they must be admitted to have done far more service in precluding the necessity of perilous experiments on the Constitution, and enabling the judicial system to be preserved entire, which had given so much satisfaction for so many long years. Yet of their voluntary services not the faintest whisper in the nature of acknowledgment was heard in any quarter. On the contrary, while one side repudiated them as worthless because unpaid, others were disposed to carp at the individuals, to charge one with having decided none of the causes he had heard (which proves a gross misstatement, as Lord Truro left but a single case undecided), and to hold up the manner and action of another in giving his opinion, as one of the reasons for requiring a change.1 A somewhat extraordinary reference to the Judicial Committee was made by Mr. L. Wigram, clearly indicating how unsafe a guide a practising barrister may be in leading our opinion as to the proceedings of Courts, and the conduct of judges. He joined in the praises which have so generally, though sometimes with peculiar objects in view, been lavished upon that tribunal; but he confined his commendations to its proceedings at present and of late years, observing, that it gave no satisfaction for some time after it was established. Having the greatest suspicion, from all that others had said, that this statement could not be correct, we examined the returns of the attendances in the Committee for the first twelve years, that is, from 1834 to 1845, both inclusive. It appears that during the first eight years (and to these the assertion must apply) the Committee was regularly attended by Mr. Baron Parke, Mr. Justice Bosanquet, and Mr. Justice Erskine. Can any one descry the very least ground of objection to those able and learned judges, except that they were Common-Law lawyers, and that Mr. Wigram belongs to the Court of Chancery? But the Vice-Chancellor of England (Sir L. Shadwell) appears to have attended repeatedly during those eight years,-in one year thirty-six days, in another, twenty. On all probably of those days when he attended, there were

The returns for the last nine sessions show Lord Brougham's attendances to have been 573 days; Lord Cottenham's, 282 out of office, 280 when Chancellor. In fifteen sessions the former lord had attended 970 days.

appeals from the Equity jurisdiction in the colonies. But Mr. Wigram gives as the ground of the satisfaction afforded of late years, not only that three Equity lawyers attended, but that Dr. Lushington was there also. Then the same return shows that this learned and able judge attended regularly during the last four of the eight years to which we are referring. Consequently Mr. Wigram is in this dilemma; either Dr. Lushington is not the cause of the satisfaction stated as of recent date, or the observation refers to the first four years only after the Court was established; but then the objector falls into another difficulty; for Sir L. Shadwell attended the first three of these four years, as well as Judges Parke, Bosanquet, and Erskine. Nothing can show more strikingly than this how dangerous it is to be guided by the opinions, and indeed by the statements, of barristers in estimating the merits of judges.

We commenced this article with announcing that it was to be taken as a help to those who might during the ensuing recess of Parliament direct their attention to the whole of the great and difficult question touching the formation of a Court of Appeal; we may add also to the important, but much less difficult inquiry, how far the accounts propagated, from various motives and very different designs, respecting the judicial conduct of the House of Lords, are well founded. The probability is, that their great exaggeration in some particulars will be found sufficiently proved; that the important errors both of fact and of law which have been introduced into the discussion will be made manifest; that little change will be deemed requisite beyond what the House itself could introduce without any alteration of its constitution; and that the Government will lose no time in retracing its steps by giving an hereditary peerage to one learned and now noble person, possibly increasing in the same way by the aid of others the judicial force of the upper and hereditary chamber.1

1 We have referred to the able paper in the Edinburgh Review, as conducing materially to bring about the condign fate of the scheme. The most powerful assistance was also rendered to the same just cause by the vigorous and decisive, though perfectly temperate arguments, so judiciously and seasonably urged in the Times newspaper. Nor can we omit to mention the learned tract of Mr. G. Brodie, the most remarkable that the controversy has produced.

ART. XI.-DUNN'S CASE.

