The Genesis of the Long Vacation. ing that period the wheels of litigation prac tically ceased to revolve. But the causes that produced the old episcopal dispensations and the Statute of Westminster the Second were still at work; and the anomalous privi lege of the Long Vacation could not stand before them. Under the Judicature Act of 1873, — which gave legislative embodiment to the recommendations of the Judicature Commission, — the division of the legal year into terms was abolished so far as the ad ministration of justice was concerned, and it was provided that the High Court of Justice and the Court of Appeals and the Judges thereof respectively, should have power to sit and act, " at any time and at any place, for the transaction of any part of the business of such courts respectively, or for the discharge of any duty which, by any Act of Parliament or otherwise, is required to be discharged during or after term." The Rules of the Supreme Court, 1883, continued the work which the Judicature Act had begun. The holy season of haytime and harvesttide had lasted from Midsummer to Michael mas; the Rules of 1883 provided that the Long Vacation should commence on the loth August, and terminate on the 24th October, — limits which were soon afterwards altered by Order in Council to the i3th of August and the 23d October respectively. Again the Long Vacation had been, at first in fact, and always in theory, a real and entire Re
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cess; the rules provided for the constant presence in town of vacation judges " for the hearing in London or Middlesex during vaca tion of all such application as may require to be immediately or promptly heard." Such, in brief outline, has been the exter nal and legislative history of the Long Vaca tion. Its inner life has undergone not less radical change. There can be no doubt that Dickens's brilliant picture of the annual exo dus of lawyers from the captivity of Coke and Blackstone to France, Switzerland, Italy, and other lands of promise, was true and faithful when it came from the great master's pen. But its resemblance to actual legal life is fast fading, and it will erelong possess literary and antiquarian interest alone. In spite of the advent of the Long Vacation, the activities of the County Courts are not permanently arrested; the Vacation Judges remain in town; preparations for the com mencement and renewal of litigation in the coming legal year go ceaselessly on; the revising barristers hover about their cham bers, and make ready for holding their Re gistration Courts; crime, and the efforts of society to cope with it, buying and selling, marrying and giving in marriage, contribute their quota to the annually increasing volume 6f vacation work, and whole squadrons of the junior bar, forsaking the delights of continen tal travel — now stay at home and divide the spoils. — The Irish Law Times.
