55i
London Legal Letter. with the fact and be encouraged to employ them. These women lawyers could see their clients and have unrestricted interviews face to face with them, free from the pres ence of third persons. This plan is now be ing urged in their country by a Miss Sorabji, who is herself not only an Indian woman but a lawyer. She is the peer of any English or American woman so far as intelligence and education are concerned. She holds a Bachelor of Civil Laws degree from Oxford University, and after considerable training in a solicitor's office in London has practised for seven years in India. She has recently written a long article in The Times to lay the case of her Indian sisters before the world, and her story has been supplemented by the narration of actual experiences by eminent local Indian judges, or rather local English judges in India, for all judges of the High Court in India are appointed from the Eng lish bar. The excellent results which have attended the agitation in favor of the general employment of female physicians among the Indian women, who by reason of their caste cannot be treated by male doctors, gives en couragement to believe that a like success will be achieved by female lawyers in India. This is a matter which has an additional interest to Americans from the fact that it will doubtless be brought about under the auspices and patronage of Lady Curzon, who, while the wife of the Viceroy of India, is a womanly American woman. Master Macdonell, from whose interest ing compilations for his annual reports on the. Civil Judiciary statistic extracts have more than once appeared in these columns, has recently contributed an interesting paper to the current number of The Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, on the number and the pay of judges in different countries. It is unfortunate that the statistics from America are so meagre. In an ex
planatory foot-note he explains that he has been unable to obtain other informa tion from the United States than that fur nished in the Register of the Department of Justice at Washington, which gives the num ber of Federal judges, including those of the District of Columbia, as one hundred and thirty-four. The summary of Master Macdonell's investigation is so interesting that I set it out in full, as follows : Number of Judges per 100,000 of estimated population. Un Un salaried Total Salaried salaried Total 0.86 53-70 54.56 17,248 - ■7.5*4 1.76 11 1.29 5.009 2.49 108.80 17-35 8.0111.05 19.06 754 '1,300 40 226 1.67 7.76 9-43 20.16 7.803 20.16 14-63 13-79 8,720 ■2,365 11.37 27.21 38.58 709 6.53 7-i7 13.70 371 1,404 7.83 56.08 63.91 . — — 2.80 9.70 27.87 37-57 1,428 1.9*5 _ _ _ _ 0.70 -
NUMIIEK OP JlTDGRS. COUNTRY. Salaried 276 76 11a 4,54" Belgium 546 186 7.803 8,186 2.658 Netherlands Italy . . 3.645 33S ■7* 3.'8o 497 Switierland : Federal Court. 23 CantondeVaud 164 Scotland
It is not, I trust, too much to hope that some student in America of sociology or jurisprudence will supplement Master Mac donell's work so far as the United States is concerned, and compile a list of all of the judges in the various States with informa tion as to their pay. Master Macdonell clas sifies the judges as paid and unpaid, a distinction which is without a difference in the United States but which is very marked in this country. Except the High Court judges, who sit to try criminals at assize, and at the Central Criminal Court in Lon don, there have until comparatively recent years been no paid magistrates in England. Even to this day nearly all of the magis trates, outside of a few of the large towns, who, at quarter sessions, try felonies as well as misdemeanors, are gentlemen who sit for the honor of the position, and who have no fee or reward except the added dignity they
