Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London LifeKirwan, Daniel Joseph
History
Palace and Hovel; Or, Phases of London Life
Kirwan, Daniel Joseph
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- Social life and customs
After a case has been worked slowly through one of these ecclesiastical
courts, it is then transferred to another, and after bowling the cause
about for years it is just possible that it will be lost for the
suitor. Suits are brought in Doctors' Commons for the most ridiculous
and trivial causes, and once a man gets into the Commons, he is made
to pay the piper while the sleek, fat proctors, dance right merrily to
the music paid for by their unhappy victims. A case in point I will
mention. The cause had just been tried in the Archdeacon's Court, at
Totness, and from thence an appeal had been sought in the Court at
Exeter, thence it went to the Court of Arches, and from there to the
Court of Delegates, and after all this fuss and expense, the question
in discussion was to know which of two persons had the legal right to
hang a hat on a certain peg! This is sober truth, and no exaggeration.
But the great perfection of legal scoundrelism was, in a case where
a man, named Russell, whose wife's character had been impugned by a
person named Bentham, at Yarmouth, was tried. This gentleman could
find no remedy in Common Law for the defamation, so he must needs go
to Doctors' Commons and the Ecclesiastical Courts. The Proctor's bill
amounted to £700 after the case had gone through several courts, and
finally each party had to pay his own costs after the case had been
continued six or seven years; the special beauty of Ecclesiastical
Courts being, that once a victim brings a suit, he is never allowed to
withdraw it until it has gone the rounds of every court, thus giving
fees to a score of persons, one-half of whom never hear of the case
until they make up their minds to send in a bill for money. Finally,
after seven years of this pious warfare, Mr. Russell, being a poor man,
was ruined, and his wife's character was not half as good as when he
began the suit.
The Prerogative Will Office is, however, the busiest and most
interesting place in Doctor's Commons. Wills are always to be found
here at half an hour's notice, and generally in a few minutes. They are
kept in a fire-proof, strong room. The original wills begin with the
year 1483, and the copies date from 1383. The latter are on parchment,
strongly bound, with brass clasps. Here I saw the will of Shakespeare,
on three folios of paper, each with his signature, and with the
inter-lineation in his own handwriting: "I give unto my wife my brown,
best bed, with the furniture." There is kept, also, the will of Milton,
which was written when the poet was blind, and set aside by a decree
of Sir Leoline Jenkins. And I saw alongside of Milton's will, the last
testament of the soldier of democracy, Napoleon Bonaparte, made at St.
Helena, April, 1821.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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