words: "Sir, I cannot make this gentleman your curate, it is true; but I can make him the rector, and he shall have the living, as he cannot have the curacy." And he was as good as his word.

On the subject of litigation, or going to law in general, some remarks of keen judicial wisdom fell from Lord Justice Knight Bruce, in the case of Danks v. Farley. It would be indeed well if they were taken to heart by people who invoke the law courts for the settlement of paltry disputes. Danks and Farley had been intimate friends and neighbours for many years, but they quarrelled about the amount of a plumber's bill. Farley placed the value of his work at £96, while Danks accused his old friend of charging him £11 too much. In dealing with the case, the Lord Justice said: "So, and upon no great matter-upon a matter which, if they had not good sense enough to settle it for themselves, some respectable neighbour would probably, upon application, have adjusted for them in an hour-began (as I collect) the career of cost and heat and hatred, of reproach, scandal, and misery in which they are now engaged, of which neither this day, nor this year, nor perhaps another will, I fear, see the end, and which seems well to exemplify an old English saying, that the mother of mischief is no bigger than a midge's wing."

CHAPTER VI.

LEGAL AND JUDICIAL WISDOM.

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Slavery

Torture Witchcraft

Duelling Oaths -- Religious Toleration-Marriage-The Liberty of the Press-Cock-fighting -Cruelty to Animals.

In his speech for Mr. Bingham, Erskine said: "This cause involves an awful lesson-and more instructive lessons are taught in courts of justice than the Church is able to inculcate. Morals come in the cold abstract from pulpits; but men smart under them practically when we lawyers are the preachers." In this chapter there are given a few examples which serve to show how the wisdom of lawyers has advanced social questions, and reproved immorality and injustice.

In 1637 one John Lilburne was, for contempt in refusing to answer interrogatories, imprisoned by order of the court until he should answer, and also whipped, pilloried, and fined. In 1640 he was released, and the judges of the Star Chamber who had sentenced him were impeached by the Long Parliament. To prove that they had violated the law, a case was quoted in which one Cartwright "brought a slave from Russia, and would scourge him, for which he was questioned; and it was resolved that England was too pure an air for a slave to breathe in." But on the Restoration there was some backsliding from this principle; and the judges were placed in a very awkward position by

the fact that in Jamaica, Barbadoes, and other places, Englishmen had a legal property in negroes. On the other hand, when negroes were brought to this country, it was difficult to countenance the proprietary rights of their masters on any plausible ground. Thus, it was held that trover would lie for a negro boy; "for they are heathens, and therefore a man may have a property in them; and the court, without averment made, will take notice that they are heathens." This was not such a doctrine as the upright mind of Holt could stand; and accordingly, a certain Smith having brought an action for £20, the price of a negro sold by him to the defendant :—

Holt, C. J. As soon as a negro comes into England he becomes free; one may be a villein in England, but not a slave.

Powell, J.: In a villein the owner has a property, but it is an inheritance; in a ward he has a property, but it is a chattel real; the law takes no notice of a negro.

"Then the Attorney-General coming in, said they were inheritances, and transferable by deed, and not without. And nothing was done."

In the same court a man sued in trover for a variety of things, and amongst others an Æthiopian. A verdict was given for the plaintiff, and as to the negro £30. Judgment, however, was arrested, and an argument took place, in which the plaintiff's counsel urged that negroes were merchandise, like monkeys; while the defendant maintained that their owner had not an absolute property in them, because

he could not kill them like oxen. Holt said: "This action does not lie for a negro any more than for another man; for the Common Law takes no notice of negroes being different from other men. By the Common Law no man can have a property in another, but in special cases, as in a villein; but even in him not to kill him. There is no such thing as a slave by the law of England." Therefore judgment was given for the plaintiff for all but the negro. But in spite of such decisions a great delicacy was felt about interfering with what was an acknowledged property in the Indies; and it was not until Somersett's case, determined in 1771, that the law was finally and clearly laid down. In all the intermediate cases the court had induced the parties to come to a compromise. Somersett, being a negro, was brought by his master, a Mr. Steuart, from Jamaica, to attend and abide with him, and to be carried back to Jamaica with him as soon as his business in this country should be concluded. The slave, however, having doubtless heard of the maxim regarding the purity of the air of England, quitted his master's service, and the court was called upon to decide whether Mr. Steuart might seize, detain, and carry him back to Jamaica. Lord Mansfield, having failed in an attempt to make the parties come to a compromise, exclaimed: "If the parties will have judgment, fiat justitia, ruat cœlum; let justice be done whatever be the consequence. Fifty pounds a head may not be a high price; but then a loss will follow to the proprietors of slaves in the Indies of £700,000.

How would the law stand with respect to their settlement-their wages? How many actions for any slight coercion by the master? We cannot in any of these points direct the law; the law must rule us." He admitted that Sir Philip Yorke and Lord Talbot, when Attorney and Solicitor-General, had pledged themselves to the British planters for all the legal consequences of negroes coming to this country and being baptised; that Lord Hardwicke, sitting as Chancellor, had said that there was a mistaken notion that if a negro came over, or became a Christian, he was emancipated. But he concluded in these terms:"The slave departed, and refused to serve; whereupon he was kept, to be sold abroad. So high an act of dominion must be recognised by the law of the country where it is used. The power of a master over his slave has been extremely different in different countries. The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, and can only be enforced in obedience to positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself, from whence it sprang, are erased from the memory. It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from the decision, I cannot say that this case is allowed or approved by the law of England. The black must be discharged."

Justice being thus finally vindicated, no one has since ventured to contend that slaves can breathe the air of England. Indeed, the law is jealous of the