be given. But as an Amendment may be moved without any notice, it is possible at the last stage of a bill, namely after the third reading, to move as an Amendment that all the bill after the word whereas' be struck out, and a totally new bill on a new subject be inserted. This might be adopted by a single vote, and then all that would remain would be the question that this bill do pass. In this way five stages would be dispensed with in the Commons; four in the Lords; and a bill would be hurried through without any notice, discussion, or deliberation. So, if a bill is sent from the one House to the other, it may, under the pretence of amending, be wholly changed, and a totally new bill be returned to the House from which it came, which House, instead of having six stages wherein to discuss and consider it, would have but one-namely, the one question put to agree to the Amendments. Hence it is quite clear that all the Standing Orders for protection against mistake, fraud, and surprise, proceed upon the assumption that no great change in the bill, no change which shall wholly alter its structure, above all no substitution of a Different Bill, shall ever be made under the name of Amendments. Good faith as much as common sense requires this. We find, however, that the present House of Commons has thought fit to deviate widely from this obvious course in a late remarkable instance; and as we are assured this has been per mitted through inadvertence, we deem it our duty to state the case, in order to call the attention of members of both Houses to so important a subject during the calmness of the recess; for assuredly if the House of Commons shall frequently do such things, the House of Lords will speedily cease to be a legislative assembly in any practical sense of the word. The petitions of retail traders all over the country complaining of an oversight in the acts abolishing imprisonment for debt, called the attention of the Lords early in the last session to the general subject of small debts. A Select Committee was appointed, and it sat during three weeks of May, the Lord Chancellor and the other Law Lords attending. Much evidence was examined; a bill was carefully prepared; the Committee reported the evidence, and desired the chairman to bring in the bill; the bill was brought in; it was discussed; it was unanimously approved, and passed through all its stages regularly; it was sent down to the Commons without occasioning a division or meeting a dissenting voice in any part of its progress. It consisted of eight clauses. It was confined to one subject, the subject alone referred to the Select Committee, alone spoken to by the witnesses examined, alone ever mentioned in the House during its discussion of of the bill-that one subject was the process for obtaining payment of debts after judgment obtained by the creditor. Not a word was said of any trial of the suit between debtor and creditor. The law as to the obtaining judgment was left as before. But in the Commons a totally different course was taken. Four of the eight clauses were struck out, and the other four were a good deal altered. But still this might be said to be only an alteration by way of amendment. Then no less than one and twenty clauses were added-and these were all applicable to the subject which had never been once mentioned in the Lords or touched by the bill sent down-they were all applicable to the recovery of judg ments, to the trial of actions-not to the execution upon judgments. They established a totally new system of judicature for the recovery of small debts. They altered the existing law on that subject entirely. They enacted a new small-debt code. In this form and so corrected the bill was returned to the Lords, and by a single vote the amended, that is to say, the entirely new bill was by the Lords passed, without going through any of the usual stages, and without being at all discussed. It is said that the New Measure thus added to the Bill of the Lords, had been contained in a Bill which was before the Commons when the Lords' Bill came down, and that the said original Bill of the Commons was added to the Lords' Bill on a different subject. The truth is, that if this be so, the new law never had been opened and explained, much less discussed, in the Commons, and that ninety-nine in a hundred of the members, who may read these pages, will see for the first time what they have enacted. It was, we have reason to think, nearly as great a surprise in the Commons as in the Lords. But let us for a moment see what kind of measure has thus become the law of the land, without undergoing any of the usual, the constitutional, the absolutely necessary discussion and consideration which the House of Lords is peculiarly capable of giving to this class of legislative measures. It is no little measure-it is no small change in the law-it is no trifle that has thus been added to our Statute Book, by a very headlong decision of the Commons, and with hardly more than a nominal intervention of the Lords. There are in England at least three hundred small debt courts, under the names of Courts of Request, Courts of Conscience, &c. These are constituted by above three hundred local Acts of Parliament; each Act, constituting one of these courts, was passed with sufficient deliberation through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament; each Act limited the jurisdiction in both space and amount; each Act appointed the judges of the courts thus constituted; and in only a portion of the courts did the Acts appoint as one one of the judges a lawyer, either barrister or attorney. Some courts had jurisdiction to the amount of 40s.; some of 5l.; some of 101.; very few indeed of 207.; and almost all judgments were final, no removal or appeal being generally allowed. We are very far from saying that this system was not capable of improvement; we do not even say that the new system put in its place is otherwise than an improvement; it may be in some particulars better and in others worse than the old; but all we now say is, that the system is wholly new, and we are about to show how, to introduce it, three hundred Acts of Parliament have been thus summarily dealt with, and by one branch only of the Legislature. By the new Bill which the Commons alone passed at least which went through only a single stage instead of six stages in the Lords-by that new Bill a power is given to the Crown, that is, to the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary, to alter in every respect the jurisdiction of the three hundred existing courts; to