus give our local Judges so much trouble. They have to do their work under many difficulties. They have often imperfect libraries, and have learned to be content too often with an easy reference to M'Glashan, or to an old editon of Hunter's Landlord and Tenant or Bell's Principles. More frequently they have other more important and better paid business to attend to than that of the Sheriff Court. More frequently still, they are inexperienced juniors, to whom the more harassing and less lucrative work of litigation has been committed by a successful senior partner, or even by a different firm or practitioner. The Sheriff-Courts will not be as they ought to be while this system continues as it now is. We confess we do not look for a time when the arguments there will be conducted with all the care and precision of a Supreme Court. Still we cannot but think that there is room in some of the chief local tribunals for a proper bar, set apart and trained for forensic work; and that the best way to secure this is by a complete separation of the functions of conveyancing and agency business from advocacy. We are aware that we are inculcating what is now held in some quarters to be an old-fashioned doctrine; but we appeal to the experience of Glasgow itself, where an approximate but insufficient separation of these classes of practitioners has taken place. We are well aware that in the Glasgow SheriffCourt no small forensic ability is exhibited; but there, as well as elsewhere, it is surrounded by a mass of slovenly and imperfect pleading and practice, which entails upon the judges infinite labour, and upon clients the risk of needless loss and delay. We do not think that the advice we give should be unwelcome. That advice is that young lawyers intending to practise in the more important local Courts should pass as advocates, and spend a few years in attendance in the Supreme Courts before settling in Glasgow or Dundee or Aberdeen. There is no reason why Edinburgh should have a monopoly of trained advocates: and the less so if the coming judiciary reforms are either to increase the importance of local tribunals, or, which we should prefer, to disseminate the sittings of the Court of Session more widely over the country.

Consolation for the Briefless.-Probably most young men that come to the bar-especially those who have passed their pupillage outside of the office of a practitioner-cherish the hope that, by some happy stroke of fortune, they are to spring at once into a

lucrative practice; that a turba clientium awaits their counsel, and that judges and juries will hail them as second Daniels.

But it does not require many months to dispel this illusion. Most young lawyers will recognize their own experience in the picture, as painted by a junior of the Philadelphia bar at a recent dinner to Chief-Justice Thompson. "We sit long years in solitude. Like Mariana, in the moated Grange, 'He cometh not, she said.' Day follows day, and months run into years. No tender-hearted corporation is moved by our condition; hardly an assault and battery attacks our leisure; rarely does even the shrill voice of the defendant, in an action for slander, startle the stillness of our lives; and we are often condemned to the experience of Tantalus. One sees a stream of clients pour into the office of a friend near by; another is kept in a chronic anxiety by the knocks of prosperouslooking laymen who mistake his office for another man's; while a third finds it part of his daily trial to see the most promising processions, in full march for his office, diverted from their purpose and turned aside by the wickedly enticing and wide-open doors of an envious neighbouring savings fund. Thus, sir, we seem doomed to sit solitary and alone, while our offices, like the uuhappy country of the patriotic Irishman, literally 'swarm with absentees.'

These are the times that try the souls of youthful neophytes, and require all their fortitude and philosophy-the times that frequently make wrecks of the prospects of those who cannot possess their souls in patience-who are not thoroughly in earnest. But if a young man will look the matter squarely in the face, he will discover that his is not the only unwatered fleece, nor the only candle that has been long kept under a bushel. That rare old instructor, Roger North, said: "This length of time in the approaches to practice must be endured, for what inconvenience is it when a man has once firmly dedicated his whole life to the law. If any good fortune invites to any step forwarder-then he is to embrace the opportunity; if not, he cannot be secure of moderate success in the profession but by entering by proper means, and not per saltum, leaping over bridge and ditch to come at it. An egg may have more than its natural heat, but will hatch or be addled; therefore, let the motions be rather phlegmatic than mercurial, for 'tis a true saying, 'soon ripe soon rotten.'

It is very true that there have been some lawyers who have sprung into great practice at a bound, but the story of their early years will show that they were prepared for their success-that they were not without their viginti annorum lucubrationes. Erskine, Mansfield and Hardwicke rose rapidly through patronage or extraordinary ability and culture; but the great body of successful lawyers in every age and in every country have won their way to success through years of patient toil.

