instances of the jealousy of juries of habitual attempts by judges to lead them or command them.

Lord Tenterden was more successful, by reason of his lucid statement of the facts, and of the law applicable to them. He seemed to travel with the jury along the right path to justice. ...Lord Denman was a striking instance of the power which one man cail exercise over other men, when he combines in his one person the scholar, the lawyer, the magistrate, the gentleman. Without art, certainly without the appearance of art, he won the confidence of juries. English lawyers may be proud of Lord Denman.

We sometimes hear praised the careful summing up of a pains-taking judge. But how often is a summing up too minutely careful, setting the facts and combinations of the facts in every possible light, going over them again and again, and distinguishing slight shades from still slighter shades, until every juryman and every listener is in a state of bewilderment, from which it is hopeless that the jury can recover, with their faculties in a state fit for deliberation, Many of our readers are not old enough to have heard Mr. Justice Littledale sum up, in this manner, circumstantial evidence; and some of his successors have had the same fault. Unfortunately, too, this fault, or weakness, or want of skill, is more frequently shown in the most important trials, those of which the result affects the life of the accused,-trials for murder. The importance of the trial very properly makes the judge as careful as it is in his power to be; but it unfortunately happens that the more care a judge of this character takes, the more inefficient he becomes. But we have wandered from the subject we propose to consider the power given by a late Act of Parliament to try civil causes in the superior courts without juries; and we have been discussing the characteristics of certain judges as evinced chiefly in the trial of criminal causes,

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We return then to our subject. It remains to be seen whether it will be the practice of parties to consent to dispense with juries. This we consider at least doubtful. When there is a difference between two parties, one may be in the right, and the other in the wrong; but it often happens that both are

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in the wrong, one being more wrong than the other. in the right, or least in the wrong, needs a remedy. He is the most likely of the two to go to law, and he is the most likely to desire that sort of trial which is the most likely to bring the truth to light. He would most likely prefer the judgment of a single judge, a lawyer accustomed to sift and weigh evidence, to the verdict of twelve men taken by lot from the very miscel laneous classes of persons of whose names the jury lists consist. On the contrary, the party in the wrong, or least in the right, is interested in withholding a remedy. He is not the one to commence proceedings; and if proceedings are taken against him, he would most likely prefer the chance of a verdict of a jury in his favour, to the probability of the judgment of a single judge against him. He is not likely to give his consent to a trial without a jurv.

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What has happened in the County Courts may serve to illustrate what we mean. In the case of a difference not within the ordinary jurisdiction of the County Courts,-for instance, à dispute involving a question as to the title to land, the parties in difference may, by consent, give a County Court jurisdiction between them, and thus avoid the delay and expense of a trial at the assizes. Consents of this sort are so rarely given, that the law giving effect to them is almost a dead letter; and inquiries have been made as to the cause of this. Some have suggested the reason to be the interest which the lawyers, by whom the parties in difference are advised, have in preferring the more expensive remedy; but we have formed an opinion that the true cause is the natural disinclination of a wrongdoer to facilitate a remedy for the wrong he has inflicted, and his natural disinclination to do that which may lead to his being compelled to make restitution. He cannot be expected to consent to a cheap remedy. He is more likely to hope that his opponent will, for want of means, be unable to proceed to trial at the assizes, involving, among other great expenses, the maintenance of witnesses for days at an assize town. Universal experience tells us that the game of the wrongdoer is, by delay and increase of expense, to wear out the the means and hopes of the person whom he has wronged. Resu

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instances of the jealousy of juries of habitual attempts by judges to lead them or command them.

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Lord Tenterden was more successful, by reason of his lucid statement of the facts, and of the law applicable to them. He seemed to travel with the jury along the right path to justice. of Lord, Denman was a striking instance of the power which one man can exercise over other men, when he combines in his one person the scholar, the lawyer, the magistrate, the gentleman. Without art, certainly without the appearance of art, he won the confidence of juries. English lawyers may be proud of Lord Denman.

