And further on it is said: "The attornies have succeeded, gradually, in establishing this encroachment, veiling their pretensions under the term 'professional etiquette.' It should have been stated that within the last sixty or seventy years a considerable portion of the most important conveyancing business of the country was transacted, without the intervention of attornies, by barristers, or by persons considered to practise as counsel, though not at the Bar. Among the latter may be included a great number of Roman Catholic gentlemen of the greatest respectability, who, before the statute 31 Geo. 3. c. 32., were debarred from practising as counsel in the Courts. How common it is to find that associations of men formed for the protection of their own rights end in encroachments on the rights of others." (P.25 n.)

This certainly is pretty well. The attornies appear to have taken away the conveyancing business from the scriveners and the barristers; and to have made the one contemptible, and to have DENOUNCED the other if they only conducted in the fashion of their ancestors what seems to have been their peculiar business; and this, it seems, was followed up by a publication headed, “On the modern Innovations in the Practice of the Law by the Employment of certificated Conveyancers," which thus ingeniously attempted to turn the tables on the worthy counsel who had acted in conformity with the practice of Lord Guildford, Sir Orlando Bridgman, Sheppard, and others, supported by such men as Booth and Duane, down to the commencement of this century.1 If, then, conveyancers are pack-horses, and like not to go out of their old roads 2, it will be seen that for about forty years only they have departed out of the ways of their legal forefathers; but that prior to that period conveyancers, whether at the Bar or otherwise, have been consulted by and taken business from the client directly, and without the intervention of an attorney.

This being indisputable, it remains briefly to inquire whether it is desirable for the public that the practice acted on so long, and only partially discontinued for so short a period, should be adhered to and completely restored?

As to this, it is proper to observe that this is just that portion of Professional practice that could be completely transacted without resort to the attorney, and as to which he is in no way protected by statutes. On the contrary, the practice of conveyancing "by serjeants-at-law, barristers, solicitors, &c.," is recognised and protected by the Stamp Acts. We therefore do not hesitate to say that it is worthy of the gravest consideration whether the fancied etiquette, the origin of which is noticed by Mr. Groom, may not be, to this extent safely and advantageously to the client, altered and abolished.

1 See as to this, 1 L. R., p. 395., "Early History of Conveyancing," and 2 L. R., "Life of Charles Butler, Esq.," written by his Grandson, Henry Stonor, Esq.

Life of Guildford, p. 142., who said, that " of the community of conveyancers, some were pack-horses, and could not go out of their road."

ART. III. — CODIFICATION.

MR. CAMERON.

LETTER FROM

To the Editor of the Law Review.

SIR,-Your Review has done such good service in the beneficent and now rather successful cause of Law Reform, that I am anxious to obtain a place in it for the accompanying Petition, which I presented to the House of Lords as soon as I heard that the Committee on Indian Affairs was appointed.

The prayer of my petition1, so far as regards Law Reform,

Mr. Cameron's petition is as follows;

To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled. The humble Petition of CHARLES HAY CAMERON, late Fourth Member of the Council of India, President of the Indian Law Commission, and of the Council of Education for Bengal, humbly showeth :

That your Petitioner was appointed a Member of the Indian Law-Commission in the year 1834, and continued in that body as Member, or President, until the year 1848.

That in the course of the years intervening between 1834 and 1848, the Law-Commission sketched out a system of Law, and of Judicial Establishments, and Procedure, for British India, whereof the following parts have been fully elaborated and reduced into the form of Acts of the Indian Legislature

A Penal Code.

A Plan of a Model Criminal Court,

A Plan of Criminal Procedure,

A Plan of a Model Civil Court and of Civil Procedure.

2

A Plan for the abolition of the Recorder's Court in the Straits of Malacca,

and for the constitution of an improved Judicature there.

A Law of Prescription and Limitation.

A Lex Loci for British India.

That, so far as your Petitioner knows, the Home Authorities have not felt themselves in a condition to pronounce a decision upon any one of the above Propositions, except the plan of a Model Civil Court and Civil Procedure.

is, as you will see, that the works of my colleagues and myself in the Indian Law Commission should "be submitted

That, so far as your Petitioner knows, the Legislature of India has not felt itself competent to pronounce a decision upon any one of the above Propositions.

That in the Reports by which the Law-Commission explained and justified the Propositions above enumerated, and in various other Reports, they have discussed a great number of important Questions of Jurisprudence.

The fusion of Law and Equity.

Special Pleading.

Appellate Judicature.

Small Cause Judicature and its fusion with general Judicature.

The Jury, or the Association of the Public, with the business of Judi

cature.

The training of Candidates for the Judicial Office.

