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LAW

MICHIGAN

THE TICHBORNE TRIAL.

195

of the Observer, the fine was not enforced, and the decision of the judges failed to command the approval of the profession. A learned treatise was written against it, and in a subsequent case, so clear was it that it was not law, that two judges at the Assizes overruled it and refused to act upon it. It is most remarkable that in 1828, some years after the case of the Observer, a case occurred on circuit far stronger in its character, and yet the two judges of the Assize (one of whom was Mr. Justice Littledale, a judge of the Court of King's Bench) declined to act on the authority of the former case, though it was cited and pressed upon them. A prisoner was about to take his trial for murder; the case had excited. great interest, and inflamed accounts had been published in the newspapers respecting the prisoner as the murderer. (Rex v. Gilham, Moody, and Malken, 165.) During the Assize, an artist was exhibiting in the Town Hall of the Assize town, models of the victims, and of the prisoner as the murderer. The counsel for the prisoner moved that the man might be apprehended, and committed for a contempt, as the exhibition was calculated to prejudice the minds of the jurors, and likely to deprive the prisoner of a fair and temperate trial. He cited the case of "Rex v. Clements " as a precedent; but Mr. Justice Littledale, after consulting with Mr. Justice Gaselee said: "I think the exhibition highly indecorous and improper, and one that may subject the man to punishment, but it does not appear to me or to my learned brother to be a contempt: therefore, I cannot interfere in the mode proposed to commit the person exhibiting." This decision alone might well excuse our doubting the existence of the power now claimed. And it has been followed and affirmed by repeated decisions in the same Court, the Court of Queen's Bench. In Vansandau's case, in Lord Denman's time, the contempt was distribution of papers in court, and the judgment seems to imply that a contempt of that kind must be in the presence of the Court (Vansandau v. Turner, 6, Queen's Bench rep.) Again on the great question of privilege, Lord Denman had to consider the whole

doctrine of contempt, and laid down that it only applies either to "insults to the Court, or obstruction of its proceedings." The only cases that have since occurred-in fining a sheriff for supposed disrespect to the judges at the assizes -are all of doubtful legality, but if legal, must be referred to the former head. It is to be borne in mind, moreover, that they all rest upon the duty of the Sheriff as the officer of the Court, so that they are in no degree in point in cases like the present. In America, we believe, the general view of the law on the subject is that which we have laid down, and certainly in more than one State legislation on the subject has so defined it. On the whole, therefore, though we do not think it proper now to enter further into the subject, we venture to say that our doubts as to the existence of the power are not removed.

LEGAL TOPICS.

THE SCOTCH BENCH.

By the resignation of Lord Cowan, and the death of Mr. Sheriff Glassford Bell, two vacancies have been caused in High Judicial Office in Scotland. Lord Cowan, who was the oldest of our Supreme Judges, having been on the Bench since 1852, and who has unfortunately been laid aside through a severe illness, will be greatly missed. He was well read in Scots law, and was a man of great sense and considerable business capacity. Hardly less important than the vacancy caused by Lord Cowan's resignation is the one occurring through Sheriff Bell's death. The jurisdiction of the Sheriff in Scotland as a judge of the first instance is unlimited in commercial cases. And in a county such as Lanark, embracing as it does the city of Glasgow, it requires no vivid imagination to realise to some extent the amount of judicial work to be performed in connection with commercial cases alone. But that gives but a faint notion of the duties.

of the vacant post, the Sheriff in addition, being a criminal judge and a high county official, to whom much important work is entrusted. The late Sheriff was possessed of strong and highly cultivated intellect, and perhaps the best testimony to his capacity for the high office which he held is the fact that although he succeeded such a man as Sir Archibald Alison, he did not lose by the contrast. The vacant sheriffship has been conferred on Mr. William Gillespie Dickson, advocate, Senior Sheriff Substitute at Glasgow. Mr. Dickson, who is the author of a really excellent book on the "Law of Evidence," and a lawyer of great accomplishment, was for several years Procureur General for the Colony of Mauritius. The appointment is highly approved of because it would be extremely difficult to get a practising advocate whose learning and capacity is superior to Mr. Dickson to give up the higher prizes of the profession while it would never so confer such an important appointment on a second rate man. Mr. Dickson having left the bar before he had time to take a leading position, has not higher prizes open to him. The appointment is not a desirable one, it brings more dignity than ease; and as for the pay it bears no proportion to the work. The gentlemen who gets the appointment will be expected to sit in court every day from ten to four, and to read up his cases and prepare his judgments at home in the evening, and all for the handsome salary of £800 a year, or a third of what he should make at the bar for the same amount of work.

