[23] Mr. Hand Clerk of the papers to the late Lord Chancellor, who could never be prevailed on to receive papers, where he could avoid it with any sort of decency. Adverting to the immense accumulation of papers he used to say that the Chancellor could scarcely enter his own house without being in danger of breaking his shins over a bundle of briefs at the door.
[24] This being only an interlocutory proceeding, the supposition may perhaps be entertained.
[25] William Agar and his mansion in the country, near St. Pancrass workhouse, are well known. So inviolable does he maintain his territorial rights, that a poor wretch caught angling in his fish-pond the other day, was, as I hear, transported for that heinous offence. Frowd, of the firm of Frowd and Rose, Carey Street, and Philip Hurd, of the house of Hurd and Johnson, Temple, are notorious as the chief providers of this calf-like lion.
[26] George Spence. This gentleman, who lately contrived to get himself returned member of parliament for a few weeks, had the vain effrontery to inform the House of Commons that his sole object in getting there, was to instruct them in legislation on equitable juris-prudence.
[27] Witnesses in Chancery are examined upon written interrogations prepared and signed by counsel: a most wretched and ineffectual system of extracting truth. The execution of the commission is entrusted to friends of the solicitors in the cause, and the witnesses are all previously well tutored as to what it is expected of them to swear. The proceedings are always conducted at an inn, where the solicitors, commissioners and witnesses, drown all their animosities in the sociability of the table. Every day is provided at the expense of the litigant parties a dinner, at which the viands and wines are the very best and most expensive that the house can afford. Liberal potations of course produce head-aches, for which there is nothing so wholesome as air and exercise. Business is thus frequently neglected for the sports of the field. Can any censure be too severe for such iniquity?
[28] The depositions of witnesses are liable to be suppressed on many trifling grounds, which is another serious grievance arising out of the mode of taking evidence in the Court of Chancery. I was some time ago informed that the omission of the letter “s” at the end of the word “evangelists” in a jurat, actually caused an expense to the plaintiff of about 80l.
[29] The death of a party, who has an interest in any cause, often produces infinite delay. I have known a suit remain inactive for many years in consequence of there being no person who would take out administration to the deceased.
[30] The change or death of a solicitor in the cause is also frequently the means of prolonging a suit. There are many instances in which the taxation of a suitor’s bill has been pending for several years. Our friend James Lowe is here introduced on the grand arena of his fame. He carries taxation to an extremity of meanness and hostility that is perfectly disgusting!
[31] Solicitors are allowed 4d. a folio of ninety words for abbreviating pleadings, and 3s. 4d. a brief sheet for copying the abbreviations. They are also allowed 10s. a sheet for drawing and copying observations, which I will venture to say no counsel ever reads. The word “brief” is truly the “lucus a non lucendo.”
[32] Sir Samuel Romilly, who, with all his virtues, was as much attached to fees as any man. Hundreds of briefs did he take when he must have known that it was impossible for him to attend to them. A man cannot divide himself, nor be at the same moment in the House of Lords, and the Court of Chancery.