Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/543

 16. BOWEN: THE VICTORIAN PERIOD 529 of a deceased man's estate — four years must be wasted in absolute inactivity, over and above any delays that might occur in taking accounts or prosecuting inquiries. If, as seemed possible to skilled observers of the day, the Chancellor should prove unable to do more than keep pace with his appellate work, it would be — so they calculated — six years before the last in the list of 1839 came on for hearing even on its first stage ; if a second hearing was required, thirteen years or more would elapse before this was reached ; while, if on the final hearing the master's report was successfully objected to, the long process must begin de novo. " No man, as things now stand," says in 1839 Mr. George Spence, the author of the well-known work on the equitable jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery, " can enter into a Chancery suit with any reasonable hope of being alive at its terminationy if he has a determined adversary." Attached to the Court of Chancery, performing a large portion of its functions, responsible — if we are to believe the torrents of criticism directed against them during the earlier portions of the reign — for much of its delay, were the masters of the Court of Chancery, their offices, and their staff of clerks. One great blot upon this portion of the Chancery system was that it was for all practical pur- poses under the control and superintendence of nobody in particular. The office of master of the court was one of historical dignity and antiquity. His duty in 1837 was to act in aid of the judge, to investigate and report upon such matters as were referred to him, including the investigation of titles, to take complicated accounts, to superintend the management of property of infants and other incompetent persons within the jurisdiction, and to be responsible for taxation of costs, A considerable portion of these judicial and ministerial duties he discharged by deputy. The work was done in private with closed doors, removed from the healthy publicit}'^ which stimulates the action of a judge. There was little practical power to expedite proceeding's or force on the procrastinating litigant. At the beginning of the reign, complaints were loud both as to the expense and the delays in the masters' offices ; and one of the best