LEGAL PRACTITIONERS SOCIETY.-This Society seems fully constituted. The first meeting has been held, and Mr. Ford, the honorary secretary, writes to state :-"Our rules were drafted some weeks ago, and are being now settled by a committee appointed for that purpose. No communication has as yet been addressed to the Lord Chancellor asking him to receive a deputation from the society. There is no disposition on the part of this society to condemn the Incorporated Law Society, and we look for

their assistance in our efforts." And no doubt they will have it. An Attorney writes to say: "I am pleased to see that at last the legal profession are opening their eyes to the injustice which those persons styling themselves 'accountants' have practised, and are still so extensively practising, on them. The public do not seem to know that an attorney is an officer of the Superior Courts, and consequently subject to its supervision as such. The public, I quite agree, under the circumstances, suffer quite as much from the 'quack lawyers' as the legal profession. I, for one, do hope that decisive and stringent measures will be taken in order to put an end to this condoned 'legal quackery." In this we entirely concur, but why does not the Incorporated Law Society interfere in the matter?

CONSOLIDATION OF COUNTY COURTS.-The following circular, which has been issued by the Lord Chancellor to County Court judges clearly has reference to projected consolidation of the County Courts. "I am directed by the Lord Chancellor to request that upon a vacancy occurring in the office of registrar of any court of which you are the judge, you will, before filling up such vacancy, acquaint his Lordship with the fact, in order that the circumstances of the court and the propriety of discontinuing it may be considered. When the registrar shall have died without having appointed a deputy, his Lordship will be obliged if you will be good enough to provisionally appoint a person to discharge the duties of registrar (19 and 20 Vict. c. 108, ss. 12, 13). Where a registrar is desirous of resigning, I am to request that you will ask him to be good enough not to do so until you shall have communicated his wish to his lordship, and received his decision as to the propriety of continuing the court." Mr. Rothery, one of the Judicature Commissioners, prepared a scheme for consolidating the County Courts, and the commissioners recommended that the object should be carried out as far as possible. This circular, coupled with the recent proceedings as to the Surrey County Courts, clearly indicates that the recommendation is to be carried out.

EXCLUSIVE PRACTICE AT CIRCUITS AND SESSIONS.-We observed a statement in our respected contemporary, the Law Journal, to the following effect: "At Sessions, whether for county or borough, there is a privileged bar, and no outsider can be heard unless he be especially retained, and some member of the bar of that Sessions be retained with him as junior." This is hardly accurate. A privilege if it can be enforced is a right. We know of no sanction by which one barrister can prevent another being heard in court, and we know of no machinery by which the court could enforce the right. Every judge is bound to hear every English barrister. Our contemporary, like the Recorder of Cambridge, has confounded the practice of the bar with the privilege of the bar. There is, therefore, no such legal right, but the present practice of the bar in maintaining close circuits or sessions is founded on a natural feeling of delicacy, as interfering with the professional practice of those who have for years been at the expense and trouble of attending the circuit or sessions. This is a laudable feeling, but there are some in the profession who object to a rigid rule on the subject, and perhaps this is one of the questions which may be dealt with by the new Society.

APPOINTMENTS.

Mr. R. P. Amphlett, Q.C., has been appointed a Baron of the Exchequer; Sir John W. B. Mansell, Bart., Vice-Chairman of the Camarthen Quarter Sessions; Mr. J. E. Davis, Legal Adviser to the Metropolitan Police Force; Mr. H. A. Adamson, Town Clerk of Tynemouth; Mr. R. M. English, Clerk to the Magistrates of Stamford. The following Solicitors have been elected Coroners :-Mr. H. M. Jackaman, for Ipswich; Mr. Henry Dean, for Northern division of Leicestershire; Mr. William Gilbertson, for the Amounderness Hundred of Lancaster.

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