Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 15.pdf/337

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The Green Bag.

Ill, c. 41), it is enacted that "for the better maintenance of learning, and the better re lief of scholars" in the Universities of Cam bridge and Oxford, and the colleges of Win chester and Eton, no authorities of those institutions shall make any lease of their lands "except that the one-third part at least of the old rent be reserved and paid in corn, that is to say, in good wheat, after six shill ings and eight pence the quarter or under, and good malt at five • shillings the quarter or under, to be delivered yearly upon days prefixed." In default of this payment in kind, payment of the value is directed to be paid in ready money, and either the corn or the money coming of the same is to be ex pended to the use and relief of the commons of the colleges only "and by no fraud or color let or sold away." "And all leases otherwise hereafter to be," still declares the Legislature, "shall be void in all law to all in tents and purposes." CHIEF BARON PALLES related the other day, in King's Bench No. 2, an incident which happened just after he was called to the Bar in 1853. and which seems to have impressed itself on his memory and intellect. Mr. Edmund Hayes, K. C., who was at the time solicitor-general, and who became in 1859 third justice of the Court of Queen's Bench, was arguing a case before Mr. Smith, the Master of the Rolls. Mr. Hayes was ap pearing for a gentleman who charged partic ularly high rates of interest, and counsel put forward his claims with great force and per sistency. "I see, Mr. Hayes," said the Master of the Rolls, "you want your pound of flesh." "My pound of flesh!" said counsel in an as tonished voice. "What's that?" "Oh, that," said the judge, hastily, "that's poetry, you know." "My Lord," said Mr. Hayes in tones of lofty indignation, "I came here for law, I not poetry."—The Lazv Times. THE first real seed of strife in Ireland I (says Charles Johnson, in an article on "Ire | land and Her Land Laws," in Harper's Weekly), was sown by Henry the Eighth in 1537, when, following the policy he had al :

ready initiated in England, he decreed the disestablishment of the Continental monas tic orders, the Franciscan followers of the Saint of Assisi, the Order of the Spanish Dominic, the friars of Saint Bernard, whose ruined abbey-churches all over Ireland still preserve the memory of a period of rare and profound culture and religious enthusiasm. The abbey and priory lands thus confiscated by Henry Tudor were distributed among his own adherents, and largely among the ser vants of the Anglican Church, of which he had decreed himself to be the head. The newcomers by no means followed in the foot steps of the older Normans, nor did they take any steps to make themselves morally at home in their new country. They were defi nitely an element of foreign invasion; in a sense the Normans never were. Everything that spoke of the old nationality was hostia' to them, and this hostility they never out grew. A period of conflict was begun in Irelam!, which came to a culmination about the time James the Sixth of Scotland became James the First of England. Two great nobles of Ulster, the heads of the O'Neills and the O'Donnells, were compelled to seek refuge on the Continent, and their lands were de-, dared forfeited to the crown and distributed among adherents of the English party. This was the beginning of the so-called "parti tion of Ulster," which took place in the year 1611, noteworthy for two famous events in English literature—the retirement of Shake speare and the authorized version of the Bi ble. To the period of conflict now succeeded a period of chicanery, a dark chapter which included two revolutionary wars. The Eng lish law courts were made the instrument of any amount of injustice and dishonesty; forged titles were filed in abundance; fraudu lent accusations were made; false charges were brought forward, with the invariable re sult that the estates of native Irish families passed into the hands of English or Scottish settlers, many of whom were frankly aclventurers,'and all of whom profited by a system of legal plunder thinly veneered with political sophistries. At the close of this period therr