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© We sometimes hear praised the careful summing up of a pains-taking judge. But how often is a summing up too minutely careful, setting the facts and combinations of the facts in every possible light, going over them again and again, and distinguishing slight shades from still slighter shades, until every juryman and every listener is in a state of bewilderment, from which it is hopeless that the jury can recover, with their faculties in a state fit for deliberation. Many of our readers are not old enough to have heard. Mr. Justice Littledale sum up, in this manner, circumstantial evidence; and some of his successors have had the same fault. Unfortunately, too, this fault, or weakness, or want of skill, is more frequently shown in the most important trials, those of which the result affects the life of the accused, trials for murder. The importance of the trial very properly makes the judge as careful as it is in his power to be; but it, unfortunately happens that the more care a judge of this character takes, the more inefficient he becomes. But we have wandered from the subject we propose to consider the power given by a late Act of Parliament to try civil causes in the superior courts without juries; and we have been discussing the characteristics of certain judges as evinced chiefly in the trial of criminal causes,:{}

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We return then to our subject. It remains to be seen whether it will be the practice of parties to consent to dispense with juries. This we consider at least doubtful. When there is a difference between two parties, one may be in the right, and the other in the wrong; but it often happens that both are

may generally be said to be present in court, known to one or more persons who conceal it: the object is to bring it to light. Of the various tests of truth, with which the experience of lawyers have made them long familiar, we do not propose to speak. We intend to confine our remarks to those tests only which have become useful by reason of the evidence of interested parties being made admissible.

It sometimes happens that, when two persons, both interested, and both from their character or from circumstances equally' unworthy of credit, contradict each other in their evidence, the truth, or the probable truth, may be elicited from their statements, by the process of comparing admissions inadvertently made by one against his interest, with admissions inadvertently made by the other against his interest. Sometimes, too, admissions against apparent interest are not inadvertent, and are mixed up with false statements for the purpose of giving them a show of candour, or a tinge of honesty. Admissions often supply a clue which may lead to the discovery of the truth, and they are sometimes elicited from a party by effective crossexamination, or by a concluding examination by the judge himself, acting on materials elicited by the counsel in their examination of the parties or witnesses.

Points of this sort have always been of especial importance in the County Courts, in which, from their first establishment, the parties interested have been examined as witnesses. They become more important, because available in a more important judicial sphere, from the time a change of the law rendered the evidence of interested parties admissible in the Superior Courts.

In the i

ty Courts, too, these points were, from the first, nce, because questions of fact have always in en generally decided by the judges, the parties ecourse to juries. A judge who can, with collate admissions made by interested parties, inself, so as to arrive at the truth, or probable d it difficult to suggest, much more to explain course of reasoning, and impossible to direct ve them effectual assistance in the application

We are inclined to think the better way would be to permit any sort of action to be brought in a County Court at the option of the plaintiff, giving the defendant an equal option to remove into a superior court any cause involving a question not now within the ordinary jurisdiction of the County Court. A person who would refuse an express consent to an action being brought against him, might, nevertheless, not care to take the trouble and incur the expense of removing it when actually brought. Here, again, what we mean is illustrated by what has happened in the County Courts. In any of those Courts any cause is, as a matter of course, tried by the judge without a jury, unless in some cases either party requires a jury. It is very rarely that a jury is required. Things take their course. So we think it would be better in the Superior Courts if, instead of the dispensing with a jury being made dependent on the concurrence of two parties already in difference, the recourse to a jury were made dependent on its being expressly required by one of them.

Nevertheless, upon the probable supposition that there will be some trials in the Superior Courts of Common Law without juries, we propose to discuss the new functions with which the judges are now invested. Henceforth, instead of having, in all trials of questions of fact, to perform the embarrassing duty of assisting others to do what they could do better alone, they will sometimes find themselves in a position in which their function will be to listen carefully to the evidence, to sift, and compare, and weigh it calmly, to form their impartial conclusions, and to express them clearly, satisfying their own consciences, instead of endeavouring, often vainly, to give a right direction to the consciences of twelve other persons, and making attempts to lead them to a right conclusion.

We will now consider, as forming, it will be seen, a part of our present subject, some of the means of detecting truth when hidden in a mass of conflicting evidence. This is more likely to be effected, now that the interested parties may be heard, than when their evidence was rejected. Those who really know the truth, are now permitted, or if they hold back, may be required to give evidence. In a trial of a question of fact, the truth