Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/492

 478 IV. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY tion there were some laymen, and there were to have been others in the county judicatures. These were not welcomed by the lawyers,^ and, no doubt, they did some harm; but they were " expert assessors," and also they brought public opinion to bear, as it is now brought by the Press to bear, upon jurisprudence and legal proceedings. Like the asses- sors in France and Germany, like those suggested by the Judicature Commission, and even like a jury, they gave the judicium to the lawyers' jus. That separation of duties, says Mommsen, and the tendency of pleadings to a clear issue, were the distinctive excellences of Roman Law."^ On the abolition of the House of Lords some of the Common Law judges. Hale, Rolle, Saint John, sat in the Commons. The practice of appointing judges " during their good be- haviour " was that of Spain and of mediaeval England, and was once, at least, adopted by Charles. Under the Common- wealth it was established, and after the Restoration it was by degrees, in the course of a century, established again.® Up to the time of the Great Rebellion judges had bought their places for fabulous sums, and had received in fees, bribes, and perquisites sums equally fabulous ; * and the in- equality of their incomes led to the conflicts of jurisdiction of which I have spoken. The Puritans struck at the root of this: they seized the notion that a law court is for the advantage of the community — not a shop having the monop- oly of a certain kind of justice; they laid the foundation of the suitors' fee fund ; they had all fees paid into a public account; they gave the judges fixed, but handsome, salaries; they did their best to check judicial simony.^ (British Museum iso. g- 12), and the 1st Rep. of the Judicature Com- mission, p. 14. *' ^ » " Hist. Rome," bk. 2, c. 8, n. » See Walter's case (Whitelock 11, 16: Kal. St. Pap. [Dom. Ser.], 1629-31, pp. 76-8), and Rolle's, Whitelock's, Keble's I'lsle's, Hale's. See also 1 Sid. 2: St. 12 and 13 Will. iij. c. 2, §3: Hallam, c. 15 (compared with Macauley, c. 18): St. 1 Ann. s. 1, c. 8: 2 Ld. Raym. 747: St. 1 Geo. iij. c. 23: Blackstone in Steph. " Comm.," bk. 4, pt. 1, c. 6. new returna hrevium," pp. 23, 30. » Comm. Journ. 5,528; 7,670: 6 Somers's Tracts, 186, 189: Whitelock, 382, 680: Cock, "Christian Government," p. 186.
 * Clayton, I. c. But see a petition against the monopoly of lawyers
 * As Vernon, J.; Richardson, C. B.; Caesar and Buck: Jones, "The