London Legal Letter. its behalf. There is, it is true, no room to doubt that the Reformation in religion, by relieving mankind from the incubus of one sole infallible authority, has materially im proved the condition of society morally, scientifically, and politically, no less than in its relation to the point originally at issue. We are in no immediate likelihood of such a crusade against science as that directed by the Church in Galileo's time against the Copernican system; but though knowledge, or rather the improved moral feeling that knowledge brings with it, has gained this tri umph, yet is the human mind itself a com bination of the same passions, obeying the same laws, and ready at any moment to mani fest, we fear, the same passions, whenever the opportunity arises for the assertion of selfinterest. We ask ourselves whether, all
435
things considered, there is not as much evil disposition manifested in the intolerance with which rival sects persecute and plague each other in this much-lauded nineteenth century, as was displayed by the persecu tors of the Galileos in the sixteenth? The fagot and the cord, it is true, are no longer permissible instruments of religious or polit ical controversy, as in the times of Huss and Servetus; but the ingenuity of power, whether lodged in church, state, or public opinion, has employed other methods of en forcing silence scarcely less painful to the mind of the sufferer." In fact, the law no longer pillories an author who writes to the distaste, or, like poor Defoe, above the com prehension, of the powers that be, because it no longer pillories any one; but the im prisonment and the fines remain in force.
LONDON LEGAL LETTER. London, August 5, 1891. "CWERYBODY and everything connected with the administration of justice languishes as the long vacation approaches. The vacation lasts from the 12th of August to the 24th of Octo ber, so that those whose minds and bodies are wearied with the stress and anxieties of legal work have ample time to recruit their faculties and brace their powers for fresh conflict. Men in large prac tice generally avail themselves of the entire period for a lengthened holiday; men with a little work who would like more, and some of those with none who aspire to a more extended usefulness, remain in town in the hope that something may turn up. At one time such abnegation was re garded as an ardent token of industry and ap plication, but the custom has now become so common that a barrister's attendance at his cham ber during the recess has ceased to evoke particular admiration. Very many of our judges and leading counsel are enthusiastic sportsmen. Sir Henry James, Q. C, M. P.; Mr. Murphy, Q. C.; the genial and witty Frank Lockwood, not to mention others, — are'all devotees of the gun. Mr. Bigby, Q- C, one of the leaders of the Chancery Bar, is
never more thoroughly in his element than when entertaining a large party at a hare-drive in his High land shooting. Golf is a game which has of late been making extraordinary strides in popular favor; always a national pastime of high repute in Scot land, it is only quite recently that the English mind has become keenly alive to its charms. I men tion this because a very large number of barristers have become enthusiasts in golf; of this company is the popular Queen's Counsel, Mr. B. B. Finlay. Among politicians the sport has no such zealous champions as the Rt. Hon. A. J. Balfour, Chief Sec tary for Ireland; indeed, the Irish members some time ago complained that the Chief Secretary played golf when he should have been weeping over their woes. The amount of legal and ecclesiastical patronage which has fallen to the lot of the present govern ment is almost unparalleled : the Liberal lawyers have been heaving many a sigh during the past few years, as one valuable office after another has be come vacant and been filled by their Conservative rivals. Since I wrote last, yet another coveted piece of preferment has been dangled before the wistful gaze of the bar; after constant rumors on the sub
