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LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London, Feb. 3, 1898.

MANY years ago I chanced to lunch, in company with General Schenck, then the United States minister to the Court of St. James, with the judges at the Assizes at Manchester. It was soon after the newly-erected courts at Manchester, or, more accurately speaking, at Salford, had been opened. These courts were then, and probably are still, the finest of their kind in England, and, considering the care with which the architect had provided for the con venience and comfort of the judges, the bar, the jurors, the witnesses, the litigants, and even the prisoners and the idle spectators, they are among the best in the world. General Schenck had been present at the opening of the court, and had been impressed with the dignity and formality with which the judges had taken their seats and the day's pro ceedings had been commenced. He had then been escorted over the building, through the library and corridor and lounge for barristers, the consultation and witnesses' wait ing-rooms, the bar mess-room, and finally had inspected the suite of apartments reserved for the judges, which included not only drawing and dining and smoke-rooms, but spa cious and well-furnished bed and dressing-rooms. At the lunch which followed he sat at the right of the presiding justice, and at the table was another High Court judge, the sheriff in uniform, the sheriffs chaplain, and one or two leading barristers, who had been invited to meet the Ameri can minister. To the amusement of the company, General Schenck told the story of how he went on circuit in Ohio as a lawyer in his early days, and described, with a great deal of humor, the barn-like court houses, so hot in summer that judges and counsel sat in shirt sleeves, and so cold in winter that it was no infrequent incident for a case to be tried with the court and counsel and witnesses and litigants gathered about the central stove, heated red-hot with oak and hick ory wood from the adjacent forest. At the dinner in the hotel, to which the court adjourned at recess, all sat down at a common table, the sheriff guarding his prisoner and the judge chatting with lawyers and litigants. Despite this freedom of intercourse, General Schenck contended that justice was arrived at with as much celerity and impartial ity as when judges were clad in ermine and scarlet gowns, and wore wigs, and were attended to the court by sheriffs in uniform and heralds and gorgeous footmen. At the same time it is true that these adjuncts to judicial functions impress not only the masses in England, but have a peculiar and, admittedly, a beneficial effect upon the community, and assist in no small degree in the admin istration of justice and the enforcement of law. Nothing strikes the American lawyer with greater force upon his first visit to the English courts than the deference paid to the judges. A man may be one day a busy practising law yer, a hail-fellow with his associates, and the next a judge; but the moment he becomes a judge the hail-fellow com radeship at once and forever ceases, and he has no fellow ship with his former associates. He may meet them so cially, but there is no freedom in the intercourse, and no

close companionship. When he comes down to his duties in the morning he enters the court by a different door. He is robed in his private room, and through a private passage he enters his court. Before his arrival, the bar is seated in hushed anticipation, and at his appearance all rise and bow, and remain standing until he takes his seat. On the Queen's Bench, or common law side, no motions are heard in open court, and the first case in the day's trial list is at once entered upon. On the chancery side, certain days are allotted to motions, and on such days the counsel are heard by seniority, so that there is no struggle for the eye of the Court or for precedence in hearing. In the Royal Courts in London, most of the rooms are small, and afford scanty accommodation for the public; and it is for this reason that rules are now being made to regulate the admission of those who seek to enter. These rules would not be acceptable in America, and would not perhaps be possible here if it were not for the deference invariably paid to judicial authority. Mr. Justice Jeune, the president of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty divisions, has given instructions that hereafter no persons shall be allowed in the passages about the doorway of his room except counsel in robes, and that no one shall be permitted to occupy seats in the court unless litigants or witnesses in the trial in prog ress or the next case to be called. The Lord Chief Justice has issued a similar order with regard to his room, and no doubt other judges will follow their lead. Some amusement has been created by the fact that the law with respect to the privileges of ambassadors and their families, official and social, has been invoked recently to relieve two of the members of the American Ambassa dor's household from police court proceedings. It appears that the Ambassador's private secretary and a son of the first secretary of the Embassy were summoned for riding bicycles on the footpath at Maidenhead, twenty or thirty miles out from London. They pleaded, to the astonish ment of the magistrate, their exemption from prosecution under the Diplomatic Privileges Act. The matter was re ferred to the Home Office, and in due course the prisoners were dismissed. This Diplomatic Privileges Act was passed in the reign of Queen Anne, and protects an ambassador, his family and servants, from arrest and all forms of pro cess in civil suits. It has been held that they would not be amenable to the English courts, even if they were guilty of such serious offences as murder or conspiracy. They are supposed to bring the territory of their own countries with them, and to be subject only to the courts of their native land. Thus it happens that whenever the American Ambassador, or any member of his household, goes out for a ride, his wheel at every revolution turns upon American soil, and he may sport upon that soil at any pace he likes, and with or without a lighted lamp, as pleases his fancy, while the English cyclist who guides his wheel in the Am bassador's track will find merely English soil upon which he can travel, and only at such speed as the police allow, and he must light his lamp at the tick of sundown or risk almost certain apprehension and fine. Stuff Gown.