Personal Recollections of English Ijiw Courts. circuit, and another man who was then just beginning to be talked about, " young Webster," has now bloomed out into a majesty's attorney general, so called be cause his father, a distinguished patent law yer, was then living. And now I have come to the last name on my list, and it is a great name, though he was but a small man in the sixties, Henry James; in those days his chief hunting-ground was the Mayor's court, in which court appearing as a most industrious and pertinacious advocate, alone (/'. e, with out a leader), he acquired experience in handling witnesses, and confidence in address ing juries, and so paved his way for greater things later on. I hope I may live to see him Lord Chancellor yet. He is now Lord James of Hereford. By his wise legislation, bribery and corruption at parliamentary and municipal elections have taken' their place among the lost arts, and the old elec tioneering agents find their occupation gone. He is now seeking to disestablish and dis endow the historic money-lender. Your "old fogey " must now close his rem iniscences lest he should be called garru lous and prosy, but as even the Ingoldsby legends invariably closed with a moral, may I add a moral to the end of these notes. The secret of success in life is to be ready
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to kick the ball when it comes to your feet. Let young men who are ambitious of success at the bar, take a lesson from Lord James of Hereford, and not neglect any chance of gaining experience and confidence, even though it may come at first in the shape of small fees on county court briefs. With a more efficient Chancellor on the woolsack, we shall yet live to see the county courts take their right place as local branches of the high court, and as nurseries for rising legal talent. I will go further and say that our future judges of the high court ought to be selected mainly (perhaps not exclusively) from those who have showed their fitness for the office by some years' service on the bench of the county courts. Nowadays a man who accepts a county court judgeship is looked upon as shelved, and at best the offer is made to those who have fallen out of the running at the bar. This should not be. The best man at the bar should be encouraged to take county court judgeships in important centres, with the understanding that it is a step towards the bench of the high court. A strong judge attracts a strong bar; a strong court attracts good business, and becomes a blessing to barristers, solicitors and clients.
