436
THE GREEN BAG
his brief and 66 guineas refresher, his total fees for the sixteen days of the trial being roughly $5,750. Both sets of counsel get these fees in cash whether they win or lose their client's case. Furthermore in England the costs generally follow the event, that is the unsuccessful party pays his adversary's costs, although the trial judge has a discretion in saying who shall pay them. In Bryce v. Bryce and Pape, the unsuccessful petitioner for divorce has had to pay his own and his wife's costs and a part of the co-respondent's, the latter being required to pay all costs which were occasioned by his unsuccessful plea of connivance, which he was compelled to with draw. For costliness and prolonged hearing the divorce suit Bryce v. Bryce and Pape, con cluded yesterday before Mr. Justice Bargrave Deane, will long be remembered. From begin ning to end the case occupied sixteen days. There were engaged in it four King's Counsel and three juniors, and as the briefs of the three leading " silks " were marked 150 guineas, and there was added a 100-guinea refresher each day on each brief, the earnings of this trio of eminent lawyers alone amounted to £5,250. To that has to be added the smaller fees of the juniors, the cost of consultations, and of the preparation of the case by expensive solicitors exercising a free hand,' and court fees. Koughly, it may be computed that such a case absorbs very little short of £1,000 a day. The Bryce case involved some very long spcechmaking, and put the respondent in particular through a most severe ordeal, for she was in the witness box for three days, and answered 2,300 questions. Mr. Duke, K. C, the petitioner's counsel, took five or six hours to open his case, and four hours for his closing speech. Mr. Isaacs, K. C, for the respondent, spoke for five hours — a whole day — in addressing the jury at the close of his •case. Sir Edward Carson's final speech occupied two hours; and the same time was absorbed by the judge in his summing up. The case, therefore, stands high in the list of prolonged trials which have occupied the divorce court in recent years. The Kirk v. Kirk suit, heard a few months ago, lasted ten days, and was then abruptly stopped, and the Pollard v. Pollard case, when it came up on the
intervention proceedings instituted by the King's Proctor, with the result that a decree nisi was rescinded and a judicial separation granted, occupied eleven days. Even the famous and costly Hartopp v. Hartopp and Cowley case is eclipsed by Bryce v. Bryce and Pape, for it lasted only thirteen days. In that petition half a dozen King's Counsel and seven juniors were engaged. For a case giving a clear lead we have to go back to the Colin Campbell suit of 1886, when eight " silks" and six " stuffs " were kept busy in court for eighteen days. Both the Chancery and the King's Bench Divisions have also dealt with cases -celebrated for their lengthy hearing. In 1900 thirteen days were taken up with the action brought by the Taff Vale Railway Company against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Ser vants, which resulted in a verdict for the plaintiffs for £23,000. The great London and Globe Finance Corporation case was also very prolonged, and almost unique in the numter of counsel engaged, there being in all twer.tythree, including eleven King's Counsel. The patent case, J. and P. Coats v. Crosland, took fourteen days and occupied sixteen counsel, of whom rine were " silks "; and Chang Yen Mao v. Moreing, heard by Mr. Justice Joyce in 1905, occupied sixteen days* and subse quently four days on appeal. Some will also recall the historic Epping Forest case of 1874, which turned on a question of common rights. That matter employed twenty-one lawyers for twenty days. All these, however, sink into insignificance before such criminal cases as the Thaw trial, which lasted almost continuously for ten* weeks, of which two weeks were absorbed in the swearing of the jury. Neither the old nor the new hemisphere has had anything for several generations like the action instituted on the Continent in 12 10 by the Count of XeVere against the town of Neuzly, which did not terminate until 1848; or like the litigation which arose in Campan v. Quatre Vezlan d'Ane in 1254, and is said to be still in the courts. THE CORPORATION MILLS Incorporators of companies will be inter ested to know that the legislatures of two of
