“Well, you see, in a tinkering sort of way, a good many try their hands at reforming the law; but it’s to no one’s interest, that I can see, to reform it.”
“I hope you’ll write this dream and publish it, so that someone’s eyes may be opened.”
“It may make me enemies.”
“Not among honest people; they will all be on your side, and the dishonest ones, who seem to me to be the only persons benefited by such a dilatory and shocking mode of procedure, are the very persons whose enmity you need not fear. But can the Judges do nothing?”
“No; their duty is merely to administer the law, not to change it. But if the people would only give them full power and fair play, Old Fogeyism would be buried to-morrow. They struggle might and main to break through the fetters, but to no purpose while they are hampered by musty old precedents, ridiculous forms and bad statutes. They are not masters of the situation. I
wish they were for the sake of suitors. I would only make one condition with regard to them. If they were to set about the task of reform, I would not let the Equity Judges reform the Common Law nor the Common Law Judges the Equity.”
“I thought they were fused.”
“No, only transposed.”
CHAPTER XI.
Commencement of London life and adventures.