particular case, there is sufficient time to take up and finish a new case, and so it not unfrequently happens that about 4 o’clock the judges retire to their carriages and are driven home to take their rest. At all events, 5 o’clock is the appointed hour for their rising, be the case finished or unfinished; so that it may be taken that about five hours of work is considered a good day’s average sitting. Each judge is accustomed to take one day in the week at home for the purpose of writing out his decisions, and for certain administrative and consultative functions. It not unfrequently happens that a judge, on arriving at court, finds that his colleague on the bench is disabled by indisposition from attending court, so that he is obliged to go home again for the day, unless it so chances that another judge on another bench is casually indisposed, and then the two odd men may combine and make up a sort of scratch bench between them for the day. Whilst the ordinary daily work of a High Court judge is not very severe, the judges are indulged in a much longer vacation, and they have many more holidays than any other class of Government officials. We do not grudge them their holidays, and we are of opinion that many Government officers would be much more competent to work with full mental and bodily vigour if they had a few more holidays and enforced periods of rest. The judges of the High Court have an annual long vacation extending over a period of two months, from about the beginning of September to the beginning of November, when the season, especially in Calcutta, may be said to be most unhealthy and unfavourable to the English constitution. The High Court also closes for a week or ten days at Christmas, and for a similar period at Easter. The native Hindoo and Mahomedan holidays, which come on fixed or variable dates, are religiously observed in the High Court. An eclipse of the sun or moon, if visible, becomes the occasion for a holiday, out of deference to native feeling. We are sorry to say that there is a growing tendency to mutilate and diminish the holiday privileges of the judges. It was formerly open to them to combine a month’s privilege leave, under the Service Leave Rules, with the long vacation of the court, so that they got a holiday of three months, which enabled them to pay a flying visit to England. Sundry old gentlemen at the India Office are said to have taken offence at the sight of several High Court judges making their appearance in London for a few days, and actually entitled to their full pay whilst thus absent from duty. This was the real _gravamen_ of the offence. It has always been a sort of principle in connection with leave of any kind to mulct the delinquent of his official salary, and so starve him into a return to his duty. It was, therefore, deemed to be an infringement of this principle that a judge should be seen walking about London with his pockets full of rupees, just as if he were in the