No more of the savings can there fore appear in the present account than the difference between the full pay and the retired allowance, for the remainder of the year, or, where no allowance was given, the amount of pay saved. SUBSTANCE OF THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS ON THE APPELLATE JURISDICTION. The Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to consider of the best means of facilitating the administration of justice, as connected with the hearing of appeals, writs of error, and other judicial proceedings," after having consulted the various returns respecting the business before the House of Lords, the appeals, &c. disposed of, and those remaining undisposed of, have made a report, in which they state, that they proceeded to consider First The causes which appeared to have produced the accumulation of judicial business now depending before the House of Lords. Secondly-The best means of preventing its future growth; and Thirdly-The urgent necessity of disposing of the present arrears. On the first head of inquiry-the "Causes" of the increase of business -their lordships say, "Amongst the various causes which have produced the present accumulation of business, it is apparent, upon the accounts referred to the committee, that the great number of appeals from Scotland is the most prominent; there being at this time 151 Scotch appeals out of the total number of 225 appeals remaining unheard, which, according to the average number annually heard upon three days in the week during each session since 1813, could not be disposed of in five years from this time, exclusive of the additional number of appeals which may be presented annually during the same period; and it is to be remarked, that the appeals from Scotland are not only more numerous than other appeals, but that they generally occupy a much larger portion of the time of the house. "Ireland also has furnished a considerable accession to the general mass of business in the supreme court of appeal. "And in England, the increased business of the court of Chancery, in which the property of the suitors has, within the course of the last reign, risen from 4,700,000l. to above 33,000,000l. sterling, has not only increased of necessity the number of appeals, but has also occupied so much larger a portion of the time and labour of the lord chancellor in his own Court, as to preclude him from bestowing an adequate degree of attendance for the decision of all the appeals which come from England, Scotland, and Ireland, to the House of Lords." On the second head of Inquirythe best means of preventing the future growth of the business-their lordships report, that, with respect to Scotland, according to the most competent authorities on such subjects, many improvements in the forms and modes of conducting suits might be there introduced with great benefit to the suitors, and to the general administration of justice. First, the forms of proceeding and pleading, their lordships suggest, might be so altered as to bring the matters in controversy to more simple and precise issues of law and fact; that matters of fact might be referred more extensively to the Jury Court; that resort to a jury might be had with advantage in the inferior courts; and that by separating the decision of fact as much as possible from the mere matter of law, the appeal might finally be reduced to a question of how the law should be applied to previously ascertained facts. Secondly, that an intermediate Court of Appeal might be usefully established in Scotland, without any material increase of delay or expense to the parties; by laying aside the present mode of reclaiming petition to that division of the Court of Session with whose decision the party is dissatisfied, and by giving the appeal from one division to the other; or by dividing the Court of Session into three divisions, and giving the appeal to the two divisions who have not pronounced on the first hearing; or by giving an appeal to the whole Court of Session sitting together; the decision to be vested in a majority of the whole number. Thirdly, that it might be expedient to make the decisions of the Court of Session final in some cases. Thus, that ecclesiastical or consistorial causes might be left to their absolute and final determination in Scotland. Whether any bankruptcy cases should be left to the final decision of the Court of Session may deserve further consideration; and also, whether the Admiralty jurisdiction in matters of prize might not be vested exclusively in the High Court of Admiralty in England. Fourthly, it has been suggested, moreover, that the proceedings upon appeals would be more properly conducted, with a view to the true merits of each case, if the original papers, printed on both sides for the Court of Session, were lodged with each appeal, and re-printed for the use of the House of Lords, instead of the new statements or cases, frequently containing new matter, which are now printed and delivered upon the hearing of each appeal. And fifthly, their lordships state, that some declaratory acts might be passed. "Some branches of the business transacted in the Court of Chancery, it is conceived, could not be removed from it without great detriment to the public; whilst others might be beneficially transferred to other courts or judges.