The English Law Courts. At the conclusion of the argument of an appeal, counsel are directed to withdraw, a practice doubtless due to the fact that the Judicial Committee is a board, and a pretty numerous one, whose deliberations can best be carried on in private, and the committee either make up their minds on the spot or decide to postpone judgment. The deci sion of the Judicial Committee is delivered by one of their num ber only, so that no divergencies of opin ion are disclosed. The origin of this rule probably is that in strict theory the Judicial Committee advise her Majesty as to the course which should be tak en, and do not give a formal judgment like other courts of law. But, as Mr. Westlake has well pointed out, this mode of procedure detracts from the au thority of Privy Council decisions without adding any thing to the dignity of the body giving them. In one of Mr. Gladstone's Home LORD Rule £ills a posi tion was assigned to the Privy Council not unlike that now occupied by the Supreme Court of the United States. But as neither of these measures has any immediate (some would add, or remote) prospect of passing into law, we need not further consider them here. The history of the English Common Law and Equity Courts stretches so far back into the past that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to give any adequate account of
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their judges and barristers. But the com paratively modern origin of the Judicial Committee to a large extent obviates this difficulty. Amongst the leading members of the Judicial Committee a foremost place must be assigned to Henry Lord Brougham. Born in Edinburgh on 19th September, 1778, and educated at the High School, Brougham joined the Scotch bar in 1800. Except in criminal cases, however, he did not acquire a large practice north of the Tweed, his reputation for eccen tricity having appar ently repelled the cautious Scots from entrusting him with their civil suits. But he was one of the brilliant band of liter ary lawyers (Jeffrey and Harry Cockburn were amongst the others) who raised the " Edinburgh Re view" to the highest pitch of journalistic fame. In 1807 he was admitted to the English bar, and soon became the leading advocate for the de fence in the far too ESHER. numerous libel prose cutions then instituted by the Crown. He also attained the distinction of being the ad viser of Caroline of Brunswick, then Princess of Wales, and when she became Queen, de fended her in conjunction with Denman dur ing those famous trials which made them both the most popular lawyers of the age. It was as counsel for the Queen that Brougham uttered the memorable passage which has bulked so largely in the subsequent history of forensic casuistry: " An advocate, by the
