person whom such delay can benefit is the defendant who refuses to satisfy a just demand, or whose only object in resistance is to gain time.

The interests of non-professional persons engaged in the administration of justice at the assizes should be very anxiously considered. Particular attention should be paid to the convenience of jurors. Most of them, it must be remembered, render important services, at some cost to themselves, and without remuneration of any kind. It behoves the Legislature, therefore, to take care that their time and labour are carefully economised. They should not be kept away from their business and families longer than is absolutely necessary, nor should they be compelled to visit places to which there is not cheap and easy access. The same observations apply to witnesses, with this additional remark, that as their expenses are paid either by the public or the suitor, the public and the suitors have a direct interest in keeping down the cost of their journeys and attendances.

The judges are highly but not over-paid public functionaries, whose time being of the utmost value to the public, should be economised as much as possible. To harass them with useless journeys-to task them with inferior duties-to employ them in the trial of ordinary misdemeanours and larcenies, instead of confining them to the higher class of judicial business-is obviously impolitic and improper.

From these general remarks it would seem to follow that assizes should be frequently held in large central towns, easily accessible by railway, and with facilities for telegraphic communication. To the present circuit system the following, amongst other objections, may be urged :—

(1.) The present circuit towns are in many instances illadapted for the transaction of the assize business, and scarcely afford accommodation for witnesses, attorneys, jurors, and counsel. Some of them are inconveniently situated out of the main and most direct travelling routes, and though formerly

towns of importance are no longer the principal places of business and resort. A few examples may be cited. The small town of Appleby, disfranchised by the Reform Act, is still the seat of the assizes for the county of Westmoreland. Twenty-two circuit towns have less, and most of them considerably less, than 10,000 inhabitants. Amongst them, besides Appleby, are six places which have under 5,000 inhabitants, namely, Oakham, Ruthin, Bala, Beaumaris, Cardigan, and Wells, and eight or nine that only exceed by a few hundreds 5,000 inhabitants, namely, Hertford, Guildford, Aylesbury, Huntingdon, Abingdon, Monmouth, Haverfordwest, and Brecon. When their names are enumerated, we are startled to find so many unimportant places still retaining their rank as assize towns, whilst some of our largest cities have not been promoted to that rank, however much the exigencies of business may appear to require it. Time and change have caused anomalies, which no attempts as yet have been made to remove. The business of South Staffordshire, for instance, could be more conveniently transacted at Birmingham than in the small and not very agreeable or important town of Stafford. The former place, which in 1690 had but 4,000 inhabitants, at the beginning of this century had above 70,000, and has now 296,000 inhabitants. The latter town, which numbers only about 12,000 inhabitants, is an ancient borough which has remained stationary, or has perhaps receded. On the Home Circuit, again, it may be fairly contended that Brighton is a much more convenient place for holding an assize than the small town of Lewes, though the latter had its castle and county gaol when the former was only a fishing village. On the Northern Circuit, Liverpool has only become an assize town in comparatively recent times.

(2.) As the amount of business in each county cannot be in any way foreshown or predicted, it is extremely difficult to apportion the circuit time amongst the different assize towns.

Great inconvenience consequently arises when there is an unexpected quantity of business in one particular place. As Bentham observes:-"The space being marked out, it is for the causes to squeeze themselves into it as they can, like negroes on the long passage." Unfortunately the suitors sometimes. suffer severely from this pressure, whilst criminal trials are not conducted with the formalities and decorum expected on "circuit." Prisoners are tried in grand-jury rooms, and not unfrequently are called on to "plead," to their great mystification and annoyance, several times, and in different places. With respect to the suitor, at the last moment his cause is settled or referred, although he is extremely desirous of having it tried, or it is made a remanet, perhaps a still more disagreeable and expensive an alternative.

