gown. But he adds: "In later days it was my long enduring regret that I had not made my way to the Bar, with its immense opportunities, its honourable prizes, its fine gymnastic-in combined common sense, accurate expression, and strong thought." Lord Morley has some interesting pen-pictures of some of the great lawyers of the last century. Thus, in describing the legal assistance he received in the framing and conduct of the Home Rule Bill of 1893, he writes:

In our morning counsels Rigby was able, sound, downright, but not rapid. Herschell, consummately skilful in the command of apt legal words, ingenious turns of sentence, and all the arts for stopping one hole without opening another, was always ready to help. Rigby said of Jessel that his rapidity of insight into a case was a miracle; the jest was that he could read both sides of a sheet of paper at once. Cairns, the one lawyer whose legal perception never erred, penetrated to the heart of a case at a single thrust, with one flash of his eye. Westbury, very slap-dash, almost as often wrong as right. Rigby himself is, I suppose, the strongest legal mind I have had to deal with; yet he has two faults of which I am above all others impatient: he is deliberately slow, and violently emphatic."

Lord Morley speaks of Davey as "the subtlest of lawyers, of sure and enormous knowledge, on whose mind, as on a photographic plate, facts seemed always and instantly to fall into their legal aspect. Lord Halsbury, so opposed to Lord Morley in political views, is referred to as

'the eminent man who for many years had filled the office of Lord Chancellor, and whose clear eye, power of plain statement, and vigour and probity of character, added to the humane attraction of a hale old age, had secured confidence for him.'

The Judicial Statistics for 1915, recently issued, once again illustrate the wastefulness of the Circuit system. Only 496 actions were tried or disposed of in the Assize Courts in 1915, the numbers for 1913 and 1914 being 594 and 524 respectively, while the annual average for the preceding five years was 660. So far as civil work is concerned the war has but accentuated a decline which has been noticeable for many years. At 28 assize towns the number of actions entered dur

ing 1915 did not exceed three, and among them were ten towns at which not a single case was tried. At only five towns were more than 20 actions tried during the year. These figures constitute a sufficient proof of the anomalous character of a system which compels the most highly paid judges in the land to pay periodical visits to old country towns where there is little or no work for them to do, while some of the largest industrial centres in the country, such as Sheffield and Halifax, are left outside the judicial itinerary. The remedy usually suggested for this extraordinary state of things is that the County Courts should be amalgamated with the High Court. This reform would secure that justice was brought to the doors of the people, a claim which is often made for the Circuit system, but which it does very little to deserve. The great waste of public money involved in the Circuit system on its civil side is bad enough, but on the criminal side the worst feature is the long detention of untried prisoners, due to the long and irregular intervals between the assizes. It is of frequent occurrence for a prisoner to be kept in prison over three months before he is brought to trial and found to be innocent. In fact a prisoner is often kept in custody awaiting trial for a longer period than he would be as a punishment if he were convicted.

The Education Bill is apparently not to be dropped after all. It is probable that after its second reading the Bill will be sent to a Grand Committee. That will be very satisfactory, for it will mean that questions of principle have all been settled and that nothing remains but to examine the details of the Bill and hammer out a first-class piece of administrative machinery. It is said that the threatened opposition of the local authorities to the measure has practically been overcome and that the other kind of opposition may possibly be held over to a more convenient season. That, if it be true, is indeed good news, for it means that the Bill has a very fine chance of becoming law

before many months are over. Then it will be open to every boy and girl to continue his or her education on a systematic basis until eighteen years of age. Probably few people yet realize what a real revolution this will mean. Although education is often recommended to what are called the working classes as a means of enabling their children to earn a better living, its real purpose is, and must always be, to enable them to live a better and fuller life.

Steps are being taken by the Council of the Law Society, with the support of the Associated Provincial Law Societies, to obtain an increase in the remuneration of solicitors during the war and for a period after its close. The proposal seems reasonable, for since the war establishment charges (i.e., clerks' salaries, stationery accounts, etc.), have largely increased, and, of course, there is the general increase in the cost of living.

In a very sensible article in The Contemporary Review, on the Conscription of Wealth, the writer points out the vital distinction between taxation of capital and taxation of income. Conscription of capital has for twenty-three years definitely existed in the death duties-more recently partially in super-tax and graduated income-tax, in so far as this conscription of income restricted the accumulation of capital. To the sources of revenue named the Chancellor of the Exchequer must necessarily look chiefly for the substantial increases he will require. The following sentences are worth quoting:-

There is not the least doubt that the excess profits tax, excellent as it is in principle, has in many cases tended to extravagance, carelessness and waste, and thus towards national loss. It is arguable that as much revenue might have been secured, with more economy in the business of the country, if we had had, instead of the excess profits tax, still higher income-tax and death duties. To confiscate 10 or 20 per cent. of a living man's capital would endanger British credit. The widely current fallacy that

we can largely pay for the war out of capital is largely exposed. Even if the State owned everything, it would still take for war purposes, not capital mainly, but income-products.

In an interesting article entitled Playing with the Constitution, in the current number of The Nineteenth Century and After, Mr. D. C. Lathbury considers some of the proposals advanced by statesmen and writers for dealing with the constitutional relations between the various parts of the Empire after the war.

Prince Albert has been elected a Bencher of the Inner Temple in succession to the late Prince Christian. Each of the Inns, except the Middle Temple, enjoys the distinction of having a member of the Royal Family amongst its Benchers. King George is a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and the Duke of Connaught and Prince Arthur of Connaught are Benchers of Gray's Inn. It may also be recalled that Lord Morley is a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, an honour rarely conferred on men who have never been practising members of the Bar.

Lord Justice Scrutton has suffered bereavement in the war. It is now reported that his youngest son, Captain H. V. Scrutton, M.C., died of wounds while a prisoner in a Bulgarian hospital shortly after September 10th, 1916, when he was wounded. Captain Scrutton, who was in his 22nd year, received the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery at Hooge in June,

1915.

W. E. WILKINSON.

THE TRIUMPHS OF THE ROMAN CIVIL LAW.1

"The law, like all other human systems, will ever advance nearer to perfection, and ever fall short of it."-Sir William Jones.

Rome, during a long and marvellous career, won triple fame; she was great in arms; forceful in government; and pre-eminent in law. Nations, like individuals, sometimes seem destined to effect certain important reforms. It would seem, Rome was called to give laws to the nations of the world. If such were her mission, right nobly was it executed. In its accomplishment she passed through, in over twelve hundred years, three successive political stages; the Regal, the Republican, and finally, the Imperial. The last great codification of her laws, under the Emperor Justinian, in the early part of the sixth century, embraced the best judicial features of each form of government, resulting, by and through gradual evolution, into the most perfect legal system the world ever knew.

The Kingly period lasted 244 years, from the founding of the city, B.C. 753, to B.C. 509; the Republican, a period of 478 years, from B.C. 509 to B.C. 31; the Imperial, 507 years, from B.C. 31 to A.D. 476, the period of the fall of the Empire of the West, having lasted in all 1229 years. The Empire of the East, known as the Graeco-Roman Empire, lasted a thousand years longer, until its capital, Constantinople, was captured by the Turks in A.D. 1453, in whose possession it has remained until this day.

The Regal Regime was aristocratic, consequently autocratic. The Republican, ever tending towards democracy, was distinguished for conquest and expansive political development. While readily extending to conquered territories the best features of her own system of government and laws, she with equal

1Address delivered at the opening of King's College Law School, October 9th, A.D. 1917, by Silas Alward, K.C., D.C.L., Professor Emeritus of the Faculty of Law in said College.