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ment on which the system of courts of equity is based . We will not argue on the utility of two dominant systems of law , which , with three or four petty ones , like the barons of feudal days , hold their sway in this law-ridden land . How far equity should be amalgamated with law , or how far our plan of legislating in details , which is one of the great pretences for equity , should be altogether abandoned , is not now before us . Our question merely
is , how far are the powers that be , proceeding openly , fairly , honestly , and wisely , to improve the working of the present system ; ' to regulate , ' as the Act entitles itself , c the proceedings and practice of the high Court of Chancery ?' ¦ Admitting then for
the present purpose , that the opposing principles of law and equity are to remain , and that a repair only of the officina justitide is what is desired , what are the palpable alterations which any unbiassed man , not to say any professed reformer , would at once declare for ? A few monstrous absurdities may be easily mentioned . All of them , of course , must be either absurdities of
principle or of practice . Those of principle , untouched as yet by Lord Brougham , are enormous in their influence of evil . The contrivance for evidence-taking may be instanced as one . Every possible precaution is used , that your opponent shall have no opportunity of even guessing at your evidence , much less of examining into it and sifting its truth , for fear , as some old case sa ys , you should cause the witness to contradict himself , and so f
make him perjured , and thus hit the bull in the eye . ' Perjury , reader , you will observe , like some other crimes ( which are now considered low-lived enough ) formerly encouraged among the Lacedemonians of old , and like cheating in these days among gamblers , lying among politicians , and alternate adulation and Backbiting of one ' s acquaintance in the fashionable world , is a crime only in its detection . The absurdity of all this Mr . Bentham has exposed with his own masterly satire .
We will , however , now leave the perjury alone . As to the system of evidence , one little story , the truth of which we can vouch for , names we could give , ( we were in court , and know the parties , )—will show what it can do . John A . and Thomas A . were brothers and farmers . John well to do in the world ; Thomas rather otherwise . Both die . Thomas ' s children find a promissory
note , which , as they say , hy accident , was torn into three parts , and the middle lost . The body of the note was in Thomas ' s hand-writing . The sig nature of the part remaining had the surname A . upon it only ; the part lost had the whole Christian name on it ; and by some misfortune or misfeasance , the tear ot the middle part was not straight , so that the end of the Christian
name , which would otherwise have been there , was gone . Thomas ' s family alleged this note to be John ' s . But they refused to show them the note , and they filed a bill in Chancery to recover it from his estate . Three or four witnoasea were examined
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Lord Brougham's Chancery Reforms . 123
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1834, page 123, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2630/page/39/
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