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possibly settle this dispute in any other way. than by ordaining the farmer to give his oath whether he had, or had not received the money. But this simple mode of procedure, would have destroyed the trade of law which is at present carried on in this, and in every other court of justice in the kingdom. Learned gentlemen were therefore employed on both sides, to plead the cause of their respective clients, at the bar of the court; and the judges spent as much time as would have been necessary for determining ten thousand similar questions, in hearing these ingenious pleadings, and in reading and considering the ingenious papers, which these learned gentlemen put into their hands for their information... The observer omitted to. inquire how long this cause, continued before the court. But having had occasion to be with one of the parties immediately after the cause was decided, this gentleman put into his hand an account of the expence of this process, which he had just then received from his agent; and from which it appeared, that it had cost the parties within a mere trifle of two hundred pounds; being ten. times the sum for which they had been contending. But the observer has had occasion to know the particulars of some processes before

this court, and has been informed of others that have occurred within these very few

years, the expences of which have been still more enormous. He has been credibly informed of a process which came before the Court of Session a few years ago, respecting the payment of the toll-duty which the keeper of one of the toll-bars near Edinburgh had demanded from a person passing through his toll, in a carriage, drawn by one horse. The toll-keeper said the carriage was a gig, and demanded fourpence as the toll-duty; the gentleman on the other hand insisted that it was a tax-cart, and refused to pay more than twopence. For the purpose of determining this important question, an application was made in the first instance to the Sheriff, who, after hearing, no doubt, many ingenious pleadings at the bar of his court, pronounced judgment, finding the carriage to be a gig; and consequently finding that the owner of it was liable in the payment of the duty demanded by the keeper of the tollbar. The owner of the carriage not being satisfied with this decision, carried the cause before the Lord Ordinary, in the outer house of the Court of Session, who, after hearing the usual pleadings, pronounced an interlocutor, finding that the carriage was a tax-cart ; and

consequently, that the owner was only liable in the small duty. The opposite party being now dissatisfied with his lordship's interlocutor, they were advised to carry the question before the fifteen judges in the inner house. Their pas sions being now completely roused by the inflammatory speeches that were made by their respective pleaders before the Sheriff, and before the Lord Ordinary, they were thereby completely drilled, and prepared for a more serious combat before this supreme court. After hearing a great deal of ingenious pleadings at the bar of their court, their Lordships were pleased to pronounce judgment in the cause, in which they reversed the Lord Ordinary's interlocutor, and confirmed the Sheriff's, finding the carriage to be a gig. This ridiculous process, the observer is credibly informed, cost the parties engaged in it between forty and fifty pounds. Being from 4800 to 6000 times greater than the original sum for which they contended.

Unthinking men are apt to laugh, and to make it a subject of amusement, when they hear of such ridiculous prosecutions. But those who think seriously upon the subject, and have a proper regard for the welfare and happiness of their country, perceive these things to be of the most serious importance to the whole community.

Some idea may be formed from the few examples which have been stated, what an immense portion of the national wealth must be annually spent, under the present system of dispensing justice, in the three united kingdoms, for the purpose of obtaining it. And it must be observed, that this annual expence, whatever the amount may be, is a positive annual diminution of the national stock of wealth. For it is well known, that the labour of these learned gentlemen, for which it is paid, is altogether unproductive to the nation. It does not like the labour which is bestowed on the cultivation of the earth, in the manufacture of its produce for the use of man, or in any other useful employment,

make an annual return to the nation of the sums expended in the purchase of it, with accumalated interest.

But this expence, great as it certainly must be, is only the smallest part of these evils, which the present mode of administering justice, has introduced into society. The most serious evil consists in that universal corruption of moral sentiments which it has oocasioned in the minds of the people. That iniquitous and undefinable system of common law, which is now administered, and those absolutions, which our

supreme judges are in the habit of giving to men, from the performance of those moral obligations, which they come under to their neighbours, in their common transactions with one another; has obviously a direct tendency to destroy the fear of God in the minds of men, and to seduce and encourage them to disobey his righteous law. And that libellous, and defamatory language, which these learned gentlemen, who plead at the bar of these courts of justice, are permitted to make use of in their pleadings, and in the papers which they give in to the court, has as direct a tendency to inflame the minds of the parties, and to infuse into them that irreconcileable hatred, and deep-rooted malice, which is the invariable effects of a long and expensive process before these courts, which too frequently terminates only with their lives, and which is sometimes left as a heritage to their children.

It seems to be very extraordinary, that these learned gentlemen should be permitted to utter that libellous and defamatory language before a court of justice with impunity, which they durst not utter in any other place, and which, if they did, would subject them to severe legal punish

ment.

Some speculative men tell us, that the

present