Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 1).djvu/639

 falling off is now apparent! There is not a single name of distinction now associated with the historic Court that has in the past resounded to the eloquence of so many splendid advocates. Nowadays the mention of the Criminal Bar only brings to mind such men as the Government prosecutor (official in all but name), Mr. Poland, and a crowd of lesser lights, among whom Mr. Forest Fulton, M.P., and Mr. Gill stand forth as the most talented. There are at the Criminal Bar a number of newly-fledged barristers, and several indigent and disappointed men who are content to gain a small and precarious livelihood. A handful secure a respectable living, and comparatively large incomes are only made in two or three cases, notably among those who have Treasury work. The compulsory litigants, who often have to send the hat round among their friends for the purpose, can for the most part only provide small fees, and small as they are, they do not always reach the hands of counsel.

It may be interesting to mention here the curious fact that barristers cannot recover their fees at law. The fee, it appears, is an honorarium, and nothing more. Of course, while barristers have no legal claim for their fees, no action for negligence, however gross, can lie against them; and it is obvious that, if the power were accorded to them of recovering their fees at law, they would also be liable to action in case of negligence. If we may judge by the very rare occasions of actions for negligence being successful against solicitors, there is no reason why they should have any terrors for counsel. It would certainly be satisfactory to see the barrister's profession put upon a more business-like footing. Advocates are, under the present conditions, sometimes the prey of unscrupulous solicitors, who hand them briefs marked with tempting fees that are never paid, and when these harpies have tired out the patience of one guileless counsel, they devote similarly undesirable attentions to another. Happily, such solicitors are comparatively few; but even respectable firms often avail themselves of the inability of counsel to recover fees by taking unconscionable credit.

The system should be changed, and if barristers were made liable for negligence it would, perhaps, have a wholesome effect in preventing some of them from accepting briefs to which they or their clerks must know that they cannot attend.

To return to the Criminal Bar, one cannot help observing how great is the disadvantage at which a prisoner is sometimes placed. The unfortunate man has perhaps been unable by himself or his friends to find the necessary funds to instruct a counsel, or perhaps he has managed to scrape together a guinea, which he hands over the dock, as his case is called, to some inexperienced barrister, who thereupon finds himself face to face with a wary and experienced advocate like Mr. Poland or Mr. Gill. The prisoner's chances of vindi-