Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/363

 332

damages; but such a judgment would be an insult to God's justice, you have taken a wicked and mean advantage of your opponent, and your recovery is a wrong and a sin; but your adversary has no legal defence to your iniquitous persecution of him : therefore, as chancellor, I hereby re strain and enjoin you from proceeding further in your action, and forcing me to do such manifest wrong to your victim.' How does this phase of legal practice strike the mind of a just man, who has not been educated in legal schools where the injustice of the law is made to hide under the sheltering wing of the Court of Chancery, and the jurisdiction of equity is held up as the counterpart and corrector of the deficiencies of the common law? Such a man would be thankful that there was a court of equity, but he would be shocked that there were courts that were so antagonistic to the administration of justice that the supervision of an equity tribunal should ever be necessary to protect men from injustice in court. We should be grateful for our courts of equity, but we have no need of any other. There are cases where courts of law can do full justice, and there ought to be no cases where they cannot. One of the reasons given for the necessity of a Court of Chancery is that the procedure at law is too rigid to admit of the special remedies that equity requires; a reason that would never be uttered were it not that man's ingenuity had been taxed to assign a reason where none existed in the logic of the subject. If the forms of law are an impediment to justice in the first and second stages of development as arranged by Sir Henry Maine, these forms should be so changed and improved that they become suit able and proper instrumentalities through which courts can do what is right in all cases. Instead of requiring a spe cial tribunal to correct the deficiencies of a judicial system, the system itself might be reformed."

This description of the versatility of the legal judge of all work reminds one of Steerforth's description of Doctors Commons, in " David Copperfield :" "You shall find the judge in the nautical case the advocate in the clergyman's case, or contrariwise. They are like actors : now a man 's a judge, and now he's not a judge; now he 's one thing, now he 's an other; now he 's something else, change and change about.'' We do not know whether the suitor who happens to approach the wrong face of the court is in as grie vous a plight as the ancient litigant who entered the temple of justice by the wrong door, and was subject to be kicked out incontinently and to find that door barred ngainst him, or whether the minister of justice simply whisks around the oilier face. We do not know how stiff-necked justice is among the Green Mountains; but it would be a novel nnd uncomfort able sensation for the suitor, having knelt before the mild and benignant f.ice of equity, to find, on glanc ing up, the severe face of common law frowning on him. There is at least one alleviating/íYí/'ttrt' in this combination, — both faces cannot frown on the suppli ant, as in the ancient procedure they sometimes did.

"THE HOUND'S TAIL'S CASE."— This is the title which Sir Frederick Pollock gives to the case of Dickson v. Great Northern Railway Co., 18 Q. B. Div. 176, which he has done into verse in his "Leading Cases and other Diversions." We have essayed a poetical treatment of the same case in a different vein, and hope that the critics will find that we have got the feet all right. Why should Mr. Gladstone look further than Sir Frederick or ourself to fill the post left vacant by Lord Alfred? Neither of us could write worse poetry than Mr. Ruskin if we should try. For example : — LISTEN то MY TALE OF WOE! TUNE — " The wind bl&v through his whiskers." A BALLAD of a greyhound's tail — A tale Of wail — Listen to my tale of woe! On railway-station platform lay A coursing hound, upon his way, In sleep Quite deep — Listen to my tale of woe 1 "Dutch Oven " was that greyhound's name, Much money he had won and fame; Sure in that very agile game To take The cake — Listen to my tale of woe! He lay at length, with tail stretched out; The passengers in hurrying rout Observing him, he had no doubt, Would deftly walk that tail about, Nor tread His head — Listen to my tale of woe! A luggage-porter, void of wit, Malicious, careless, or blind a bit, Soon ran his barrow over it, And cut a piece off amply fit For sausage link; stuck on to knit Though tried, Denied — Listen to my tale of woe I An offer by the corporation The dog man heard with indignation, Resorted then to litigation, And furnished expert information Of serious deterioration And curtailed current valuation By truck — Bad luck! Listen to my tale of woe!