rations of trade under which they now labour? Would it not, in short, cause an entire revision of that cumbersome and absurd system of jurisprudence which we have attempted to describe;-reduce the StatuteBook to one-hundredth part of its present bulk; consolidate the almost innumerable local acts into more general laws; and abolish all those unjust and impolitic enactments which interfere with industry and commerce. Such numerous laws are no doubt useful to the profession; they afford a fruitful and endless source of litigation; they are glorious things, as Lord Stanhope remarked, for attorneys, conveyancers, special pleaders, barristers, and so forth, but most inglorious and calamitous for the people.

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We shall only make one or two more remarks on Statute-Law, and these refer to the language and manner in which acts of parliament are drawn up. It is evident that all laws ought to be intelligible to those on whom they are intended to operate; otherwise, it is wilfully creating an ignorance which will not be admitted as any excuse for their violation. It is difficult to see why laws could not be so clearly and simply worded as to be intelligible to ordinary capacities, without the assistance of either attorney or lawyer. They involve no abstract theorem of science; they are a mere statement of facts, requiring something to be done or not to be done; which, really one would think, might be made intelligible without the continual assistance of interpreters, at an enormous expense. The obscurity and perplexity of statutes arise principally from a perverse deviation from the ordinary language of civil life, an overwhelming verbosity and endless repetition of "he, she, they," him, her, it, and them," the " aforesaid," and "so far as," the "so forths," &c. which render the whole so involved and perplexed, that one would suppose the legislature, instead of endeavouring to render the laws as lucid as possible, had purposely involved them in the greatest possible darkness. From the habitual indulgence of fiction and tautology the minds of lawyers-for they are lawyers who draw up acts of parliament-become so inveterately alien to truth and simplicity that they cannot be otherwise if they would; and, accordingly, we find in those cases, when their intention has really been to be intelligible, that their language involves so much complexity-there are so many crochets and puzzles-that they entirely fail in their purpose, and defy comprehension by ordinary minds. We shall give an instance of this from one of Sir Robert Peel's consolidatory acts, the 7 & 8 Geo. IV. c. 28; which is the more remarkable, because the express object of it is to obviate obscurity and misapprehension, by giving a simple and general rule for the interpretation of criminal statutes. The clause to which we allude is the 14th, and expressed as follows:-" Whenever this or any other statute relating to any offence, whether punishable upon indictment or summary conviction, in describing or referring to the offence, or the subject matter on or with respect to which it shall be committed, or the offender or the party affected or intended to be affected by the offence, hath used, or shall use words importing the singular number or the masculine gender only, yet the statute shall be understood to include several matters as well as one matter, and several

persons as well as one person, and females as well as males, and bodies corporate as well as individuals, unless it be otherwise specially provided, or there be something in the subject or context repugnant to such construction; and wherever any forfeiture or penalty is payable to a party aggrieved, it shall be payable to a body corporate in every case where such body shall be the party aggrieved."

An unlearned person might possibly guess at the intended meaning of this explanatory rule, and a lawyer no doubt-and this would be deemed by him its chief excellence-would be able to draw from it a dozen different interpretations, according as they best suited the purposes of his client.

Things the most heterogeneous are frequently jumbled together in the same act of parliament, and the title is often as remote as possible from the subject matter of the statute. These are called "Hodgepodge Acts," and are very numerous. Who, for instance, would expect to find the regulations under which petitions may be forwarded to members of parliament, in an act for laying an additional duty upon tea and sugar? The commencing clause of the statute, under which Vauxhall and other theatres and places of entertainment are licensed, is as follows:-" Whereas, the advertising a reward with no questions asked, for the return of things lost or stolen, is one great cause and encouragement of robberies, be it enacted," &c. Many may recollect that Sir R. Peel, on introducing to parliament his bill for amending the larceny-laws (March 9th, 1826), cited the title of one single act, which embraces no fewer than the following bizarre miscellany :-the continuing several laws therein mentioned; the carrying of sugars in British-built vessels; the encouraging the importation of naval stores; preventing frauds in the admeasurement of coals in the city of Westminster; and preventing the stealing or destroying of madder roots. Another act he referred to forms a still more whimsical olio, and is intituled "An Act for better securing the duties of customs on certain goods removed to London; for regulating the fees of officers in His Majesty's customs in the province of Segambia, in Africa; for allowing the Receiver-General of Fees in Scotland proper compensation; for the better preservation of hollies, thorns, and quick-sets in private grounds, and trees and underwood; and authorising the exportation of a limited quantity of barley from the Port of Kirkgrow." Such acts run very much like cross-readings in a newspaper, and those who wish for further amusement of the sort will find it in Mr. Wickens's publication on the Division of Labour in Civil Life, where the subject is pursued to a greater extent than our limits will admit.

