THE THREE KINGDOMS.

MORE than a million and a half of people have passed through the Great Exhibition during the last six
weeks, yet it continues to be stoutly affirmed by not a few that for the last six weeks little or no business
has been transacted by the London tradesmen. This is a mystery it would be difficult to solve; for even
Colonel Sibthorp and Mr. Grantly Berkeley don't undertake to say that meat and drink are to be had at the
Exhibition, or that Mr. Giblett of Bond Street has any alarming competition to fear from the proprietor of
the stuffed animals of Wurtemburg. But if what the gallant Colonel and the member for West Gloucestershire
do assert be true, and it is really possible for people to be poured into London by tens of thousands
without spending a single shilling when they arrive, the prospect for trade just at present is more discouraging
than ever. The gross receipts of railway traffic have increased during the last fortnight to the extent of
some forty thousand pounds, and from this and other signs it seems manifest that the crowd of the carnival
is only beginning.

Little actual progress has been made meanwhile in graver matters, yet what has been done in the past
month is not without a certain interest. The law reformers begin to show themselves in earnest. The
second Government bill for the reform of chancery is so clear an improvement on the first, that, by the time
it reaches its third stage, it may have ripened into something admirable. Still retaining both the political and
judicial functions of the chancellor, it yet effects such a separation of his duties while it guarantees him
assistance in them, as will be manifestly for the public advantage. It will enable the appeal business of his
court to be carried on without rendering absolutely indispensable the presence of the chancellor himself.
It will render the suitors of that court, in a considerable degree, independent of the political fluctuations of
party. The drawback, on the other hand, is the invasion of the principle of what Bentham calls single-seated
justice, to which there cannot be a doubt that great advantages belong in respect of single attention and single
responsibility. Much that is at present doubtful in the scheme, however, will probably right itself before the
measure becomes law; and meanwhile Mr. Bethel, in promising that a bill will shortly be introduced for
reforming the masters' offices, has pointed to the removal of a grievance by which the public will benefit
probably more than in any other direction. In these offices it is that the great obstructions spring up.
Here it is that proceedings become uncertain, ineffective, protracted, hopeless. It is hardly a fortnight since
a case was reported of a suit which had begun thirty-six years ago, and in which a particular motion had
been made thirty-four years ago, which has only come on to be argued within the last twelve days! Quite
as a matter of course it seems to have been received. The counsel representing the unhappy parties to it
"would be content to take an order for payment into court on or before the last seal." One can hardly
imagine contentment to go beyond that. We do not think of asking whether the seal Cancellarian or the
seal named in Revelations were intended; for who can doubt that in either case the learned gentleman
would have been equally content? Such are the habits that Chancery engenders. It is the Sleepy
Hollow of the old world in this nineteenth century. While everything around is in a constant course of
progress, dissolution, reconstruction, there to this day nine-pins are quietly played "by odd-looking
personages," just exactly as they have been played for several hundred years; and though human hopes
and fortunes are the stake, nothing can equal the nonchalance with which the nine-pins are bowled down.

As we have said however, even there, amid those thunder-storms to the people outside amid which that
"melancholy party of pleasure'' has so long continued to enjoy its game, some glimmer of sunshine and
hope begins to make itself perceptible. There has been, during the past month, a very remarkable meeting
attended by not a few of the most thoughtful law reformers of the day, at which the question which, involves
almost every other question of reform in this department, was fairly put and argued. Why should one
portion of our law be ticketted off and called Law, and another be labelled off and called Equity! Has it any
logical meaning? has it any practical utility? Would the absurdity be tolerated in any other field of human
pursuit—that two courts should be set up, both called courts of justice, and both professing to have the
same object, yet with modes of procedure in all respects contrasted, and with rules of evidence and
investigation diametrically opposed? Can any so-called reform of the law be attempted with any hope of success,
so long as one of these courts of justice is bound to decide upon certain facts in favour of a particular party,
and the other court, sitting next door, and having precisely the same facts for judgment, is not less stringently
bound to decide exactly the other way!

The Law Amendment Society has at length taken this matter in hand. For some months it has bad
before it the consideration of the New York code, in which a fusion of law and equity has witliin the last few
years been accomplished; and it now states the result of the practical working of that measure in a report of
very great ability. According to this report the change has been eminently successful. Eleven judges of
the superior courts of the State of New York have expressed themselves strongly in favour of it. Its
beneficial operation is also affirmed by a large majority of the most distinguished practitioners at the New
York bar. Other states of the Union are adopting it with acclamation. The chief justices of Calcutta and
Bombay, Sir Laurence Peel and Sir Erskine Perry, have expressed their approval of the code in terms to
which their high reputation gives extraordinary weight. The council think themselves justified, therefore,