and culture of the former treatise a little more prac tical and practicable by putting it into this solution. As it now stands it is unique and entirely unrivaled, and while it does not essay to put aside books like Judge Thompson's and Mr. Austin Abbott's, it has a certain grace and wisdom of its own which will warrantably induce many to add it to those works which are more intensely and exclusively practical. It would seem absurd to suppose that any lawyer could ever be tempted to sit down and deliberately read through a treatise on Practice, but many a lawyer will find himself wishing for time to do so in this instance. Another field of usefulness which this work should speedily occupy is the law schools; we know of nothing comparable with it for the in struction of legal students.
Dickens and Doctors' Commons. — Dickens is and will long continue to be the most interesting of novelists to lawyers. Not only was the " purpose" of one of his greatest novels, " Bleak House," to expose the abuses of the Court of Chancery, but in many of his other novels the professional reader is delighted with most original, vigorous and graphic portraits of lawyers, law-clerks and suitors, and ac counts of legal proceedings. We are all familiar with, and have just been very pleasantly reminded by Mr. Frank Lockwood of the law and lawyers in " Pick wick Papers," and hardly any one of us has forgotten Sampson Brass and his sister, Sally, in * - Old Curi osity Shop," and now in "Notes from London," in the " Scottish Law Magazine " — which " Notes " by the way, are the best of this kind of thing ever pub lished in any law journal — we find a history of Doctors' Commons, with many references to " David Copperfield," and David's preceptor, Mr. Spenlow, and his " inexorable partner," Mr. Jorkins, who was never seen, but who would not abate anything from the price of articles, in spite of Mr. Spenlow's wil lingness. The writer says : — "Of all the various books I have examined I find no description of the appearance of the common hall in which the courts were held so good as that given by Dickens in ' David Copperfield,' and one can hardly have a better guide. ... It may be remembered that the firm of Spenlow & Jorkins, or Mr. Jorkins, according to Mr. Spenlow, rather thought the premium of /'iooo upon articles too moderate on the whole, and at any rate declined to accept less. But it was a good investment, no doubt. As Steerforth told David, both parties got very comfortable fees; they made a mighty snug little party, and plumed themselves greatly on their gentility; and one cannot have these ad vantages without paying for them. Dickens wrote the account I have above given in the year 1850; and though the movement for reform began in 1830, there cannot be
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a doubt that his genius gave the f1nishing blow to this legal monster, as it did to its twin brother, the Chancery. 1 fe refers to the report upon ecclesiastical abuses made in 1830, and states that he found Mr. Spenlow was right when he thought the prerogative office would last his time, which was quite sufficient for him, for nothing had then been done. . . . When Dickens wrote of Doctors' Commons the touts and messengers who then hung about its pre cincts were a notable feature of the locality; but they apparently have all disappeared too by this time." Postscriptively we may add that in our judgment there is not in all fiction a scene displaying greater power and knowledge of human nature than that in •• Our Mutual Friend," where Rogue Riderhood "wants to be took down " by barrister Wrayburn, and to make his "Alfred David." It is a fact not much dwelt upon by critics that whereas most novel ists grow weaker the more they write — witness Scott, Thackeray, George Elliott — Dickens' last completed novel was one of his strongest, and this is true of another of his later works, " A Tale of Two Cities." There was enough genius in Dickens to set up about a score of the novelists now writing.
Parties as Witnesses. — Our very young con temporary, " The West Virginia Bar," under the title, " How much is it worth?" makes the remark able and startling statement: "It is by no means certain that a step in advance was taken when wit nesses interested in the controversy were permitted to testify in civil causes." To us this seems much as if an anatomist should say that it is by no means certain that the spine is of much use in the human body. It might safely be wagered that the sentence quoted above was written by a young practitioner. The innovation on which he frowns is one of the few and commendable reforms in evidence in modern times. It admits as witnesses the only two persons who know all about the transaction in issue, and frequently the only two who know anything about it. It is highly probable that if the question of retaining the present practice should be put to a vote of the Bar, at least in the State of New York, not five per cent would vote against it. The West Virginian says : "With regard, however, to the real questions at issue, it is too often the case that there is a direct conflict between the statements of the opposing parties. These two generally balance each other and leave the court and jury where they would be if neither party testified." It may be admitted that the parties frequently disagree, but the cases in which they "balance each other" are not general, but ex tremely rare. There is almost always in the de meanor or character of the witnesses or in their narration of the facts as they respectively claim them
