and dissent as entirely from his remedy. The following line of argument supports both of our positions.

"I should suppose that the administration of any kind of justice by persons wholly uneducated and unprepared for it, is a state of things that is peculiar to this country. I do not know that any instance of it exists elsewhere. I practised in the courts of quarter sessions of three counties throughout a district perhaps the largest in England except the West Riding, for upwards of twenty years, and was the leader for the latter portion of that time. I saw a great deal of what occurred there, and if you ask the question, is it desirable to have a professionally educated man as chairman, I do not see how there can be any difference of opinion upon the subject; I think everybody would say it would be better to have such a man. Some things curiously extravagant have come under my own knowledge at the sessions. I have had a chairman say to me upon some point occurring, 'You know these are a sort of things that we do not understand anything about.' Upon one occasion, when I was prosecuting a man, the counsel for the prisoner raised objections to the indictment, which the Court heard; and then the chairman in open Court said to me, the counsel on the other side, 'Is there anything in this objection?' These things bring ridicule and sometimes dissatisfaction on the administration of justice.

That

"The question put, does not extend to civil matters at quarter sessions, but I think it very properly might do so. inquiry seems to me quite as important as the other. Questions of considerable intricacy arise, as to the removal of poor, rating for their relief, liability to repair roads, &c. With regard to these subjects, everybody who has practised at sessions, I should think, would be of opinion that it was quite impossible to ascertain beforehand what would be the decision of the Court."

On one occasion, "their worships" having decided a dead case the wrong way, one of the counsel engaged in it and a subsequent case, proposed aloud to the other side to toss up, and so settle the next case: which, we have no doubt, would have been a wise course. And we could point out County Court judges who would be just as bad as the magistrates he ridicules, and to

whose opinion no jury would pay the slightest respect, whilst they would be just as little able to decide appeal cases.

The proper remedy for the evil is the extension of the jurisdiction of recorders, who should sit monthly and in all large towns.

We shall hereafter recur to this subject.

No. 6. Mr. Willmore most properly recommends such costs as will enable attorneys to bring cases of more importance into the County Courts and retain counsel oftener to assist them. He is asked why parties have not more generally availed themselves of the Consent Clause, 17th of 13 & 14 Vict. c. 61.

"I think that the present scale of costs is a reason. Attorneys do not do it because of the different character of the costs which they recover. Another reason is, that in many cases, the defendant will not give the consent; his object is generally obstruction: he will not at all facilitate the disposal of the matter. In a large majority of cases, the defendant is in a comfortable position, and does not want that position altered; he will not do anything that may have the effect of facilitating a trial. I think that what I have said applies to a large majority of cases. I think also, in cases of importance, that attorneys would hesitate to recommend the adoption of this course, because it would be recommending a thing out of the common way of proceeding; they feel that if any untoward event occurs, they will be held responsible, and they do not like to take that responsibility upon them. I also think that the insufficiency of advocates may operate. I have had several of these cases tried before me. I gave a man a verdict, on one occasion, nearly as high as 500l. With regard to these cases, I think it is inconvenient to enlist in a judge, what is generally considered the bent of human nature against his duty. If he does his work ill, he is not likely to be much troubled with cases under this clause. On the contrary, the better judge he is, the more likely he is to be overwhelmed with additional labour in long, intricate, and important cases.

"Is the want of a due scale of costs to attorneys one of the reasons?—I think by an alteration in the scale of costs, you would remove a great deal of what now operates to shut such cases out; but all the courses I have mentioned operate.

"It has been suggested that a better way of framing this clause would be that the plaintiff should have power to sue to any amount in the County Courts, and that the defendant

should have power to remove the case to the superior court ?-I think that would be desirable. You would then put the acting part upon the defendant; and in very many cases, the same man who would refuse to consent that a thing should be done, would nevertheless abstain from himself acting in order to prevent it."

It is most unwise to lower costs unduly. Lord Brougham made a great mistake on this subject. The small causes should be tried as cheaply as possible, but where legal learning and skill is requisite these are worthy of full remuneration.

ART. X.-MR. LEONE LEVI'S MERCANTILE LAW.

Manual of the Mercantile Law of Great Britain and Ireland. By Leone Levi. London, Smith and Elder. 1854.

MR.