-1. Of the first sort are matters of lunacy. These employ occasionally very considerable portions of the Chancellor's time of attendance in this court; they are not matters in which the Chancellor, as such, has jurisdiction; but are committed to him by a special commission, or warrant from the crown, which may be given to any other person. The lords chancellors, have, however, been intrusted, for a very long series of years, with the care of idiots, lunatics, and persons of unsound mind, exercising on behalf of the king, as parens patriæ, the duty of taking care of those who are unable to take care of themselves; and the Committee think, that although this duty might, according to law, be intrusted to others, the discharge of it ought not to be withdrawn from the Chancellors, who, in their court, have long administered the affairs and property of such persons according to settled rules and doc trines, and with establishments of 66 Amongst the measures which it may be most expedient to adopt for relieving the lord chancellor from some of the business of the Court of Chancery, are the following:-1st. Matters arising out of the execution of local and priyate acts of Parliament, to be referred to the Court of Exchequer,' instead of the Court of Chancery.' 2ndly. Cases on writs of error to be referred to the Courts in Westminster-hall, where the lord chancellor deemed it reasonable so to do. 3rdly. As to answers and references to the Masters. And 4thly, A revision of the orders, &c., connected with the practice of the court." As to the most urgent part of the matters referred, their lordships state, on the subject of disposing of the present arrears, that none of those measures which have occurred to the committee can be adopted without many great inconveniencies. 66 Any such measure," (observed their lordships) "must necessarily have something of novelty in its character: but, being intended for obviating a temporary difficulty, it may be hoped that it will be only of temporary duration : : yet even in this view, it seems to be desirable that it should accord as much as possible with established forms, and afford to the suitor as nearly as possible, the same tribunal as that to which he considered himself to have brought his appeal; or he may have just ground for complaint, that the expectation on which he appealed has been defeated. "The appeals from all parts of VOL. LXV. the united kingdom, since their respective dates of union, have been to England, and it seems, therefore, unadvisable to send their stituted elsewhere; and the apadjudication to any tribunal conpeals from Scotland, which are by far the largest number, and give the principal occasion for any new the Committee are informed, be measure of this sort, would not, as decided any where, so much to the England and in the House of satisfaction of the parties as in Lords. hearing must be either in a Com"If in the House of Lords, the mittee of the House, or in the whole House.-To the proceeding it has been considered as an insuron such matters in a Committee, mountable objection, that the report of the committee cannot bind the House; and if the whole matter is still to be open to the House tion is obtained by this sort of triupon the report, no final adjudicabunal. It remains that appeals must be heard in the whole House. mittee has been to provide some The object, therefore of the comthe constant and regular attendmeans of hearing appeals, by which ance of the lord chancellor may be dispensed with: and for this purbe so arranged, that a Speaker appose, it is submitted that it may pointed by royal commission, should preside in the House, as according to the law of parliament, he occasionally does preside now in the lord chancellor's absence. lord of Parliament, to have liberty "Such Speaker, although not a to declare his opinion upon the case, and the reasons upon which is put, as to what the judgment of it is founded, before the question the house shall be respecting which it may be important to re E* mark, that, according to the present standing orders of the House of Lords, the judges, and such of his majesty's privy council as are called by writ to attend, may speak and deliver their opinion, if required and admitted so to do by the House. "It is expedient, also, that provision be made for obtaining the opinion of the Court of Session in Scotland upon any questions of law which it may be thought proper to send for the opinion of that court; such questions, and the answers thereto, to be entered on the Journals of the House. The answer of the Court of Session if unanimous, to be given by the lord president, with the reasons upon which the same is founded; and in case of any difference of opinion amongst the judges, the answers of each to be given separately, with the reasons for the same, and transmitted through the lord pre sident." After some suggestions as to se curing the attendance during five or six days in the week, of four peers, from ten till four o'clock, EVIDENCE ON THE STATE A Committee of the