such a supposition as we have now been putting may not be founded in fact. Let there be some effective system of fiscal control put in operation, and we are confident it will soon appear that there was most ample reason for the change.

But we have passed by the Common Law Courts. Here we have about 100 more fee-takers, taking for the public use (for this money goes in great part into the public exchequer) about 150,000l. a-year. What check is there on them? Positively none whatever. Money brought is taken by the Treasury without question. Audit of accounts is undreamt of.

That there should be either a public receiver of fees, or some law fee stamp, as in Ireland, to secure the faithful transmission of all fees taken to the judicial exchequer, admits of no question. The character of the Court and its officers, and the pecuniary interest of the suitor also require it. If the present shameful poll-tax system is to be continued, and the poor suitor is still to pay as much of the unjust burthen as the rich one, then the Irish plan is, we think, the best; but if any more equitable principle of assessment is to be made, and suits are to pay in proportion to the property at stake, then of course the plan of a law fee stamp will not do, and there must be some well devised system established of a receiver of fees, and accurate accounts duly audited.

The Irish mode of collection is grounded on the 1 & 2 Geo. 4. c. 112. Stamps denominated Law Fund Stamps, are furnished from the Stamp Office to proper officers as retailers or distributors; and by means of these stamps of course the receipt by the public of the whole tax paid by the suitor is secured. It would appear that the officers themselves, till lately, had been allowed to sell these stamps, and that evils had arisen probably similar to those arising from the copy money charge in the offices of the English Masters in Chancery, for by an Act of the last session (7 & 8 Vict. c. 107.) this was abolished.

If, however, any system of impost, fair as between suits for rich stakes and suits for poor ones is to be adopted, the plan of the Lunacy Per Centage Tax will, we conceive, be found to indicate the mode in which it is to be collected.

The Accountant-General's office will afford a ready machine for realising the greater part of it.

Any full investigation of this matter would lead to a minute inquiry, as to what fees are still allowed to be taken: for instance, why in the Court of Chancery the head registrar is still allowed to take a poundage of 5 per cent on all deposits paid to him. Why the Accountant-General allows his clerks to take fees, and also allows the Stamp Office to pay them a fee on every legacy discharged through the Court of Chancery. Why the large fees to private use still taken at the Public office are continued; and why the judges' secretaries, &c. are still allowed to be remunerated by fees. The whole bankruptcy fee-taking system (which we have not even alluded to), with the diverse, and in many respects objectionable methods of paying the official assignee, would also have to be looked fully into.

We have felt it important to abstract from other branches the fiscal branch of procedure, and to submit it to detached examination, because the chief difficulty in the reform we are here contemplating, as indeed in most other amendments of legal practice, is that of perceiving evils in things to which we are habituated. Our state is by no means one of clairvoyThe perpetual closeness to the eye of an abuse makes it to be utterly overlooked. Its hourly recurrence makes us callous to its enormity. The daily life, in truth, of a lawyer is so mixed up with the forms of legal procedure, that their defects in great measure actually become his own personal bad habits; and this of course he is the last to see.

ance.

At any rate the subject is one of urgent importance. We are sure our readers will agree with us that the present system of assessing and collecting fees of court is a most disgraceful system - based on based on a principle of the grossest injustice, and carried out with a reckless want of supervision quite marvellous. To effect the reform we now contend for, our Judges (our Equity Judges at least) possess the most

1

Why this is done in the teeth of 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 94. s. 41., expressly prohibiting fees, except those mentioned, we cannot understand, though probably there is some loophole in the Act we have not been able to detect. It is not that we object to these fees in themselves, but only to them as exceptions, without adequate reason, to a salary remunerating system.

despotic power. Over the fees of court they are autocrats. All legislative powers have been deputed to them. And our readers will feel with us, that not the least surprising part of the matter is that a body of men such as that on the English bench, with integrity the admiration of the world, whose whole lives and energies are devoted to the furtherance of right, and whose ever-flowing stream of stern impartial justice is a very chief source of that spirit of honesty and fair dealing which pervades this community, should, at least apparently, have overlooked so abundant a field of oppression and fraud as the one under exploration - a field their own peculiar property-under their absolute power-lying at their very feet, and most easily cleansed.

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ART. XI.— THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM OF FRANCE.

THE general principles of jurisprudence, and among these the principles which ought to govern the judicial establishments of any country, were treated of in our last Number. The practical application of these is of still more importance than their abstract statement. It is an old maxim of the Schoolmen, "Nil theorica sine practica valet." We shall in this paper, therefore, consider some important parts of the French judicial system, with a view to ascertaining how far it is framed in accordance with the fundamental rules formerly propounded. This examination, while it will serve to point out defects and suggest amendments in the jurisprudence of our neighbours, may also tend to throw light upon the principles themselves. It is above all desirable that two great and refined nations, and such near neighbours as the English and the French should live on friendly terms, especially as their amity must be equally and mutually beneficial, and their enmity equally and mutually mischievous. But so far from any ill-feeling being engendered by a free discussion of each other's polity, there can no greater act of friendship be rendered than by each communicating its lights to the other; each will thus profit by the other's experience, and the improvement of both will be promoted. England may learn from France the great advantages of a well-regulated court of appeal, and of a provision for executing the laws by public prosecutors. France may learn from England the inestinable benefits of keeping separate the judicial and legislative functions, of remunerating judges more adequately and reducing their numbers, and generally, of removing all chances of political corruption from the neighbourhood of the Bench. We begin with referring to the heads of our former paper on Jurisprudence, as containing the principles which are about to come in question, or rather those by which we are going to try the system of France. These are the 1st, 7th, 9th, and 10th1, of the second head, or that relating to the construction of Judicial establishments. We there laid down three rules:

1 Antè, p. 10, 11.

that the Judges should be as numerous as the Bar can well furnish of able men, and as the exigences of suitors require to avoid delay; that such ample salaries should be given as to secure the services of the best men; that no judge should be capable of holding any political office, or being directly or indirectly connected either with the Government or with the Legislature of the country. These principles are plainly necessary to secure the able and the honest exercise of the judicial office; and these principles govern the judicial system of England. But they do not govern the judicial system of France, and we are about to show three great deviations from these fundamental rules. The judges are too numerous and they are ill paid; they are not excluded from the legislature; they are not only not excluded from political interference, but are obliged to take, and do take as judges a political part.

1. The functions which with us in England are committed to thirty-five judges, (allowing ten Masters in Chancery, and all the other judges to be of the number,) are in France supposed to require nearly 3000. Now if it be said that our unpaid magistrates divide with the regular professional judges the office of criminal jurisdiction, we answer, that suppose one-third or even one-half the occupation of the 3000 judges in France to be criminal judicature, there would still be 1500 judges in civil causes; while if only a fifth part of the number of our thirty-five be criminal, there would remain but twenty-eight civil judges with us, and if twelve be added for bankruptcy, only forty in all. Then suppose the extent of the country to be double, we should have the number of French judges 750 in comparison of our 40 or 50. So that at the very lowest computation they have from fifteen to twenty times more civil judges than we have. But take the actual numbers, and add three regular judges for each county, (a much greater judicial force than all our justices at Sessions), we have to compare 3000 with 250, and suppose we consider the one country as double the other, with 500. This gives a difference of six to one.1 But

1 This is in fact understated. From subsequent information obtained from unexceptionable authority, we find there are 1200 Judges in 27 Cours Royales; in Cours de premier Instances, 4200; in all, 5400.