R. LEVI is a phenomenon in our profession. His own additions to himself in the title-page of this book set forth that he is Lecturer on Commercial Law, King's College, London; honorary member of the Liverpool and Leeds Chambers of Commerce; Fellow of the Statistical Society; Associate of the Institute of Actuaries; Member of the Law Amendment Society, and of the Society of Arts: and author (as the publishers well know) of the "Commercial Law of the World." Now as regards the societies, inasmuch as there is a silver key giving easy access to each and all of them, we gather little as to the qualification, mental, moral, or professional, of Mr. Levi, by the fact of such membership. The Law List is dumb on the subject. He figures there neither as counsel nor attorney. His claims to legal repute rest, we presume, chiefly, if not wholly, on the work of which, in the new book before us, he announces himself the author, a book of tolerably pretentious title. Of the merits of that work, and of its general accuracy,

some tests were given in No. 93 of the Law Magazine, and we believe we may safely say, that, as regards English commercial law, so many cuttings and gatherings from old cases, with such a reckless disregard of modern decisions, have seldom been employed to vamp up a book on any one of the topics of jurisprudence. The book contained also a quantity of matter purporting to be a compendium of foreign mercantile law. Mr. Levi did, it seems, deliver some lectures on the same subject at King's College. To what extent this fact warrants announcement, here and elsewhere, that he is a lecturer of that university is a matter which it, rather than we, are concerned in determining: the fact at any rate being, that Mr. Levi takes the benefit of whatever prestige extends to such sanction.

Matters stood thus when the Council of the Society of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, in June, 1851, gave notice that, in pursuance of the will of the late Dr. George Swiney, a prize of 1007. sterling, contained in a goblet also of the value of 100%. would be awarded to the author of the best published work on jurisprudence which should appear before January, 1854. Attention was particularly directed to that branch of jurisprudence which expressly relates to arts and manufactures. The competition for this prize was open to the authors of any nation, but the work must have been published at least in the English language.

To the entire surprise, we believe, of the whole profession, on Friday, the 20th of January, 1854, when the Council of the Society of Arts and the members of the College of Physicians met, it was resolved unanimously, "That the bequest of the late Dr. George Swiney, namely, 1007., contained in a goblet of the same value, to the author of the best published work on jurisprudence, be adjudged to the work entitled, 'The Commercial Law of the World,' by Mr. Leone Levi!!"

Now, considering the mass of writers on jurisprudence, both at home and abroad, who have written admirable works on all branches of that great science-and certainly on no one more than that of commercial law-men who have spent the best part of their lives in the practice, as well as the study, of the profession their names and their labours dignify - it does

appear rather marvellous that a prize of no ordinary mark, and awardable to the author of any published work, should have been given to Mr. Leone Levi-a gentleman, as far as we can learn, who is not in the legal profession at all, and who, if we recollect rightly, had not published a single line on jurisprudence, or a syllable of his "Commercial Law" when the prize was first announced. At any rate, we have searched Messrs. Butterworth's very complete law catalogue, published in 1850, without finding mention made of Mr. Levi's name as an author at all. If the Old World was thus ignorant of Mr. Levi's pretensions to legal authorship, so, a very few years earlier, was the New World, for we have also hunted through Marvin's "Legal Biography" (Philadelphia edit. 1847) with no other result. On a moderate estimate there must have been at least fifty authors more entitled to the prize. Perhaps, at least equally so, were any one of the various great foreign and English jurists of our day, to the special favour of sovereigns abroad and princes at home. Nevertheless, Mr. Levi announces at the end of the new book before us, that "His Majesty the Emperor of Austria was graciously pleased, in March, 1853, to confer upon the author the gold medal for science and artistic merit, and that His Majesty the King of Prussia graciously decreed, in August, 1853, that the great gold medal for science, reserved for works of the most distinguished merit, should be presented to him!

"The work [on the Commercial Laws of the World] was liberally patronised (Mr. Levi adds) by His Royal Highness the Prince Albert, Her Majesty's Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Colonies, and the President of the Board of Trade; the Royal Libraries of Prussia and Sardinia; the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Prussia, Sardinia, Belgium, and Netherlands; the Ministers of Commerce of Prussia, Russia, and Austria; the East-India Company, the Bank of England, the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and by a large number of merchants and bankers. The present edition of this important work is fast disappearing."

We have no desire to depreciate the actual merit of the book now before us. It presents, on the whole, a fair summary of