House of Commons, was appointed to inquire into the present mode of engrossing bills, with the view of ascertaining whether it was susceptible of any alterations with advantage to the public service, The following is a summary of the evidence on this subject: The bills of the House of Commons are at present engrossed on parchment, and tied up in the form of rolls, which has been the practice from before the time of Henry 8th down to the present day. their lordships thus conclude their report : "These statements and observations comprehend all the matters which the committee have thought it necessary at this time to lay before the House for its consideration. They are fully aware of the magnitude, importance, and difficulty, of the various questions into which they have found it to be their duty to enter; and they submit to the wisdom of the House, that whatever may be the measures finally required for preventing the future accumulation of appeals, the further consideration of all such measures should be deferred until after such a commission as above proposed shall have made its report; but so far as regards the present arrears, the Committee have no hesitation in pressing upon the House the immediate necessity of providing some adequate means for relieving the parties, whose causes are now before it, from the heavy grievance which they are enduring by the present delay and interruption of justice." OF THE PUBLIC RECORDS. Many separate skins of parchment, called presses, which are stitched together, are required to form a bill. Each press measures 27 inches by 12 inches (which has been their size for about 200 years), and contains 40 lines, composed of about 25 letters each, which makes about 1,000 letters in the skin. The cost of every press to the public is about 1s., including the labour of the clerks. The number of engrossing clerks depends on the quantity of business to be done, and the time al lowed for its performance. Sometimes fifty clerks are employed, and they sit up all night. It was stated, that there was no difficulty in getting engrossing hands in London. The different presses which compose a bill are stitched together by an old woman and her daughters, who have been employed for many years by the House. In order to prevent any additional sheets being furtively introduced into a bill, the number of presses in the roll are examined by the clerk of the engrossments in the House of Lords by the House bill. Of the public statutes, and the local and personal acts, and all acts having evidence clauses, which make them (being printed by the king's. printer) evidence in courts of justice, a copy is made in the courthand for chancery, which is enrolled in the Rolls-chapel, Chancery-lane. The first record in the Rolls-chapel which came from the parliament-house, is supposed to be the date of Richard 2nd, and is also written in the old court-hand, which has continued to be used in the records deposited in Chancery down to the present day. The copy deposited in the Rolls-office is copied from the printed bill, which is first compared with the original roll; but the two rolls are never compared together. The last engrossed document which goes on from the House of Commons to the House of Lords (the one from which the printed copy is taken) is kept in the Parliament office. It is to this, or to the copy in the Rolls-office, that courts and judges would refer, if the printed copy of a bill appeared to contain an error. It is, however, extremely rare that reference is made to these documents. A clerk in the engrossing office stated, that the largest bill which had ever come under his observation, was the land-tax bill, which contained about six hundred presses, and was nine hundred feet in length, and would occupy about two hours in being unrolled! The committee put some questions to ascertain, whether the common round hand might not be employed, instead of the engrossing hand, in writing records. All the witnesses who were examined on this point were unanimous in giving the preference to the engrossing hand. It was said to be written much faster than the common hand. Sir Thomas Edlyne Tomlins, the parliamentary counsel to the Treasury, said, "I have always found the oldest hands the most legible; the court-hand, which was the original hand for records, was, perhaps, the handsomest hand that ever was written: the present engrossing hand results from the court-hand; from a continued experience in consulting acts of parliament and records, I find it more easy to read the engrossing or the court-hand than any other written hand whatever." Mr. Gunnell, a clerk in the engrossing office, gave the following evidence respecting the mode of engrossing :—“ In engrossing on parchment, we make use of a very strong quill, a turkey quill; that is the only one found to answer; it is cut with a broad point, and we have not to lean hard to form the substance of the letter; but from the breadth of the pen, it makes it as it goes on. If we were to write the common round-hand, we should be obliged to make use of the small quills, because it would require greater elasticity, and consequently would press the parchment; the pen on ac upon |