Another evil at present existing in the County Courts is the almost entire amalgamation of the functions of the attorney and advocate. Upon this, however, we do not dwell, as, if the experiment succeeds, and causes of any importance are frequently tried in those courts, a remedy will, we cannot doubt, be brought about by the suitors themselves, who will not be content without the assistance of those who have been trained to the duties of an advocate and are accustomed to elicit facts in evidence and to present them in a shape fit for determination. We see that a proposal has been made to divide the County Court into two parts, one for the trial of plaints under 20., and the other for those of larger amount, in the latter of which barristers should have exclusive audience. It is enough to say that it is hardly probable, in the present state of feeling upon the subject, that such a proposition will be adopted. Turning from civil tribunals to the criminal law, we may expect to see some useful reforms enacted in the latter branch of the legal system during the present year. Although much has been done of late years to facilitate the administration of criminal justice, instances are yet far too numerous in which the substance of the offence is lost sight of in the technicality of the charge. Take an instance: a servant is sent by his master with a cheque to a bank to get it cashed-he receives the money and appropriates it to his own use-he is indicted for stealing the cheque or the money; but an ingenious counsel proves satisfactorily, by reference to decided cases, that no larceny of either has been committed, because he received the cheque upon a trust, which he performed so far as the cheque was concerned, and because his master never had possession of the money, and therefore could not be deprived of it by stealing. So far, perhaps, the objection is founded in good sense, but it involves only a quibble upon terms. It is admitted that the servant, though not guilty of larceny, is clearly guilty of embezzlement, an offence which consists in receiving into his possession on account of his master, and not accounting for it. Is then the offence of the servant towards his master or towards society at all different? Ought he, because the technical words of the indictment are not satisfied, to be acquitted, when it is proved that he has substantially defrauded his master, and is criminally liable for so doing? To obviate such plain failures of justice, a bill was introduced last session into the House of Lords, and has been again reintroduced this year, by which it is proposed to provide, that a prisoner who is charged with larceny shall not be acquitted because the evidence proved substantiates, instead of the offence charged, an embezzlement, or obtaining money under false pretences, and vice versâ; but that he shall be punished as if he had been indicted for the offence actually proved against him. We have observed also with pleasure, that it is intended in the same bill to insert a clause which will have the effect of removing the ambiguity which exists at present as to the construction and operation of the 7 Will. IV. & 1' Vict. c. 85, s. 11, which provides that, on the trial of any person for any felony whatever, where the crime charged shall include an assault against the person, it shall be lawful for the jury to acquit of the felony and to find a verdict of guilty of assault against the person indicted, if the evidence shall warrant such a finding. This clause has, as our readers will doubtless remember, been very recently discussed at great length before the Court of Criminal Appeal, and the several judges have entertained views materially differing from one another upon the effect of the enactment. The majority (eight in number), however, decided that, where upon an indictment for murder, charged to have been effected by blows inflicted upon the deceased, certain assaults by the prisoners upon the deceased were proved in evidence, but it appeared that the death was caused exclusively by one blow inflicted shortly before death, as to which there was no evidence to show that either of the prisoners had struck that blow, the prisoners could not under the statute be convicted of an assault, because the assaults proved to have been committed by them were unconnected with the death; and as a consequence of this opinion, it was held that the acquittal upon the former trial was no bar to a subsequent indictment for assault, in respect of the same assaults.1 But besides cases of this kind to which the proposed enactment would apply, there are other instances in which a failure of justice no less flagrant has occurred, and to remedy which the legislature should intervene. Take a case decided by the Court of Criminal Appeal during the last year, upon which judges and Courts of Quarter Sessions have been compelled to act, though manifestly contrary to common sense. A prisoner is indicted for stealing 70 sovereigns and 140 half sovereigns, and so on, going through all the possible denominations of coin that could be suggested. It was proved beyond all doubt, and to the satisfaction of the jury, that the sum of 70%. was stolen, and that it consisted of some coin, though none of the witnesses could say of which of the precise kind of coin it consisted. It was clear that it included one or other of the denomination of coins stated in the indictment. Upon a case reserved, whether under these circumstances the prisoner could be found guilty, a majority of the Court (one judge only being 1 See Reg. v. Bird, 20 Law J. Rep. (N. S.), Mag. Ca. 70. dissentient) held that no conviction could take place. Such a conclusion, if it be necessary, is most inexpedient; and to use the words of Mr. Justice Erle, who differed from the rest of the Court, "the rules of pleading ought only to be subsidiary to the making innocence clear and bringing the guilty to punishment; and it is absurd, when it is granted that a felony has been committed, that those rules should have the effect of preventing a conviction." It is certainly most undesirable that any laxity or uncertainty upon points like these should exist in the administration of criminal justice, and that any opportunity should be afforded to great offenders to escape punishment by reason of the obscure wording or imperfect application of a statute. We therefore trust that an efficient removal of these abuses will be effected. Such then are some of the principal points connected with legal procedure and the administration of justice in respect of which we may expect to find that the legislature has been employed during the present session; and