Here is a typical undefended Chancery suit. A will which came into force in 1819 contained bequests to charities. These legacies were contrary to the Mortmain laws, and were consequently void. The heir-at-law filed a bill in Chancery to make them so. During 1820 the trustees of the charities put in their answers. In 1821 the case was referred to the Master in Chancery to find out who was the heir at law. By 1823 he was ready with an answer, and the court directed him to give an account of the property. He did so in 1824. In 1825 the case was set down for further directions; in 1826 the Master was told to ascertain the children of the testator’s half-nephews. This took till 1828, when the case was reported to the House of Commons. The Master was then still pursuing his enquiries. A defended case was naturally slower. The case was referred to the Master in Chancery; he reported: exceptions were then taken to his report, and so on. In about ten years something probably occurred to make it necessary to begin again. The Masters were paid by fees and were interested in making a case last. Their incomes often amounted to as much as from £3000 ($15,000) to £4000 ($20,000) a year. The amount of law copying was prodigious. In one case it came to 10,497 folios, for which a charge of six shillings and eight pence ($1.60) for each folio was made. You recollect the poor captain who sunk to the position of a law-copying clerk. Be sure he was not paid at this rate.
Such then were a few of the abuses of one branch of the legal system which Dickens exposed. They have in the main been disposed of since 1873. We cannot, however, leave the subject without a few words on his inexhaustible fertility in drawing the characters of lawyers.
The profession is represented throughout. We see Mr. Justice Stareleigh trying Mr. Pickwick and waking up at intervals. Who can forget the cross-examination of Sam Weller.
“‘Is it a good place?’” Sam is asked. Yes, Sir. “‘Little to do and plenty to get,’ said Sergeant Buzfuz jocularly. ‘Plenty to get, as the soldier said when they gave him six dozen,’ replied Sam. ‘You mustn’t tell us what the soldier or anybody else said,’ remarked the judge, waking up suddenly. ‘It is not evidence.’” Immortal too are the counsel in that famous case, the eloquent Buzfuz and the abstracted Stubbin; nor can we forget the unlucky novice, Mr. Phunky, who ruined the case for Mr. Pickwick by the way he cross-examined Mr. Winkle.
No profession has risen more in dignity and respectability in England in recent years than that of the solicitor or attorney. In Scott and in almost all earlier novelists, the man who prepared the work for counsel and was engaged in the humbler practice of the courts is nearly always represented as a rogue. How often do we find him described as a “miserable pettifogger” and charged with “sharp practice.” It is the same with Dickens. Even Mr. Perker in “Pickwick,” who is thoroughly honest, cannot withhold his admiration of Dodson and Fogg’s acuteness.
“‘Dodson and Fogg have taken Mrs. Bardell in execution for her costs, Sir,’ said Job.
‘No,’ exclaimed Perker, putting his hands in his pockets, and reclining against the sideboard.
‘Yes,’ said Job. ‘It seems they got a cognovit out of her, for the amount of ’em, directly after the trial.’
‘By Jove!’ said Perker, taking both hands out of his pockets, and striking the knuckles of his right against the palm of his left, emphatically, ‘those are the cleverest scamps I ever had anything to do with.’