Page:Chronicle of the law officers of Ireland.djvu/342

Rh in England, previous to 1573, as to merit the interference of Queen Elizabeth. That princess ordered her Privy Council to send a circular letter to the sheriffs of England, stating, "that the great burden and cost of said office, by the large diets of the justices of assize yearly increasing, have obliged many gentlemen meet for the office to make strong solicitations to avoid that burden;" and it appearing that the petitions of sheriffs for such expense to her Majey's Exchequer shewed that more was charged than in reason ought to be allowed; the Queen therefore determined to sustain the Judges from her coffers, and notice was given that in future, sheriffs should forbear further diet, but to assist the justices' servants in all such matters. By an act passed in the year 1796, the Judges' salaries were increased.

There was a fee, small in itself, but valuable, which resulted from civil bills, a species of suit entirely unknown in England; here a shilling was given to each Judge on a decree or dismiss, and taxed against the losing party. This profit was diverted into another course when assistant barristers were appointed. But to complete that plan, the Common Law Judges must be rendered as independent in income as the statute law had already confirmed them by tenure.

Four thousand pounds a year was assigned to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and three thousand five hundred pounds to the other Chief Judges, while the Puisne Judges were fixed at an equal salary of two thousand five hundred pounds, which official patronage was overlooked from the great principle whence it arose.

A material judicial arrangement took place in the year 1800. For near two centuries the English Master of the Rolls has determined causes, and been in that respect a collateral judicial assistant to the Lord Chancellor. In Ireland no similar duty was performed previous to the Union. That great measure, however, led to the alteration, and has in that respect operated to a beneficial effect It was conceived that the Irish Chancellor