cause, and the saving of time is the saving of money. But the money which is saved to the public is lost by individuals. Before a suit can come before a judge, each party pays an attorney and a barrister. Without the services of these four persons, the time of only one person would be consumed. Fourthly, One more objection remains to be considered. Suppose (it is said) that the parties pleaded their own cause, or could nominate any friend to plead for them, the duties now performed by attornies and barristers in virtue of their office, might be exercised by any person at will: and would not there be great danger of unprincipled men inundating the profession, under a system of perfect liberty, when we see that the certificates and graduations, the means now adopted for purging the law of its more disreputable members, are far from being successful? This argument might have some weight, if the present system could ensure honesty and a hatred of litigation in its professors. But the fact is, that so long as the law holds out temptation and rewards to dishonesty, dishonest practitioners will be found. Where there is a demand, there will be a supply; where there are roguish clients, there will be roguish lawyers. The refutation of another objection, founded on the vested rights of the lawyers in their monopoly, we suppose our readers are too enlightened to require. But, Mr. Bentham continues, if the monopoly was abolished, would the effects be considerable, either for good or for evil? An inexperienced man would have little chance of success against a practised and skilful lawyer. Every person would naturally wish to win his cause; and for the same reason that people now go to good in preference to bad lawyers, they would then go to lawyers in preference to laymen. The lawyers, therefore, are in possession of a kind of natural monopoly. But this is the very reason why an evil which exists by nature should not be established by law; why to the bad effects of a natural monopoly should not be added those of a legal monopoly, the increased price, the exclusion of gratuitous services, and the dependence and vexation of the parties. Nor are these the only or the least grievous mischiefs. The monopoly enjoyed by the lawyers forms among them a principle of union by which that numerous and compact body is moved with a facility and a power which belongs to no other corporation, if we except that which has the monopoly of passports into the next world.* This body of lawyers has a common interest, diametrically opposed to the interest of the litigants, and in the pursuit of this interest, they act against the public with the supe * This sneer seems to us quite unworthy both of Mr. Bentham and his editor. riority riority which a disciplined army possesses over the unarmed inhabitants of the country.'—p. 148. In England this evil is carried to its utmost height. The judges having themselves been barristers, and profited by the system, protect the barristers in their work of plunder; and a perpetual league exists between the guardians and the enemies of the community. The countenance which the members of this league afford one another is the more dangerous, as it is disguised under specious names, such as friendship, forbearance, &c. Moreover, the corporate spirit of this body has so strong an effect as even to induce its members to sacrifice their private interests. What odium, what disgrace would be the lot of the daring lawyer who offered his services at a price lower than that fixed by the monopoly ! Having passed this general censure on the English bar, Mr. Bentham is anxious to admit, that in that numerous body there are honourable feelings and honest principles which have given a high rank to the profession in England. But with all allowances for individuals, it must be confessed, that in the highest stations, the faults of the English procedure find, not only not enemies, but obstinate defenders, that habit and interest conceal from them the inconveniences of the worst laws, and that their integrity easily accommodates itself to delays and expenses which are only supported by their antiquity.'-p. 150. We now come to the separation of the duties of barrister and attorney. The business of a lawyer is of two kinds: First, the collection and arrangement of the proofs; secondly, the statement of them before the judge. The first of these is, in most cases, a labour of mere routine; but the second requires superior talents and knowledge, and a person fit for the latter duties would naturally seek to avoid the drudgery of the former by hiring some underling to work for him. Hence arose the division of attorneys from barristers, a division advantageous to the lawyers, but not to their clients: for the expense is generally doubled; in most cases, the intervention of one man would be all that is required. Time is likewise lost; instead of the case going at once to the judge, it goes to the barrister, who, for the most part, only repeats, not perfects, the work of the attorney. The responsibility is moreover divided. If the judge reproaches the barrister for bringing up a case without a shadow of proof, the barrister says that he received his instructions from the attorney; the attorney received his from the client; and neither client nor attorney are in court to answer for their own deeds. Mr. Bentham having proved to his satisfaction that the duties of the barrister and attorney should not be separated, next proceeds to to shew that those of the judge and lawyer should be separated. If lawyers were permitted to be judges, the bar would attract more talent than the bench; and the same public reward would be held out to those who laboured gratuitously for the community, and those who laboured for money and for themselves. There would likewise be danger of cabal and intrigue among the judge-deputies; and that most injurious alliance would be formed, the alliance between the lawyers and the bench. The mental habits of the lawyer and judge, both intellectual and moral, are quite different. The one has to support a given cause, without thinking of its justice, with arguments fair and unfair, to excite the passions, and draw off the hearer's attention from the weak points of his case. The other is an investigator of truth and justice; he has nothing to support, no passions to move, no artifices to employ. As to their moral qualities, a perfect judge should possess a love of justice and of truth, and an earnest desire of improving the laws. These qualities, however, would not only not profit, but would rather injure a lawyer. What has he to do with truth and justice who may be paid to support falsehood and injustice, and is bound to put the worst cause in the best light, on pain of betraying his client? As to the improvement of the law, it is plain, that under an intricate and complicated system, administered by an uncertain and obscure procedure, the lawyers will reap the greatest gain. 