entitled to practise in these Courts, but no attorneys except those admitted by the Court for each circuit. The Northern and Oxford Circuits of the English Bar supplied the Chester and South Wales Circuits with counsel. It was not the professional usage or etiquette for King's Counsel to practise in Wales. Junior counsel practised in every branch—civil, criminal, and equitable. There were eighty attorneys in the Carmarthen district.
In the Courts of Great Sessions both law and equity cases were heard and determined. It was stated that proceedings in a suit at equity were, in consequence of the shortness of the circuit, more dilatory and prolix even than in the Court of Chancery of England. It is difficult to say how equity came to be administered in these Welsh Courts, The statute of Henry the Eighth does not specifically confer any equitable jurisdiction on the Justices of Great Sessions. The Court of Chancery in England was open to Welsh suitors. Still, there was in the Welsh Courts a concurrent jurisdiction between these two branches of jurisprudence that was not brought about in England until the Judicature Act of 1875.
Criminal business was also dealt with by the WelshJudges on circuit, but it frequently happened that the Welsh Judges had not the same opportunities for acquiring and preserving that experience of criminal law which the English Judges enjoyed in so eminent a degree, and the constitution of the Welsh Courts did not afford to the accused persons or suitors the advantages which arise out of a varied succession of Judges. If a difficulty arose in a criminal trial, the Welsh Judges drew up a case, signed it, and sent it for the opinion of twelve of the Judges of England, who always attended to it, but under protest that they were not bound to take it into consideration.
During the years 1812 to 1823 the average number of criminal cases tried yearly before the Courts of Great Sessions was one hundred. The average, in the same period, of Bills of Chancery and decrees was eighty-five per annum; and
