Coleridge to find himself so near to the Mace without being the Lord Chancellor that even the pleasure of taking precedence of his brother, the Master of the Rolls, cannot afford him a counterbalancing satisfaction. This year the feeling must have been specially acute, for rumours have more than once been prevalent that circumstances were carrying the Chief, as he is familiarly called, to that topmost-towrie height which he is perhaps justified in believing no one could occupy with greater grace than he himself. But here was Lord Herschell at the head of the procession, far away from the viceroyalty which the newspapers had been giving to him, and, it may be, regretting it, for he looked miserably cold and blue. It was easy to imagine him sighing for the warmer atmosphere of Calcutta; he looked so very unhappy and uncomfortable.

I should not be surprised if I had remarked some time before that it is the prevailing feature of this annual procession that every one in it seems to be at a loss what to do with his eyes and his hands, and to be wishing himself well out of it. They know that the chill October air has reddened the nose and purpled the cheek; that the knee-breeches are not suited for old gentlemen on purely æsthetic grounds, apart from the question of rheumatism; and that that monstrous absurdity of all absurdities in the way of costume, the full-bottomed wig, deprives the human countenance divine of anything it may have pleasant or handsome in it. Sir Francis Jeune and Sir Charles Russell, both handsome, tall, striking figures though they are, were robbed of all their fair proportions, and looked as grotesque as the rest of the cavalcade. Not that the procession was really on horseback, which I think is the real meaning of cavalcade, but at anyrate most of the number were knights who ought to be on horses if they are not. There needed no Lika Joka to caricature such a multitude; they did it themselves; and I only wonder that the well-known artist has not transferred such a ready-made scene to the pages of Punch. Whenever it ceases to be put on the legal stage, as it must some of these days ere long, and shares the fate destined for all such exhibitions of old clothes, or rather new clothes in old fashions utterly ugly and unbecoming, those who are at present compelled to take part in it will surely regret it least, for it must give them the worst quarter of an hour they have in the course of the year. What is so painfully apparent is the natural unfitness of our judicial body for purposes of pageantry. The legal profession, it must be confessed, either starts with or acquires a striking lack of personal beauty. If I am correctly informed, the English Bar is not the only one at which the average of good looks is somewhat low. In Court one has overheard remarks by lady visitors, who may be considered entitled to an opinion upon this point, which, if the profession had not compensating advantages in taking the sensitive edge off the emotions, would have been extremely trying. Obviously this unpleasant fact should not be emphasised by a procession. If it were a march of intellect alone, it would, of course, its members being who they are, be

imposing; but as a march in which corporeal characteristics come chiefly to the front, it is wanting in impressiveness. The general notion of it, when it has passed, is that it is comically dactyllic it is like a piece of Latin hexameters, composed of longs and shorts; the longs very long, and the shorts very short. Only the arrangement is somewhat different, as it happens. Instead of being a long and two shorts, it occurs thus-one short, one long, and then another short, so that the effect is somewhat like that of going up on one side and down the other, of two ladders placed together.

Hoping that there is nothing of scandalum magnatum in these remarks, I may just add that Sir Horace Davey appeared for the first time in his new character of Lord Justice; and it is doubtful whether he looked more bored on the first day of the proceedings or since. He has seemed to be wearing what the poet calls "sorrow's crown of sorrow," the remembrance of happier things. There is nothing more to be said of the old Lord Justice and the new one than I said last month. Only I may mention that, with the reassembling of the judges, there as been an outburst of regret for the loss of Lord Justice Bowen, and a lively appreciation of the qualities upon which I dwelt when speaking of him. A writer in the World says he was the only man of genius on the bench. As nobody has a very clear idea what genius is, and in most cases one uses it with the intention of being complimentary rather than exact, the expression may pass as far as the new Lord of Appeal is concerned; and as for the other Judges, well, as it did not happen to be their turn to be complimented, they won't perhaps mind.

