Remembrance!—as if he ever forgot them! No—the Chancery Court was the subject of his thoughts by day and his dreams by night: every thing he heard, or saw, or read, was so tortured by his morbid imagination as to bear some analogy, remote or near, to the proceedings of the Chancery Court;—when he had a meal, he wondered that the Chancery Court had left it to him—and when he had none, he said that the Chancery Court made him starve;—if he felt in tolerably good health, it was because he heard of some case in Chancery even more flagrant than his own—and that was a consolation to his diseased mind; and if he felt ill which was nearly always the case, he declared that the Chancery Court made him so:—in fact, he was truly a victim, in every sense and way, of that tremendous tribunal which has instruments of torture far more terrible for the feelings than those which the Inquisition of Spain ever invented for the body!
"Yes," exclaimed Prout, after a few moments' pause, "and all that diabolical tyranny is carried on under the semblance and with the solemn forms of justice. You go into a fine court, where you see a man of splendid intellect, fine education, and profound knowledge, seated in a chair, with the wig and gown; and before him are rows of barristers almost as learned as himself. Well—would you not think that you were in a tribunal worthy of the civilisation of this country! Yet—better were it if savages from the South Sea Islands became your judges; better to die upon the threshold of that court, than enter its walls. It is a damnable and a cursed tyranny, I repeat; and the English are a weak—a pusillanimous—a spaniel-like race, that they do not rise in rebellion against that monstrous tribunal!"
Again he paused, overpowered by excitement:—but there was something terribly real and awfully sincere—aye, and sternly true—in that man's denunciations!
"Yes—I say," he resumed, after having refreshed himself from a pewter-pot near him—though there had been a time when he was accustomed to drink wine,—"the English people are a nation of paltry cowards for allowing this hideous Chancery Court to uprear its head amongst them. Did not the French destroy their Bastille?—and was the Bastille ever half so bad, in one way, as this Chancery Court is in another? It is all useless for two or three people to declaim, or two or three authors to write, against such a flagrant abuse. 'Tis a public grievance, and must be put down by the public hand! The whole body of lawyers are against law-reform—and the profession of the law has vast influence upon both Houses of Parliament. From the Houses of Parliament, then, we have no hope: the strong hand of the people must do it. You might as well ask the Lords to abolish hereditary aristocracy, or the King to dethrone himself, as expect the Houses of Parliament to sweep away the Chancery Court."
"But could we do without it?" enquired an attentive listener.
"Do without it!" exclaimed Prout, indignantly—almost contemptuously, at the nature of the question: "certainly we can! France does without it—Holland does without it—Prussia does without it—Switzerland does without it—and the United States do without it;—and where is the law of property better administered than in those countries? There the transfer of land, or the bequeathing of other property, is as simple as that of merchandize or stock; but here—here, in England, which vaunts its freedom and its civilization, the process is encumbered with forms and deeds which leave the whole arrangement liable to flaws, difficulties, and endless embarrassments. Talk of Equity indeed! 'tis the most shameless mockery of justice ever known even amongst barbarians. But let me tell you an anecdote? In 1763, a suit was commenced in Chancery relative to some lawful property on which there was a windmill. The cause was not referred to the Master till 1796—thirty-three years having elapsed, and the lawyers, who had grown old during the proceedings, not having been idle. In the Master's office did the case remain till 1815—though the new lawyers who had succeeded the old batch that had died off in the meantime, were as active as the matter would allow them to be. Well—in 1815 the Master began to look into the business; but, behold! the windmill had disappeared—it had tumbled down—it had wasted away into dust—not a trace of it remained!" actually shrieked out the old man, in the excitement of his story.[[44]]
"Thus the affair was fifty-two years in Chancery, and was knocked on the head after all?" observed one of the company present.
"While Law slept, Time was awake and busy, you see," said Prout, with a bitter irony which actually chilled the hearts of his auditors. "But I can give you plenty of examples of the infernal—heart-breaking delays of Chancery—and my own amongst the rest presently," he continued. "There is the case of Bute versus Stuart: it began in 1793—and in 1813 a step was made in the cause![[45]] Then, again, you have the case of the Attorney-General versus Trevelyan: it commenced in 1685, and is an affair involving an endowment for a Grammar-School at Morpeth. This cause never will be finished![[46]] But how much property do you suppose there is locked up in Chancery—eh? Ah! now I am going to tell you something astounding indeed—and yet as true as the Gospel! Thirty-eight millions sterling are locked up in that dreadful tribunal. A tribunal!—no—it is a sepulchre—a tomb—a grave in which all justice and all hopes are interred! But you will say that this enormous fund is only as it were in temporary trust, to be in due time portioned out to its rightful owners. Pshaw!—nonsense! More than one-third concerns persons who are dead and have left no heirs, or else whose representatives are ignorant of their rights. The Suitors' Fund is a bank of plunder—of shameful, diabolical plunder effected under the forms of the law!"
"But what about your own case, old fellow?" enquired the Honourable Mr. Pettifer.
"I'll tell you in a moment, gentlemen," cried Prout, rejoiced to observe the interest created by his strictures on the most hellish tribunal that ever disgraced a civilised country. "Twenty-five years ago," he said, "I was a prosperous man, having a good business in the City; and I had managed to save four thousand pounds by dint of strict economy and the closest attention to my affairs. A lawyer—a friend of mine—told me of a favourable opportunity to place the sum out at good interest and on the best possible security. A gentleman, in fact, wanted to borrow just that amount on mortgage, he having a capital estate. The matter was fully investigated, and the security was considered unexceptionable. So I lent the money; and for three years the interest was regularly paid, and all went on well. The gentleman suddenly died; and his nephew, who inherited the estate, hunted out an old entail, effected a hundred and fifty years previously, and of the existence of such an entail no mention had been made in subsequent deeds. So the nephew would not acknowledge the validity of the mortgage, and refused to pay me a fraction of my four thousand pounds. He would not even settle the interest. I was therefore forced into Chancery; and seven years afterwards I got a decree in my favour, but I was sent into the Master's Office on account of certain details which I will not stop to explain to you. This was fifteen years ago—and I am still in Chancery! I have spent three thousand pounds in costs—and am totally ruined. The excitement and worry of law made me neglect my business: my affairs fell into confusion—my creditors took all my stock in trade—and here have I been eleven years for the balance of my liabilities. Twenty-two years have I been engaged in law—and have not yet got justice! And yet I am told that I live in a civilised country, where the laws are based on consummate wisdom, and where the meanest as well as the highest individual is sure to obtain justice. Justice indeed!—such justice as one finds in the Chancery Court! My original claim was for four thousand pounds—and I have spent three thousand in costs, and owe my lawyer five hundred pounds more. But what do you think of this? Eight years ago a written question was put by the Master to the respondent in the suit; and it is still a matter of dispute whether he is to answer it or not! Here's law for you—here's justice! Why—it is enough to make a man curse himself for belonging to a country in which such things take place: it is enough to make me ashamed of being an Englishman! Suppose a savage from the South Sea Islands came to England—beheld all the glitter and glory of our outward appearance of civilisation—studied our language, and was then told of such cases as these? What would he think. He would say, 'After all, you are in reality a very barbarous people; and I shall be glad when I get back to my own far-off island!'"[[47]]