[Illustration: MR. JUSTICE JEUNE.] The Lord Chancellor occasionally (when any of the Lords Justices are absent from illness or other cause) sits in the Court of Appeal, which is held in two sections--one hearing cases from the Common Law side, and the other those from the Chancery Division. The principal duty of the Lord Chancellor, however, consists in presiding over the House of Lords--the final Court of Appeal both in Common Law and Chancery matters. The House of Lords, as an appellate court, consists of the Lord Chancellor, the Lords of Appeal, and such peers as are, or have been, holding high judicial office. Ordinary peers, however, have also the right of sitting and giving judgment, and, in consequence of this anomaly, the judges of final appeal have sometimes had the assistance of an eccentric nobleman endowed with a fancy for the law, whose vote has carried as much weight as that of the Lord Chancellor himself. The judicial work of the House of Lords is light. Indeed, it will not be understating the case to say that the House does not dispose of more than sixty or seventy causes in the year. It is thus not difficult to calculate, supposing these cases to occupy an average of half a day, and taking into consideration the salaries of the Lord Chancellor and the Lords of Appeal, together with the heavy pensions paid to ex-Chancellors and other expenses, that the Court of Final Appeal exercises its judicial functions at a cost of something like a thousand pounds a day! Besides the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice is by some legal fiction supposed to exercise control over the judicial bench. As a matter of fact, however, the judges are practically under no control whatever save that of public opinion, as represented by the press, which should never hesitate to expose their shortcomings when they come to light. It is the duty of those on whom, by force of circumstances, the public are obliged to rely to safeguard their interests, not to relax their supervision out of deference to the high repute in which our judges are held. Under the old system, when the Courts of Common Pleas, Exchequer, and Queen's Bench existed, each division had a chief who was responsible for the work of his court and the mode in which it was administered. The judges now hold a meeting, at which they make their own arrangements for circuits and for appointments to the various courts. Although the Lord Chief Justice is supposed to control the order of work, the judges in effect have a free hand as regards their own duties. With the development of modern civilisation and the increase of democratic strength, the social status of the judges has materially changed, and it is by no means in accordance with "end of the century" ideas to grant them the almost despotic power that they held of old.