to the acts which carry out reforms of this class we shall at the earliest opportunity after their passing direct the attention of our readers, with a view of analyzing and arranging the several enactments, and of explaining the effect of their provisions, in reference to the practical business of the profession. There are some other classes of statutes which, as connected -though not so closely-with the practice of the lawyer, of which it will be right to point out more generally the leading features. For instance, any new statute which may be passed for amending the law and practice in respect of Patents for Inventions; a subject in which a professional adviser is frequently consulted, and as to which it is most desirable he should have a familiar acquaintance with any changes in the mode of proceeding. Up to the present time, the session has been so fully occupied with discussions of another nature, that amidst ministerial crises, debates upon Papal Aggression and questions of Finance, the promised consideration of Law Reform has been greatly delayed, and no act relating to that subject has as yet passed into law. We can therefore in our present Number do no more than intimate our intention of taking up the subject as soon as the materials are provided for us. The preceding sketch of our proposed plan, and of the nature of the expected changes, will serve as introductory to the fulfilment of our design. H. 1 Reg. v. Bond, 19 Law J. Rep. (N. S.) Mag. Cas. 138. ART. XII.-MEMOIR OF LORD LANGDALE. ENRY BICKERSTETH, the subject of this memoir, was the second son of Henry Bickersteth, of Kirkby Lonsdale, a village in Westmoreland, by Elizabeth, the daughter of Mr. John Batty, who kept a spirit store, but had property in the neighbourhood. Henry Bickersteth, the father, followed the calling of a surgeon and apothecary, enjoying a considerable local repute, and being much consulted in emergencies and difficult cases, over a widely-spread district round his surgery. The mother of Lord Langdale, who brought for her marriage portion a small estate situate at Keastwick, a hamlet near to Kirkby Lonsdale, was remarkable not only for her habits of thrift and household management-the peculiar virtues of the county—but for the suavity of her manner, insomuch that tradition relates how the husbands of the vicinity would point her out to their dames as a pattern to be copied, on occasions when the object was to secure a favourable reception to the stranger whom they had asked within their gates. Their eldest son, John, is we believe at present rector of Sapcote, Leicestershire, and rural dean. Edward, the third son, was also in the Church, and rector of a parish, we believe, near Woodstock, Oxfordshire; being of high standing during his life as a preacher and author of sermons and other religious publications, in the interest of what is called the Evangelical party in the Church. Robert, the fourth son, is the eminent surgeon of Liverpool. Two daughters, Mary-Anna and Charlotte, completed the family. In order to increase the means of adequately providing for their children, this worthy couple for several years received into their house, as an inmate, a youth of weak intellects requiring medical attention, the son of a gentleman of some family and wealth, who paid a liberal stipend in consideration of their valuable services. Henry was born at Kirkby Lonsdale, 18th June, 1783, as appears by the parish register, and there seems no reason to doubt was intended originally to follow the profession of his father. He was regularly apprenticed to his father, and served the full time of his apprenticeship; but we do not believe he was ever admitted as an apothecary or surgeon at the Hall or College in London. He was educated at the free grammar-school of his native place, which was at that period in some repute, under the Mastership of the Rev. J. Dobson. Moreover, it is certainly known that he had early attained to some reputation for practical knowledge of medicine and the treatment of disease; inasmuch as, while yet a very young man, he obtained an appointment to accompany abroad the late Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer and his lady and their family, in the capacity of medical attendant; and we know that one or two persons are still living who can remember consulting him in his father's shop so late as the year 1807. After some time passed in this manner, he was enabled, possibly by means furnished by his noble patron, to enter at Caius College, Cambridge, being then about twenty-one, and therefore several years older than the majority of freshmen. Of his college career no anecdotes have been preserved-all at least that we have to tell is that in the splendid year of 1808 Bickersteth's name headed the honours Tripos as Senior Wrangler and First Smith's prizeman. That splendid year, which from its scanty roll of thirty-eight honourmen in all-scanty as compared with 1851, when thirty-seven men graduated as wranglers, and the lower honours were distributed among seventy-nine more-has given so large a proportion of illustrious names to the world, furnishes also a remarkable example of the unequal lots in life that await those who, the award of the university seems to pronounce, are about to start abreast in the race. The three first names stood Bickersteth, Bland, Blomfield. Eight and twenty years later saw the first married to an earl's daughter, a privy councillor, a peer and Master of the Rolls; the second, known to tiros in algebra as the author of " Bland's Equations"-being then, we believe, as now, rector of Lilley, near Luton, in Bedfordshire, and canon of Wells; the third, Bishop of London, and in the receipt of 10,000l. to 15,000l. a-year from the see. The fifth on the list is the celebrated Woodwardian, Professor of Geology, Sedgwick, also canon of Norwich. Mr. Bickersteth, immediately upon taking his degree, would appear to have entered at the Inner Temple, and commenced keeping terms, for we find him called to the Bar by that Society in 1811. And now is fully come the day that was to open to him that brilliant career, the object and support and spur of all his academical exertions. But first the state of brieflessness is to be won over-that terrible middle passage of which no one of all who have survived, and all who have sunk under it-ever cares to register the facts; neither its hopes and disappointments, and bitter misgivings and tædium vitæ and horrors, nor, in spite of all, in many cases, its gradually bracing and invigorating effects "The shade of youthful hope was there That lingered long and latest died, With phantom honours by his side." |