The word "arid," as applied to the intellect of a man, does not sound, and may not be intended to be, complimentary-this is the epithet the World applies to the intellect of Sir Horace. But one may look at it another way. It need not necessarily mean infertile and unproductive, but may mean an intellect cool, unprejudiced, unimpassioned, and unemotional-of a dry light, as is often saidcould we not speak of arida lux? Then it is true of Sir Horace, and agrees with what the Law Times-which does not like the description of our new Lord Justice's intellect as arid-means when it says that, after all, we do not need intellectual fireworks in the calm atmosphere of the Appeal Court. Quite so; fireworks are like the pictures of the Lord Mayor's show, which we shall all be gazing at very soon, highly coloured their light is startling and picturesque, the reverse of arid; but it is not uncomplimentary to the sun to call it arid by way of comparison.

In connection with the opening of the Courts a certain ecclesiastical function took place which I must confess I had never heard of before, but which appears to have been in its third year upon this occasion. We have not been accustomed to associate religious exercises with the process of litigation, and unless one happens to have closer relations with the Roman Catholic Church than most of the members of the bar have, it was easy to overlook it, and certainly this year it seems to have

come into more than usual prominence. It may be remembered that on one occasion I spoke in these notes of what is called the Messe Rouge, or the Red Mass, which forms one of the regular features at the opening of the Courts at the Palais de Justice in Paris. There is certainly very much difference between the elaborate celebration of this Mass in the beautiful chapel of the Palais de Justice and in the obscure church of the old Sardinian Embassy in Lincoln's Inn Fields; but, making allowance for the changed circumstances, we have now got the Parisian custom transplanted to London. Barristers and solicitors together belonging to the Roman Church made a fair show. Some of the former were in their robes, but as yet the judges do not seem to have deserted the Lord Chancellor's hospitable table for the Church services; perhaps it would be too bold an innovation, and some prejudice might be aroused were they to do so. With the characteristic prudence of their Church, they will very likely avoid the possibility of arousing such a feeling until, at anyrate, let us say, the disability of Catholics is taken away by which they are prevented from reaching the Chancellorship. Supposing, as may be done, that Sir Charles Russell became Chief Justice, he and his two fellow co-religionists already on the bench (Mr. Justice Matthew and Mr. Justice Day) would make a very respectable appearance at the head of the other members of the profession in attendance. Another supposition may be made, as we are speaking of innovations, that some time we may see an announcement in the papers that one of Her Majesty's judges played the violin obliggato, which, if I remember rightly, is the technical description of the piece played by a well-known member of the bar of the Central Criminal Court at the services on Tuesday. Strangely enough, though the Red Mass is celebrated on similar occasions in most Catholic countries, I believe the custom is unknown in Ireland, although three-fifths of the bar there are members of that Church.

We have had, as usual, during this month of the long vacation the annual provincial meeting of the Incorporated Law Society, which this year was held at Manchester. In what year of grace will a similar meeting of that unconstituted body, the Bar, be held? Perhaps when the Bar Association gets formed. It would certainly be good fun at the vacation period, when so many barristers are getting bored with the long holidays, to turn them loose into a hall after a banquet, such as the solicitors sit down to, and let them have the chance of saying precisely what they think about things. They might have something strong to say about the absurdity of treating barrister and solicitor as if they were marked off from each other by quarantine regulations. Think of the common interests that all men practising the law have in legal and political subjects, who yet by artificial restrictions are cut off from discussing them together. In the meantime the Solicitors' Society is the only legal body that has a voice, and that can articulate its views and opinions, as all free-born Englishmen are supposed to have the right and the power to do, in public meeting assembled. Its meeting at Manchester was

not occupied with any new subjects, it is true; they were mostly those which for several years have now been thoroughly well thrashed out, and upon which the opinion of their profession is pretty well known. All that is to be said against the Land Transfer Bill, and its much-detested compulsory registration of title enactment, had been said by them on various occasions before, and the four papers read on the subject had no fresh light to throw upon it in principle, though a good deal was brought forward in detailed examples tending to discredit the working of the present Registration Act and its intended extension. Perhaps the most noticeable thing was the defence of conveyancing as now practised against the charges of cost and delay. On both points the superiority of cheapness was claimed for it over the proceedings at the Registry. One of the writers, taking the scale charge of from 1 per cent. to per cent. as the cost of investigation of title and conveyance (excluding, of course, stamps), asked if that could be called excessive. But it was another writer who touched the true note of pathos by pointing out that, in these degenerate times, owing to the admission of too many of unsuitable birth and education" (fancy that as a change to aristocratic exclusiveness from the days when an attorney was the favourite type of what was mean and pettifogging!), this scale was still further reduced by these unworthy members "merely with the view of securing more business, working more cheaply than their neighbours."