(3.) The business of an assize is most unequally distributed, not merely amongst the circuit towns, but amongst the circuits themselves. On the whole Norfolk circuit there are often not half as many causes tried as in one of the Northern or Home towns. In one or two places the opening of the commission is a mere matter of form, whilst in other places the pressure of business overpowers both jurors and judges. This evil is now so fully recognised, that a proposition is said to have been made which would have the effect of dividing one circuit and extinguishing another; but I can scarcely think that any such partial remedy will be found effectual. The worst anomaly of all is that exceptional and unfair labour is imposed upon jurors in particular places. Thus the jurors of Surrey are compelled, before the long vacation, to dispose of a long array of London causes which have nothing to do with the county, and ought certainly, if tried at all, to be tried in the metropolis.

(4.) The length of time during which suitors and witnesses are detained in an assize town (when a cause is entered late), is another evil. During a protracted assize the expenses incurred are, in many cases, greatly disproportioned to the

importance of the matter in dispute between the parties, or the sum sought to be recovered.

(5.) The long and irregular interval between the circuits should also be noticed. Between the spring and summer circuits eight months elapse, during which, in most English counties, no causes in the superior courts can be tried, unless the suitors choose to repair to the metropolis, in which event the labour of deciding their differences is most unfairly thrown on London and Middlesex jurymen.

For a system so defective, and so obviously ill-adapted to the requirements of the age, is it not possible to devise some simpler and more satisfactory mode of procedure? The present circuits, it is submitted, might be now safely abolished, and district courts substituted for them. These courts should sit at least three times a year in the chief towns of England, for the despatch of business. In this way much valuable time might be saved, whilst justice would be more speedily executed. Instead of visiting fifty-four places twice a year, the judges might with less labour transact all the civil and criminal business of the circuits by sitting in ten or twelve of our largest towns-the centres of populous districts, and accessible by the most direct lines of railway-three times every year. There would not be much difficulty, it is submitted, in selecting the most convenient central towns, or in apportioning the amount of business to be disposed of in each district. I have already referred to Birmingham, and I would take that place as an illustration. Prisoners and causes might be certainly tried there from the county of Warwick, the southern part of Staffordshire, and from portions of Worcestershire, Shropshire, &c., more conveniently than in the present circuit towns. I am aware of the great difficulties that would have to be encountered in removing ancient land-marks, and in the alteration of forms of procedure that have subsisted for centuries; nor would I suggest that the attempt should be made unless advantages could be secured which more than outweighed the

dangers and inconveniences of innovation. But this is a matter on which discussion is invited, and it may be added is also one of detail rather than of principle.

Supposing such district courts could be established, I cannot help thinking that great advantages would accrue to the public. Some of the evils in the present system already glanced at would be mitigated, and some would be removed. The labour of the judges would be lightened; jurors, witnesses, and suitors, would, during the assize time, find better and cheaper accommodation, and prisoners would be tried and causes disposed of at less cost, and in a much shorter time. In support of the last assertion, I may state that a barrister (Dr. J. Walter Smith) who has investigated the "judicial statistics" of several past years, after stating as the result of his inquiries that scarcely two causes a day were on the average tried on circuit during the assize time, adds that "if these causes could all be tried in two or three chief towns of a district, they might be got over as quickly as London causes, namely, at the rate of between three and four a day."*

A word or two now on the influences of such changes as have been indicated on the interests of the Bar. Not that I would have it believed for a moment that the interests of the Bar and the public can ever be really in conflict, although it is possible they may be made to appear so. The days have long since passed when privileges could be either tolerated or claimed for the benefit of the few to the detriment of the many. To do our profession justice, I am sure that no barrister would permit the question before the society to be discussed merely as one which affected his own private interests and convenience. But I am inclined to think that on the narrow ground of profit and loss, the barrister would be a gainer by the substitution of the district for the present circuit towns. It is true that competition would be increased, and individual cases of hard

* "When and Where should our Courts Sit?" By J. W. Smith, LL.D., and J. Trail. 1861.