Notwithstanding the laborious and tiresome precision of statutes, they frequently comprise the most egregious blunders. There is a singular instance of one in the 53d George III.: by the 18th section, one half the penalty is to go to the king and the other half to the informer; but the penalty happened in this case not to be a fine, but fourteen years' transportation; so that fourteen years' transportation were to be equally divided between Messrs. Byers and Co. and his Majesty!

Perhaps our readers may deem this too old a blunder to illustrate the deliberative wisdom of the law-makers of the reign of William IV. If so, we shall give them an example of legislative aptitude from one of the most important acts of the session of 1830-that for Consolidating and Amending the Laws on Forgery. This statute was drawn, we believe, by Messrs. Hobhouse and Gregson, and was some years in preparation, under the auspices of Sir R. Peel; it received the tinkering of Sir James Scarlett, between whom and the gentlemen by whom it was framed, some difference of opinion respecting its provisions arose, which could only be terminated by an appeal to Lord Tenterden, who felt himself bound to decide, notwithstanding his well-known partiality, against Sir James. Well, this act so patronised, elaborated, revised, quarrelled about, and arbitrated, is at length brought forth, passed, and is now the law of the land; and we will venture to say a more defective and bungling piece of legislation is not to be found in the great book of conundrums and absurdities itself. What the public expected was an act that would comprise the entire statute-law of forgery; unless this was attained, little benefit could result from adding one more statute to the 400 previously existing. Instead of consolidating the law, it merely embodies the whole or part of the provisions of twenty-seven statutes out of the mass; all the acts relative to the forging of stamps, seamen's warrants, plate-marks, and on the post-office, remain scattered, as heretofore, through the boundless waste of the Statutes at Large, to be applied or not, as it may happen, by judges and lawyers. Incompleteness is not the worst defect in this statute; some of its provisions are obviously incompatible, and the commencing part of the act seems to have been entirely lost sight of when the concluding part was agreed upon. For proof of this compare the following sections, nearly the first and last, in the statute.

"§ II. And be it enacted, That if any person shall forge or counterfeit, or shall utter, knowing the same to be forged or counterfeited, the great seal of the United Kingdom, his Majesty's privy seal, any privy signet of his Majesty, his Majesty's royal sign manual, any of his Majesty's seals appointed by the twenty-fourth article of the Union to be kept, used, and continued in Scotland, the great seal of Ireland, or the privy seal of Ireland, every such offender shall be guilty of high treason, and shall suffer death accordingly."

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"§ XXIX. And be it enacted, That this act shall not extend to any offence committed in Scotland or Ireland."

Here we see in the second section a specific punishment assigned for the commission of an offence in Scotland; and in a subsequent section it is expressly declared the act shall not extend to any offence committed in Scotland or Ireland. What the judges will make of this inconsistency, when it comes before them, it is impossible to foresee: we suppose we shall have another act or two to "explain" or "amend,” &c.; and so our legislature proceeds, heaping one act upon another, making delightful work for lawyers, and " raining," as Mr. Bentham expresses it, snares among the people."

Sir James Scarlett, to be sure, is not a paragon of legislators any more than of attorney-generals. The act for Improving the Administration of Justice will not be soon forgotten by the profession: this act, among other changes, altered the period of commencement of the terms. But no sooner was the act in force than it was discovered to be pregnant with the most ludicrous errors; the framer of the statute was clearly ignorant of the changes of the moon-of that common astronomical knowledge which is contained in every almanack; the consequence was that the courts would have been involved in the greatest confusion, had not another statute been precipitately brought in to remedy the blunders of the first.