Upon the questions of the reforms of the Courts and the unsatisfactory condition of things legal, many excellent criticisins and opinions were contained in papers on the Chambers of Arbitration, Unification of Civil Courts, and the Business of Law Administration. The writer of the first-mentioned paper seemed to be still at the point of despair, which he reminded the society it itself had reached a year or two ago, as to the possibility of restoring the efficiency of the Courts in mercantile matters. But it would seem that the solicitors as a body are a little more sanguine now since the rearrangement of the circuits (spoken of last month) and the Judicature Bill, 1893. Several leading solicitors who had taken part in the establishment of the London Chamber also doubted on their part the success anticipated by the writer of these new Courts in ousting the old. As a matter of fact, in July last, a space of seven months had only produced twelve cases in London. But it was generally admitted that no obstruction should be thrown in the way of their usefulness by solicitors.

The two other papers advocated the union of all civil Courts in the High Court, which would thus consist of two branches of the judiciary, a superior and an inferior, with judges and costs accordingly, and a Ministry of Justice, respectively. The society congratulated itself upon the proposal to add its president for the time being to the new rule-making authority under the Judicature Bill; and in the discussion upon the papers it was observed that they only emphasised views which had been advocated by the council for some time past, and which they had never ceased to

take every opportunity of enforcing upon the judges and the Government.

Correspondence.

THE USE OF SCHOOLS AS POLLING PLACES.

To the Editor, "SCOTTISH LAW REVIEW."

SIR, While the article under the above head in the October number of the REVIEW correctly states that the Scotch Education Code seems to attach a penalty to the use of School Board premises for School Board elections, the nature of the penalty is not clearly specified. It is not a money penalty directly, but it is so indirectly. In order to complete the 400 attendances which entitles a day school to a Government grant, the Code allows, when necessary, the days when the school is occupied in connection with elections for Parliament or for the County Council to be counted; the days when the school is occupied in connection with a School Board election are not entitled to be so counted; therefore the penalty of the loss of two "attendances" per day attaches to such use. -I am, &c., WILLIAM GEORGE BLACK.

GLASGOW, 16th October, 1893.

INCORPORATED SOCIETY OF LAW AGENTS IN SCOTLAND. The ninth annual meeting of this Society was held in the Accountants' Hall, Glasgow, on Friday, 6th October-Mr. John A. Spens, writer, Glasgow, president of the Society, in the chair. There was a considerable attendance of members.

The President, in opening the proceedings, delivered the following address:

I desire to make a few remarks on two subjects suggested by the report of the Council on their year's work, but I promise not to detain you long. Once more we have to state the impossibility of passing useful and, in cases, practically non-contentious measures affecting Scotland through Parliament under present circumstances. It must also be said that the prospects in the early future are little more encouraging. We all see why this is so. No one party in the State is to blame more than the other. Indeed, it may almost be conceded that it is the system and not either party which is at fault. In the congested state of business in Parliament the measures to be pressed must affect votes or excite public interest sufficiently to be taken up. Those which such a Society as this seeks to have made law, while they might well do as much for the public as Bills of a more pretentious character, have enough of technicality to be caviare for the most part to that public. Yet there is a large body of vague, though not less decided, discontent at the absence in Parliament after Parliament and session after session of any serious effort to cope with the matters of administrative and legal reform which only await time and opportunity to be dealt with, and which Scotch Government officials on both sides of the House concede are ripe for legislation. The public feel the pinch and would appreciate a remedy, though they are in general ignorant how much could be done or in what way. In my opinion there is a practical remedy which might do a good deal to overcome the arrears of work to which I have alluded. A short Act of Parliament might be passed on the lines of the University Acts empowering, for a named period of years, commissioners to frame