Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/403

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The Green Bag.

draw up the brief and instruct the barrister connection with the licensing laws and with who is to defend or prosecute before the local taxation come before these courts, and • these cases provide quite a considerable judge and jury at the assizes. In one of these cathedral cities half a amount of preliminary work for the local dozen or more courts are in session in the solicitors, and numerous briefs for the bar course of three months. There are the two risters who practice at these courts. local magisterial courts and the county and The Consistory Court, in which solicitors coroners' courts which I have described, and in also practice, are held before the Chancellor addition the quarter sessions and the assizes. and Registrar of the ecclesiastical diocese. In a cathedral city there is always a con Business in these courts is entirely of an sistory court; and should it happen to be a ecclesiastical character, and for the most seaport as well as a city, board of trade part consists of applications for faculties to courts are occasionally in session. Often in make alterations in the fabric of churches. a city of this class there will be two courts It is not possible to drive a chisel into the for quarter sessions; one for the city itself walls of a church, or to put in a pane of' and one for the hundred of the county in colored glass without a faculty from this which the city is situated. At the quarter court. Ordinarily the cases are of a very sim sessions for the city, criminal cases are tried ple nature, but if there happen to be a few before the Recorder. He is a barrister ap contentious people in a parish, and opposition pointed for life, like the High Court judges, is raised to a proposed alteration in the by the Queen, on the recommendation of church, it is possible for a case in the Con the Secretary of State for the Home Depart sistory Court to give rise to considerable ment. He is in the city for three or four profitable business for the lawyers. days every three months for the trial with Parliamentary elections always bring more juries of criminal cases which are too serious or less work to the local lawyers. The most to be dealt with by the magistrates; but not profitable of this work is in the Registration of a sufficiently grave character to be sent to Courts. Every year in each Parliamentary the assizes. constituency, a court is held to determine The Recorder's is a very ancient office, disputes as to claims to places on the roll of easily traceable back to the very beginnings electors. The judges in these courts are of town life in England. Nowadays, in fact, barristers, appointed by the judges of the the office is more ancient and honorable High Court in whose circuit the Parliamen tary constituency is situated. Each revis than highly paid; for the salaries rarely ex ceed £70 or £?>0 a year. Still recorder- ing barrister works his way through a group ships arc offices much prized by prosperous of constituencies, and sits day after day to barristers. They give their holders a right determine disputed claims. These disputes to appear at the levees of Court, and when have their origin with the registration agents a barrister is still going circuit, they add to of the Tory and Liberal parties. his social and professional standing in the Each political party endeavors to keep counties through which he travels. The off the register of the constituency as many quarter sessions for the hundred differ in as possible of its opponents, and to put on their constitution from the city quarter ses as many as possible of its known partisans; sions. They are presided over by a chair so, when the revising barrister opens his man, who also is a barrister, and who court, he is confronted with a long list usually receives a salary. The. other mem of claims and objections, put forward by bers of the court are the county magistrates each political party. In spite of three Re for the hundred. Numerous appeals in form Acts which have been passed since