'If there have been times,' says Mr. Bentham, and if there are still countries where the clergy should be considered as holding the first rank among the natural enemies of the community, this is not a necessary consequence of their functions, but is a result of circumstances whose force has already been weakened, and which may cease to operate. The clergy, by encouraging morality and ministering comfort among the people, might become its natural friends, where now they are its tyrants and extortioners. But if it is the interest of society to have the best laws and the best procedure, the opposition which exists between this and the interest of mercenary lawyers seems to be of a nature never to cease. When the wolves have made peace with the lambs, barristers will hate lawsuits, and attorneys will hate chicane.'-p. 170. Hæc finis Priami fatorum.-Thus Mr. Bentham disposes of the lawyers. We will, however, venture to move in arrest of judgment, and to offer some arguments in which we will attempt to shew that the above view of the subject has not a solid foundation. In the first place, we cannot hope with Mr. Bentham that the jurisprudence of a civilized and commercial country will ever be comprised in a small compass, or that it can ever be made a short and easy study. On the difficulty of of properly performing the duties of the judicial office, Mr. Bentham's remarks appear quite conclusive. 'Je veux même supposer que les lois soient arrivées au plus haut degré de simplicité possible, l'art de juger sera encore fort au dessus d'une capacité vulgaire, Ne faut-il pas un exercé par l'étude, un vrai logicien, pour reconnaître si tel fait tombe exactement sous la définition de la loi, pour peser la valeur des témoignages qui se contrarient, pour faire une chaîne de preuves d'une multitude de chaînons séparés, pour apprécier la validité des titres, pour démêler les fils d'une chicane astucieuse? Sans doute, il est des cas faciles où le simple bon sens suffit pour donner une bonne décision: je conviendrai même que les trois quarts des affaires sont de ce genre ; mais quand sur cent causes il n'y en aurait qu'une intriguée et obscure, il faut que le juge soit en état d'en sonder les profondeurs. D'ailleurs, si le bon sens suffit pour décider juste, il faut une raison cultivée, pour motiver cette décision, pour la rendre sensible au public, pour la justifier en cas de besoin à un tribunal supérieur, pour observer dans la procédure toutes les règles de la loi, et ne pas exposer les arrêts à des cassations par des vices de forme. Toutes les arts, toutes les sciences, toutes les branches de commerce peuvent fournir des questions difficiles pour la décision du juge.'—pp. 44, 45. If such is the difficulty of properly executing the duties of judge, is it expedient to catch up a raw recruit, and give him a jurisdiction, however small, under the name of judge-deputy? Mr. Bentham says, that the principal will be responsible for the acts of his subordinate: but it is impossible that one man can be morally accountable for the acts of another. A master is legally answerable for the wrongs of his servants: yet no blame would attach to a man if his coachman drove over a child in the street. According to the present system, lawyers begin their profession under more experienced persons; and, from the different checks upon their conduct, much room is not left for mismanagement. From the bar they may, after much practice, rise to the bench. Mr. Bentham, however, would make his judges serve their apprenticeship on the bench, not at the bar; and, instead of trying their unskilful arms in corpore vili, they are to practise them on the lives and fortunes of their fellowcitizens. We think, likewise, that some weight is to be attributed to an argument of Plato's on the proper age of judges.* That writer puts the following dilemma. If a young man is virtuous, he will, from his inexperience of the world, be unsuspicious and confiding, and not versed in the ways of deceit and fraud: he will not, therefore, be a good judge. But if he is wicked, and is, by his own conduct, initiated in the mysteries of vice, * De Rep. iii. p. 409. ed. Steph. he : he is, for a different reason, unfit for that office. A judge (continues he) should be slow in learning the ways of wickedness, and should know them by observation in others, and not by his experience of himself. If it should appear that, on every account, Mr. Bentham's plan of judge-deputies is inexpedient, all his arguments fall away, by which he would exclude lawyers from the bench, on the ground that they would gain an unfair advantage over the deputies. But his chief reason is, the alliance between the bar and the bench, which he so much abhors; and his scheme is evidently framed so as to obviate the necessity of lawyers, though he will not say, in so many words, that he thinks their race can ever become extinct. He seems to consider the lawyers as united in one great league against the rest of mankind. Their interest is distinct from that of the rest of the community. They live by promoting disputes, and besetting with obstacles and tolls the ways of settling them. Frauds, wrongs, oppressions, and quarrels are the food on which they feed. What is death to others is life to them. The interest of other corporations may be identified with that of the public but the lawyers wage with their fellow-citizens an eternal war, in which the victory is always on one side. Living by injustice and falsehood, they contract a love for the means of their success; and resist all improvements in the law as abridging their gains. They enjoy a legal monopoly, with all its attendant evils. Is this the class from which you elect officers to administer justice, and to be checks on their former brethren? Such is the picture which Mr. Bentham draws of the lawyers whether correctly or not we shall venture to examine. Under any system of laws, however simple, we think it impossible that the pleadings can be carried on by persons who have not received a regular legal education. Let any one read Mr. Humphreys's Code of Real Property, which cannot be taxed with want of simplicity, and say whether he thinks that, under the best system, any man, e trivio, is qualified to argue or advise on the effect of an ambiguous will, for example, or an informal conveyance. As to the monopoly of lawyers, it is not true that they enjoy any exclusive privileges, which can properly be called by that name. Since we believe that a separate class of lawyers is as necessary as a separate class of physicians or soldiers, and that an apprenticeship is to the full as requisite in this as in any other craft, it seems to us not improper that men should make a choice of that profession deliberately, and should be regularly enrolled among the list of lawyers; some precautions being taken, such as the payment of an entrance-fee, to ensure that the member admitted seriously intends |