T has sometimes been said, that there is one law for the rich,

IT

another for the poor, regard being had rather perhaps to the costs of legal proceedings than to the administration of justice. But there seems to be one course of procedure, if not one kind of justice, for the highest class, not extending to the rest of the community, how exalted soever in either rank or fortune. The late proceedings in the case of Dunn appear to show this, and to point out the necessity of some such improvement as shall prevent any person, as well as any royal person, from suffering what Miss Burdett-Coutts had for so many years to endure. This man, a barrister, was seized with an ungovernable desire to possess the fortune of that amiable and excellent person, whose charities are as extensively as they are judiciously distributed. He announced himself only to be in pursuit of her hand, having not the very slightest acquaintance with her, and he persecuted her with letters, as well as attempts at obtaining an interview. Whether he was from the first of unsound mind may be a doubtful question; that he was not so believed to be is plain, because he was tried and convicted of perjury, and suffered imprisonment on that sentence. His liberation was followed by an immediate renewal of his proceedings, sometimes pretending to be a favoured suitor of a person he had never exchanged words with; sometimes making oath that she set persons to waylay him; now declaring that she owed him enormous sums of money; now insisting upon her seeing him, or writing to him; always avoiding any breach of the peace, yet always making it impossible for the object of his manœuvres to stir abroad either in town or country without being exposed to his impertinences. That he was at the first an Irish fortune-hunter, with the impudent pretensions of being certain to win any person's favour whom he might please to address, is unquestionable, and he might begin by being only intoxicated with vanity, nearly, though not quite, amounting to disease. But the intense anxiety for 3 D

VOL. I. NO. II.

obtaining possession of vast wealth had disordered his mind, if it was not originally diseased; and no one who considers his whole conduct can doubt that, had he been examined by medical men, a report would have been made of his insanity. Unfortunately this was never done, and his system of unceasing annoyance continued for nine or ten years, without the least control, or any protection to its victim.

Very lately he has not perhaps transferred, but divided, his attentions, by pursuing the same course of annoyance to the Princess Mary of Cambridge. The police magistrate most properly ordered him to be examined by two eminent physicians, who reported that they had no doubt whatever of his labouring under the delusions of an unsound mind, and that his being left at large was dangerous to both himself and others. An expression which dropped from him, and which he had never used in respect of Miss Burdett-Coutts, was the ground of the opinion that his own life was in danger from his malady. But his declaration of belief that the Princess, and indeed the Queen also, were fond of him, was only a repetition in terms of what, in the former case, he had plainly indicated by his whole conduct, as well as less distinctly by his expressions; and no one can have the least doubt that an examination would have satisfied the physicians of his diseased state. Yet he was repeatedly described by friends, countrymen of his own, as a person of respectability and of talents.

It is impossible to deny that cases of this description are attended with no small difficulty when brought before magistrates, and that the greatest care must be taken to avoid the requiring sureties of the peace from persons unable to produce those who are ready to answer for their good behaviour, because this might inflict endless imprisonment upon those whose misfortune it was to have no friends. It is also to be considered that even medical evidence may not always afford a sufficient ground of such a sentence. There are, however, cases of such manifest insanity that detaining the persons complained of until a more formal and complete investigation may be instituted, could produce no possible injustice. Possibly a check might be provided against abuse by requiring a further inquiry

after a certain period of detention. As the law now stands, if a person is committed for want of sureties of the peace, there seems no limit to his imprisonment, and this would be more objectionable when the commitment had originated in no outrageous act, and no threat of such violence. We need not discuss fully the limits of the question; on these differences of opinion may exist; but on one point there can be no doubt. That which is deemed sufficient to authorize detention in the case of one class of complainants must be held sufficient in the case of all classes. It is wholly absurd to hold that the oath of one person, that she has been threatened with personal violence, or that for any reason she considers herself in danger of it, should be required before she can be relieved from being infested by conduct which makes her whole life one continued suffering and alarm, while another, because a princess, is, without making any oath at all, at once protected by those who know of annoying acts satisfying the magistrates of the offender's insanity, without the party against whom these acts were directed ever deposing to having been annoyed.

ART. XII.-DIVORCE BILL.-COUNTY COURTS.LATE SESSION.

OF

F the complaints urged, and justly urged, by all friends to the amendment of the law against the shortcomings of the late session, the most prominent are those touching the Divorce and the County Courts Bills,-the postponement of the former, and the mutilation of the latter. It has been a cruel disappointment to find that when the Lords had, almost beyond the hopes of the advocates of improvement in the law, adopted a measure of importance, as more than a beginning of putting the law of divorce upon a rational and consistent footing, this measure should be sacrificed to the desire of saving a day or two, perhaps an hour or two, and by so much preventing the prorogation; for no one entertains the least doubt that it might,