London Legal Letter.
335
LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London, June 5, 1891. HP HE past winter and spring have been rather .*- more eventful than usual for lawyers in Lon don. Unquestionably the most prominent inci dent was the agitation which led to the retirement of Mr. Justice Stephen. Some months ago one or two public appearances of the learned judge pro duced the impression, rightly or wrongly, that ad vancing years and failing health had impaired his great powers; articles and letters appeared in many of the leading newspapers, and questions were asked in Parliament on the subject. After the matter had been ventilated for some time in this manner, a reaction set in in favor of the judge. The public began to feel that too much had perhaps been made of one or two not very well authenti cated instances; and just as the question was quietly dropping out of public notice, Sir James Stephen placed his resignation in the hands of the Lord Chancellor. This step was met with very general approval; every one felt that without pro nouncing on the merits of the particular case, it was of the utmost importance that no shadow of doubt should exist as to the efficiency of the judi cial bench. It was a pathetic scene when the re tiring judge bade adieu to the bench and the bar, more solito, in the court of the Lord Chief Justice. Sir James Fitzjames Stephen's name will always be inseparably associated with the jurispru dence of crime, his works being as widely known in America as in England. Although an eminent and laborious judge, he never quite attained a repu tation on the bench equal to the fame he had so justly won in other spheres. The vacancy thus caused was filled up by the appointment of a com paratively young Queen's Counsel, Mr. Henry Collins, who had built up an immense reputation as a lawyer, and I believe was regarded by the judges of the Court of Appeal as one of the weightiest legal debaters who appeared before them. His practice to a very large extent con sisted of local government cases. Considerable interest has been excited by the proposal to revive the Guildhall sittings. Perhaps a word of explanation here is necessary. In the old days, — that is to say, some ten years ago, — prior to the consolidation of the different courts, when the common law judges dispensed justice in
Westminster Hall, after the end of the various legal terms, several of their number held sittings at the Guildhall in the city, where mercantile causes were disposed of. This was very convenient for city men, whose business occupations are sadly interfered with by the dreary delays of litigation, and who prized very highly a tribunal at their own doors. All this came to an end when the High Court of Justice was opened at Temple Bar, when the Legislature hoped finally to centralize the ad ministration of the law. Experience, however, has shown that the new system caused a great leakage of legal work; merchants and traders in the city developed a rapidly growing preference for having their disputes dealt with by arbitration in some chambers near their offices, to the lengthy processes of the law at the Central High Court. To prevent this state of affairs, and to meet an ad mitted want, two judges are for the future to be sent down from time to time to sit at the Guildhall and dispose of city causes very much as of old. Lawyers are already hoping that this revival of the old system may restore in large measure the com mercial work which was once their most lucrative source of income. Our most eminent legal author, Sir Frederick Pollock, has set his hand to a very great and important enterprise. He has undertaken the editorship of " The Revised Reports," being a republication of the reports of cases in the English Courts of Common Law and Equity from the year 1785, omitting such cases and parts of cases as are considered to be no longer of practical value. It is estimated that there are six hundred and twenty-seven volumes of old reports which will thus be subjected to revision, and that the valu able residuum will be comprised in fifty volumes. In his prospectus Sir Frederick Pollock says : "The undertaking of ' The Revised Reports ' is intended to give effect to a desire which has been felt and expressed in our profession from the time of Bacon downwards. It is proposed to republish the old Reports of our Superior Courts of Com mon Law and Equity, which are modern enough to be still of frequent practical utility, reducing them to a manageable bulk and cost by the omis sion of obsolete and unimportant matter. We do not pretend that the need of occasional reference