Thurlow attended the bar several years unnoticed and unknown; Lord Grantley is said to have toiled through the routine of circuit,

"I

and daily attendance at Westminster for many years without a brief; Eldon made his way very slowly, "rising at five in the morning, and studying at night with a wet towel round his head; not, like Porson, to allay fever, but to prevent drowsiness." did not go the circuit one year," he afterward said, "because I could not afford it. I had borrowed of my brother for several circuits without getting adequate remuneration, and I had determined to quit London because I could not afford to stay in it." Dunning got nothing for some years after his call to the bar. Kenyon rose gradually through the general impression entertained at the bar of the extent of his legal knowledge; but this impression, it is said, was nearly twelve years in reaching the brief-bestowing branch of the profession. Lord Camden went the western circuit for ten or twelve years without success, and at length resolved on trying one circuit more, and then retiring from the profession. He got a brief at last and prospered. The biographers of Choate and Webster tell us that so disheartened were they at their early want of success that each contemplated leaving the profession for some more lucrative business. It is not always true, then, that men destined to achieve success have a consciousness of their coming greatness or patience to "bide their time."-Albany Law Journal.

General Council of Procurators in Scotland.-Diets for examination of applicants for admission as Procurators were held by the Examiners of the General Council, within the Faculty Rooms, George's Square, Glasgow, on the 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th and 31st days of Jannary last, and 1st, 3d, 4th, 5th and 6th days of February current. The following applicants were found duly qualified for admission, viz. :-Messrs. William Howie, and James Gibson, Ayrshire; Thomas S. Miller and Evan George Mackenzie, Banffshire; Thomas B. Anderson and James B. Dinwiddie, Dumfriesshire; Alexander Burnet, Elginshire; A. M. Watson, J. T. Sawers, and Alexander Agnew, Forfarshire; J. F. Edwards, Haddingtonshire; James S. Young, William Strang, A. F. Halley, Andrew Henderson, Donald M'Phee, John Downie, J. D. M'Caig, and John Hay, Lanarkshire; Robert M. Kippen, William Young, James M'Laren, jr., Thomas Soutar, William Alexander and Isaac Henry Anderson, Perthshire; David D. Brown, Peeblesshire; Thomas H. Kirk, W. G. Hume Gunion, and A. H. Aiton, Renfrewshire; Peter M'Intyre, Stirlingshire; and F. S. Fairbairn, Selkirkshire. Messrs. John Hampton, jun., Aberdeenshire; Robert M. Kippen, Patrick Stirling M'Lean, and Isaac Henry Anderson, Perthshire; and David Tweedley, jun., Renfrewshire, passed their examination in General Knowledge.

Erratum.-On page 109, line 27, after "therefore," insert "starboarded his vessel's helm to keep clear of the other vessel."

Obituary.

THE RIGHT HON. STEPHEN LUSHINGTON.

THE late RIGHT HON. STEPHEN LUSHINGTON, D.C.L., late Judge of the High Court of Admiralty, died on Sunday last, Jan. 19, at his residence, Ockham Park, Ripley, Surrey. He was the second son of the late Sir Stephen Lushington, Bart., by Hester, daughter of John Boldero, Esq., of Aspeden Hall, Hertfordshire, and was born in London, 14th Jan. 1782. He was educated at Eton, and proceeded thence to Oxford, where he became a Fellow of All Souls' College. He graduated B.A. in 1802; M.A. 1806; B.C.L. in 1807, and D.C.L. in 1808. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1806, and was subsequently admitted an advocate in Doctors' Commons. In 1828, Dr. Lushington was appointed Judge of the Consistory Court, and in 1838 he was transferred to the High Court of Admiralty, from which he retired in 1867. He was for many years Chancellor of the dioceses of London and Rochester; and also official to the Archdeacon, and Commissary of Westminster, Essex, and Hertfordshire, and of the deaneries of Essex and Barking. He was made a Privy Councillor on his elevation to the judgeship of the Admiralty Court, and during the twenty-nine or thirty years that he presided over that Court, his judgments have formed the leading precedents in Admiralty law. He was a Liberal in politics, and an early strenuous and able advocate of reform. At an early age he was returned to Parliament for the borough of Ilchester, which he represented till 1826, when he was elected for Tregony. In 1830-31, he sat for Winchelsea, and from 1832 till 1841, he was one of the representatives of the Tower Hamlets.

Dr. Lushington was one of the counsel with Lords Brougham and Denman, in the defence of Queen Caroline. From 1820 to 1841 he was prominent in many of the chief questions of Parliamentary politics.

Speaking of Dr. Lushington's Parliamentary career, the author of Random Recollections of the House of Commons, writing about forty years ago, says: "He is a man of distingushed talents. If he has no pretensions to genius, or if he seldom delights his audience by anything brilliant or original, he never fails to put the most obvious arguments in favour of the view he takes of a subject in the clearest light. His speeches are always argumentative and forcible. I know of few members who deal less in general declamation." In 1839 the future judges of the Admiralty Court were disqualified from sitting in the House of Commons, and three years later Dr. Lushington retired from political life.

Dr. Lushington did his judicial duty with assiduity and conspicuous ability. He was called upon to decide some important points during the Crimean War; and but lately he delivered an elabor