That the labours of the Law-Commission which (whatever may be their intrinsic value), have cost a great deal of public money will, as your Petitioner apprehends, be lost to the people of India, and that the similar labours of any persons, who may be appointed to complete the task imposed upon the LawCommission by Parliament in the statute 3 & 4 Will. IV. c. 85. ss. 43—55., will in like manner be lost to the people of India.

Your Petitioner, therefore, prays

That the above-mentioned Propositions and Discussions of the Law-Commission may be submitted to the consideration of competent Jurists, who may decide whether the recommendations of the said Commission are, or are not, fit to be adopted.

That as President of the Council of Education for Bengal, your Petitioner had opportunities of observing the desire and the capacity of large numbers of the Native Youth of India, for the acquisition of European Literature and Science, as well as the capacity of the most distinguished among them for fitting themselves to enter the Civil and Medical covenanted Services of the East India Company, and to practise in the learned Professions.

That the said Native Youth are hindered from making all the progress they are capable of in the acquisition of the said Literature and Science.

First, Because there is not in British India any University with power to
grant degrees as is done by Universities in Europe.

Secondly, Because the European Instructors of the said Native Youth do
not belong to any of the covenanted Services of the East India Company,
and do not, therefore, whatever may be their learning and talents, occupy
a position in society which commands the respect of their Pupils.
Thirdly, Because no provision has been made for the education of any of
the said Native Youth in England without prejudice to their caste or
religious feelings.

Your Petitioner, therefore, prays —

That one or more Universities may be established in British India.

to the consideration of competent jurists who may decide whether the recommendations of the said Commission are or are not fit to be adopted."

The causes which, with one exception, have prevented the Council of India, and the Home Authorities from coming to any decision for or against the recommendations of the Law Commission, are set forth, so far as the reserve incident to official revelations would permit, in the evidence which I delivered to the Committee of the House of Lords; and I will not trouble you with any repetition of them.

But I look upon the LAW REVIEW as the principal organ of English Law Reform, and the object of my letter is to communicate to those who take an interest in that movement, so much of the plans of the Indian Law Commission as relates to what is of English origin in the law and judicature of India.

You are aware that the English law is the Lex loci of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and Penang with its judicial dependencies; and that the Supreme Courts of the three Presidencies and the Court of the Recorder of Penang are organised, with more or less of modification, upon English principles.

If, therefore, the Indian Law Commission had been ever so much disposed to abstain from criticising the legal institutions of the mother country, we should really have found ourselves unable to exercise such abstinence. We did criticise them very freely; and possibly, in so doing, we have raised up a sort of opposition to our projects which we might have escaped if it had been possible to confine ourselves to the examination of Hindoo institutions, or Mahomedan insti

That a covenanted Education Service may be created analogous to the covenanted Civil and Medical Services.

That one or more Establishments may be created, at which the Native Youth of India may receive in England, without prejudice to their caste or religious feelings, such a secular Education as may qualify them for admission into the Civil and Medical Services of the East India Company.

tutions, or institutions devised form British India and not copied from the sacred exemplar of Westminister Hall.

One of the antagonists of the Law Commission, Sir Henry Roper, late Chief Justice of Bombay, concludes the observations, which, on the 10th of January, 1845, he communicated to the Government of India, in the following words:

"I have no doubt that if the proposed changes be salutary for India, it would be at least equally salutary for England to effect similar changes in that country, and therefore there is reason to believe that these propositions of the Law Commissioners will be duly canvassed by competent jurists before their adoption in India is permitted."

I quite agree with Sir Henry Roper that it would be at least equally salutary to effect for England changes similar to those which the Law Commission has proposed for India; and when we were engaged in recommending and enforcing those changes for the greatest of British dependencies, I acknowledge myself to have felt the ambition of setting an example which might possibly be thought worthy of imitation at the seat of empire. It appears to me that this was not an ambition which I need be at all ashamed to avow, and I really do not now feel anything like remorse for having suffered it, without effort at suppression, to animate my exertions. The conspicuous honour of setting that example was indeed denied to us. But the inferior honour of having been the first to propose for any country ruled by the sceptre of Queen Victoria, that great judicial reform which is now about to be adopted in the heart of her dominions, belongs to us, and cannot be taken from us.

Lord Eldon, never to be mentioned without respect when we advert to his vast legal attainments and judicial capacity, said of the separation of Courts of Law and Equity," It mainly contributes to the complete and effectual administration of justice in this country, and secures to the people an administration of justice to an extent and in a degree such as are unknown, and must be ever unknown, where that separation is not effectually made and observed."

The Indian Law Commission, after examining a number of cases to illustrate Lord Mansfield's views on this subject, and