and ( 5 ) the Police Council in Admiralty and Lunacy Appeals. The Court of Appeal is also the tribunal in which all applications for new trials in any division of the High Court, whether in jury or non-jury cases, must now be made. At one time the ver dicts of juries were pretty frequently im pugned. But in recent years the principle has been established that the verdict of a jury will not be set aside unless it was one at which reasonable men, applying their minds to the evi dence, could not have (and not merely ought not to have) come. The effect of this rule, which has been re cently applied by Lord Esher, Master of the Rolls, has been to reduce " the new trial papers " to the smallest dimensions. Students who wish to examine the growth of this canon will find the " Evidences" of it in Phillips v. Martin ( i 5 App. Cas. 193 ); Metropolitan Railway Co. v. Wright LORD ( 11 App. Cas. 152). Appeals from the Railway and Canal Com mission go to the Court of Appeal, and under Lord Herschell's Procedure Bill, it will be the appellate tribunal for appeals for the Judge at "Chambers" in matters of prac tice. Two counsels arc generally heard on each side on the hearing of an appeal. The Privy Council is located at W hitehall; the House of Lords sits in the gilded Chamber at Westminster, where the legislative body of the same name holds its deliberations. The Court of Appeal, however, is situated in the new Law Courts at the Strand. The
Judicature Acts, as every one is aware, sub stituted for the old common law and equity courts at Westminster, a Supreme Court of Judicature, divided into ( 1 ) a Court of Ap peal, and (2) a High Court of Justice, sub divided into (a) the Queen's Bench division, in which the jurisdiction of the old courts of Common Pleas. King's (or Queen's) Bench and Exchequer are now vested, (b) the Chancery division, with the powers of the old Courts of Equity, and (c) the Probate. Divorce and Admir alty division, to which the jurisdiction of the courts of probate, di vorce and admiralty have been assigned. We shall deal with the various divisions of the High Court in subsequent papers. In the meantime it may be of interest to give an account of a few of the past and present judges of the Court of Appeal.
ESHER.
MASTERS OF THE ROLLS.
The Master of the Rolls was the chief of a body of officers called the Masters in Chan cery, of whom there were eleven others, in cluding the Accountant-General. He then became Judge of the Court, and had the keeping of the rolls and grants which pass the great seal, and the records of the Chan cery. The court of this high official was held in the Rolls office in Chancery Lane, ancient ly called Downs Convcrsorum as being ap pointed by King Henry III for the use of converted Jews. The irregularities of these convertites were, however, so great that Ed
