there be seventeen objections to that plea,
whereof the main note is that it appeareth
that the certain persons are known and not
unknown, as by thee set forth." "Marry,"
crieth the court, "but that is fatal, Gentlemen
of the Jury!" Verdict accordingly, with
unto the sea-captain to move the Court
of Queen's Bench in solemn argument. This
being done with great delay and expense, the
sea-captain (all the facts being perfectly plain
from the first), at length got judgment in his
favor. But, no man to this hour hath been
able to make him comprehend how he got it,
or why; or wherefore the suit was not
decided on the merits when first tried. Which
this wooden-headed seaman, staring straight
before him with all his might, unceasingly
maintains that it ought to have been.

Now, this surely is, in all respects, an
admirable story, representing the density,
obstinacy, and confusion of the sea-captain
in a richly absurd light. Does my learned
friend Willmore relish it? Not in the least.
His dull remark upon it is: That in the
county court the case would have been
adjudicated on its merits, for less than a
hundredth part of the costs incurred: and
that he would so alter the law of the land as
to deprive a plaintiff suing in a superior
court in such an action (which we call an
action of tort) and recovering less than
twenty pounds, of all claim to costs, unless the
judge should certify it to be a fit case to be
tried in that superior court, rather than to
have been taken to the county court at a
small expense, and at once decided.

Precisely the same obtuseness pervades
the very next suggestion of my learned
friend. It has always appeared to me a good
joke that county courts having a jurisdiction
in cases of contract up to fifty pounds, should
not also have a jurisdiction in cases of tort
up to the same amount. As usual, my learned
friend Willmore cannot perceive the joke.
He says, in his commonplace way, "I think
it is the general desire that the jurisdiction
should be given;" and puts as an illustration
—"Suppose a gentleman's carriage is run
against. The damages may be fifty pounds.
In the case of a costermonger's donkey-cart,
they may be fifty pence; the facts being
identically the same." Now, this, I am of
opinion, is prosaic in the last degree.

Passing over my learned friend's inclinings
towards giving the county courts jurisdiction
in matters of bankruptcy; and also in criminal
cases now disposed of, not much to anybody's
sastisfaction he seems to consider at Quarter
Sessions—where, by the by, I have known
admirable practical jokes played off from the
Bench; and towards making a Court of
Appeal of a selection from county court
judges; I will come to his crowning suggestion.
He is not happier in this than in his other
points, for it strikes at the heart of the
excellent joke of putting the public in this
dilemma, "If you WILL have law cheap, you
shall have an inferior article."

Without the least tenderness for this jest—
which is unctuous, surprising, inconsequential,
practical, overflowing with all the
characteristics of a wild and rollicking humour—
my learned friend knocks the soul out of it
with a commonplace sledge-hammer. I hold,
says he, that you should have, for county court
judges who deal with an immense variety of
intricate and important questions, the very
best men. "I think there is great mischief
in the assumption that when a man is
made a county court judge, he never can be
anything else. I think if the reverse were
assumed—if the appointment as county court
judge were not considered a bar to a
man's professional advancement, you would
have better men candidates for the office.
You would have the whole body of talent in
the profession willing to go through the previous
state of probation, as it would then be,
of a county court judgeship. You must
not expect a permanent succession of able,
conscientious men, competently trained and
educated for such an appointment, if it is
to be a final one at the present pay. The
county court judge, especially in the provinces,
is placed in a painful and false position.
He is made a magistrate, and must
associate with his brother justices. If he
lives at all as they do, he perhaps spends more
than he can afford; he certainly can lay up
nothing for his family. If he does not, he
will probably meet with slights and
disparagement, to which, I think, he ought not to
be subjected, and which impair his efficiency."
He believes also that if the Court of Appeal
were established, and the other county court
judges were, as vacancies occurred, to be
appointed members of it, according to
circumstances, "the public would derive another
advantage in not being obliged to take, as a
judge of the superior courts, a purely untried
man. They would have a man exercised both
in Nisi Prius and in banc work, and exercised
in the face of the public and the profession,
instead of having a man taken because he
has a certain standing as an advocate, or
because he has certain political recommendations.
I think it would be a much more certain
mode of testing the merits of a man
previous to his appointment as a judge in the
superior courts."

So, for the good old joke of fobbing the public
off, when it is perverse in its demands, with
half a second-rate loaf, instead of enough of the
best bread; for the joke of putting an educated
and trained gentleman, in a public station and
discharging most important social functions,
at a social disadvantage among a class not the
least stiff-necked and purse-proud of all classes
known between the British Channel and
Abyssinia; for the joke, in short, of systematically
overpaying the national Shows and
underpaying the national Substances; my
learned friend Willmore has not the slightest