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THE GREEN BAG

"JOTTINGS OF AN OLD SOLICITOR," BY SIR JOHN HOLLAM By J. G. Cotton Minchin THOSE who take their impressions of the legal professions of sixty years ago from Bleak House will be startled by reading Sir John Hollam's Jottings. It is unfair to judge of any calling except by its best representatives, and in Sir John we have a most distinguished commercial law yer. When in 1902 Sir John received his knighthood, a dinner was given in his honor, at which the lord chancellor pre sided, and at which nearly every judge of the Supreme Court was present. In record ing this "wholly unprecedented" distinc tion Sir John remarks, — "It was indeed a most truly gratifying occasion. I most sin cerely wish I could feel that I had done any thing to merit such an unexampled testi monial." No book was ever written with less self-assertion. Sir John has trodden that path, which all successful solicitors must tread — fallentis semita vita, "for suf ferance is the badge of all our tribe," though with solicitors of Sir John's type this suffer ance takes the form of self-control and selfeffacement. This is a very different spirit from that shown by most memoir writers, who might take as their motto — "Et quorum pars magna fui." "So far as I am personally concerned, I have nothing of the slightest interest to record." In this manner Sir John opens his Jottings, and no professional reader and few students of human nature will close the book without regret. Sir John came to London in 1840. Jarndyce and Jarndyce was in full swing; Mr. Tulkinghorn, Mr. Kenge, and Mr. Guppy were hard at work; the Court of Chancery was in those days, according to Charles Dickens's Chancery Judge, "almost immac ulate." A chancery suit was then com menced by filing a bill of huge length; each defendant had to swear to the truth of the

answer. Lord Lyndhurst, when sitting in court as lord chancellor, said that he him self had sworn to the truth of an answer without having read it. Sir John tells a story of his commencing an action in a court of common law for recovery of a con siderable sum of money due to Russian clients. There was no defense on the merits, but there was a financial panic in the city and it was inconvenient for the English defendants to pay. They therefore filed a bill, asking the Court of Chancery to re strain the proceedings at law. To this an answer had to be made on oath by each partner in the Russian firm. Then when the answer was filed, the plaintiffs in Chancery (i.e., the original defendants) lodged exceptions to it, and so on, until the panic subsided, and the plaintiffs in Chan cery paid the debt and costs, their solicitor remarking that the delay was well worth the expense his clients had incurred. There was no discovery in a common law action, and if a litigant wished to see his opponent's documents, he had to file a bill of discovery and an injunction was issued by the Court of Chancery. Now discovery can be obtained in any court, and at a trifling cost. Formerly the parties could not give evidence on their own behalf. Now they can both testify in civil and criminal cases. The order for witnesses to leave the court does not now apply to the parties to the cause, but origi nally all witnesses, including the litigants, had to retire. This practice was amended owing to a grave miscarriage of justice recorded by Sir John. Trials by jury were formerly conducted on very different lines to those which now prevail. In the old days the judge made, as Sir John tells us, few remarks until he summed up. The favorite remark of Lord Campbell was "Go on." While counsel was