enlarge the amount from 40s. to 5l., or to 10l., or to 15l., or as far as 201. The like power is given to enlarge the bounds of the district over which each court's jurisdiction shall extend, and in some cases to narrow those bounds. Thus there is a power given to the Crown not merely to suspend, but to alter, in by far its most important particulars, above three hundred Acts of Parliament deliberately passed for each of the districts over which the powers and provisions of the Acts severally extended. There is also a new power of appeal given by certiorari in the larger cases. We are in general no enemies to lodging discretionary powers of amendment pro re natâ in proper and responsible authorities; but, when done, it should be advisedly and deliberatively. There is likewise a requisition that each Court shall have a lawyer added to its judges, and that lawyer is to have jurisdiction beyond the other members of the Court, and to act whether they attend or not. Neither do we object to this per se; but we only are showing the change which the bill, unconsidered by the Lords, introduces. Again-touching the nomination of these learned judges; unless those having the choice shall exercise their power within three months, the patronage lapses to the Crown-and no judge can be appointed without the Royal assent. Furthermore, all such judges are to be removable, and so are all judges already named, by the Lord Chancellor's mere authority, either for misconduct or for incapacity; and no provision is made for any of them being even heard in his own defence, when about to be removed; the proceeding is not either in curiâ, nor even in camera: it is in the Chancellor's closet, or in his breast. Lastly, Lastly, the financial part of the measure is worthy of notice. A table of fees to be taken by the judges, and by the other officers of these numerous Courts, is given, and we find them to be far from inconsiderable. Thus on a cause of 107. the judge takes 13s.; on the smallest cause, 2s. 6d. The clerk's fees on the 107. cause are 17. 5s.; on the smallest cause, 6s. The fees of the other officers, as bailiffs, &c., are, on 101. causes, 8s. ; on the smallest causes, 2s. 6d. Thus the fees gathered on 101. causes are in all no less than 27. 6s., or a fourth of the sum in dispute; and on the smallest causes, 11s., which may be more than onehalf the sum recovered. Now to all this we have a decided objection: the great evil of our whole legal system is costs; and, undoubtedly, the first principle of a Small Debt Bill should be that the costs should be reduced to the smallest possible amount. We should say, indeed, that there should be no costs, except (if it could be so managed) in cases of perverse litigation. There is a fund created, too, of unclaimed moneys, and as fully and as formally established as the fund of unclaimed dividends in Chancery. Fees, too, are authorized for building of Courts and other purposes: probably very proper, and even necessary, but which should certainly not be allowed to increase the expense of recovering small debts. We suspect that few of our readers are aware of the vast number of small debt causes which will thus be disposed of, and consequently of the large salaries which this Bill creates. There are, for example, 14,000 causes tried in one of the Courts, of which returns are given in the evidence taken by the Lords' Select Committee. If we only take the average of these to be between 40s. and 5., and the judge's fees, according to that average, 3s. a cause, we have a salary of 21007. a-year, which would thus be created for (possibly) some very obscure barrister, special pleader, or attorney of ten years' standing. Offices are to be found in this Bill of all sizes, from 300l. a-year to 30007. Now, again we entreat our readers not to regard us as objecting to a system of Local Courts. We, on the contrary, desire to see one well regulated, after due and enlarged consideration of this important subject. We greatly deplored the rejection of Lord Lyndhurst's Bill for this purpose in 1842-a rejection which was certainly owing to the Whigs-though we do not venture to adopt the story commonly told of the secret history of that rejection. But we think this is a Bill which above all others required full and deliberate consideration, not of the Commons only (by whom, however, it was not considered at all), but above all by the Lords; and we complain of so important a change in the judicial system of the country having been hurried through with out out the due concurrence of the hereditary judges and legislators of the land. The Bill, as it was thus passed, abounds (as might be expected) in error and oversight. Some competent persons doubt that it can be worked at all-we fear it cannot be usefully worked; but all who, like us, hold by the House of Lords and the Judicial System, must concur in the opinion that it never ought to have been passed in the unprecedented manner which we have described. It certainly cannot work so usefully as it would have done if it had been integrally and deliberately considered. And, considering that appointments once made, and emoluments once sanctioned, cannot be recalled without considerable inconvenience and hardship, we humbly think that the Government would do well, as far as they have the power, to suspend its operation; and at all events they should, we are satisfied, accompany any appointments they may make with a reservation of a power of amendment and alteration. London. ART. IX.-1. History of the Church in Scotland. By the Right 3. The Scottish Communion Office examined. D. T. K. Drummond. Edinburgh. 1842. By the Rev. 4. Letter from a Committee of Managers and Members of St. Paul's, Aberdeen, to the Lord Bishop of London. Aberdeen. 1845. 5. Charge addressed to the Clergy of the City and District of Glasgow. By the Right Rev. M. Russell, &c. &c. Edinburgh. 1845. 6. Historical Sketch of Episcopacy in Scotland. By the Rev. D. T. K. Drummond. Edinburgh. 1845. 7. The Church in Scotland: the recent Schisms. London. 1845. FROM amidst the natural grandeur of Edinburgh, and its numerous features of exterior interest, the singularity of its religious aspect stands forth at this moment in bold and prominent relief. A walk from the recently erected hall of the General Assembly of the Established Church of Scotland, winding round the southern side of the Castle Hill, and onwards by the Lothianroad as far as the bridge which bounds the city towards the Queensferry, will occupy the visitor for about fifteen minutes, and will carry him past nearly the same number of places of |