One cause of such blundering legislation is to be found in the vicious mode of transacting business in the House of Commons. It is well known law-making is a sort of after-dinner amusement, which commences when gentlemen have taken their wine-when the theatres have closed-and the night-houses are thrown open for the reception of customers. It cannot be matter of surprise if, under such unfavourable circumstances, the nocturnal occupations of the Collective Wisdom exhibit strange examples of forgetfulness, haste, and confusion. We, indeed, are often astonished things are not worse, when we reflect on the course of parliamentary proceedings-no division of labour, or exclusive devotion to legislative duty-all chance medley, helter skelter, volunteer and amateur exertion-the chief manager straining every nerve to get through public business before the setting in of the Dogdays-stratagems to steal a march to avoid some economical proposition for a reduction of the estimates-packing a house for a job or private bill-jaded ministers dropping in late from their offices or a protracted cabinet-council-country gentlemen from a tedious morning-waiting at the Treasury for places and appointments - lawyers from the courtsand the sons of riot reel in at midnight, from the saloons and clubhouses, in quest of divertisement--and thus business goes on, and a house is formed of men distracted with their individual avocations, or suffering from lassitude and over-excitement. They talk and talk, it is true, without end, as people mostly do when not fully master of their subject; but their ideas are crude-there has been no preparation or concentration of thought-and all their doings bear evident marks of the intellectual chaos from which they spring. We had a ludicrous illustration of what we are stating in the session of 1830: the House was in a committee, and had been hotly debating, as usual, to no purpose, for the space of six hours, when the chairman got up, and with great gravity said," he should be extremely obliged by any honourable member informing him what they had all been talking about!"

Such mode of legislation has striking results: it impoverishes the people by litigation, and multiplies and augments the emoluments of a mercenary profession. In the number and magnitude of inns of court, law institutions, and other public buildings the legal classes rival the ancient religious houses; and their unavoidable and constant intervention in all the affairs and transactions of civil life gives them an influence equal to that of the

priesthood in the ages of superstition. In the metropolis are nine superior courts, four ecclesiastical courts, twenty courts for recovery of small debts, besides courts of oyer and terminer, courts of general and quarter sessions, coroner-courts, and courts of petty sessions for the purposes of police. Attached to these courts are eight hundred officers, exclusive of judicial functionaries. To these may be added 500 barristers-at-law, 3000 certificated attorneys, 130 conveyancers and equity draftsmen, 67 special pleaders, 84 proctors, 40 public notaries, 6000 clerks and assistants, besides doctors-at-law, serjeants-at-law, and king's counsel, making a legal phalanx, in the metropolis, of nearly 10,000. In the country they are not so concentrated, but more numerous. From "Clarke's Law List" it appears there are, in the country, including England and Wales, 4500 attorneys and conveyancers who have taken out certificates. The number of clerks and assistants cannot be estimated at less than 9000; so that the number of persons in the country, in the legal department, is 13,500; and if we add 10,000 for persons of a similar description in the metropolis, we have a total of 23,500 persons, whose sole employment is to render the laws intelligible, and justice attainable to the people of England and Wales.

This estimate, we are persuaded, is a great deal below the truth: many attorneys in town employ more than twenty clerks, and the majority of them employ three or four. Perhaps it would not be too much to estimate the total number of counsel, attorneys, clerks, assistants, &c. in England and Wales, at thirty thousand. In this enumeration are not included the justices of peace, amounting to 4,500, nor the judges in the different courts, the sheriffs, nor any portion of the magistracy, whose office it is to administer justice, and who employ an innumerable number of clerks and assistants. The classes we have mentioned form only that branch of the profession who owe their origin, in a great measure, to defects and obscurities in our judicial administration. It is the duty of the legislature to render the laws so clear, and the form of proceeding so simple, that persons of ordinary comprehension would generally be able to understand the one and pursue the other, without the aid, in every case, of a legal adviser.

The adage says-Many hands make light work; but the maxim is reversed in law; and the swarm of practitioners is a principal cause of the multiplication of suits, their protracted duration, and consequent pressure of business in the courts.

Dr. Colquhoun estimated the total income of the legal classes, when the amount of property and professional practice was greatly less than at present, at £7,600,000 per annum; and two-thirds, probably, of this sum are absorbed by legalists resident in London.

However, this can be only considered a vague approximation. In our list of places we shall give an account of the emoluments and incomes of the chief justices, the lord chancellor, the judges, and several other well-known individuals; but the incomes of the profession generally, of counsellors, special pleaders, conveyancers, and attorneys, are so various, that it is impossible to fix on any average amount. Sir