Ten Thousand a-Year Volume I Part 49

"Gentlemen of the jury, have the goodness," said the a.s.sociate, "to answer to your names.--_Sir G.o.dolphin Fitzherbert_"---- and, while their names were thus called over, all the counsel took their pens, and, turning over their briefs with an air of anxiety, prepared to indorse on them the verdict. As soon as all the jurymen had answered, a profound silence ensued.

"Gentlemen of the jury," inquired the a.s.sociate, "are you agreed upon your verdict? Do you find for the plaintiff, or for the defendant?"

"FOR THE PLAINTIFF," replied the foreman; on which the officer, amid a kind of blank dismayed silence, making at the same time some hieroglyphics upon the record, muttered--"_Verdict for the Plaintiff.--Damages, one shilling. Costs, forty shillings_;" while another functionary bawled out, amid the increasing buzz in the court, "Have the goodness to wait, gentlemen of the jury. You will be paid immediately." Whereupon, to the disgust and indignation of the unlearned spectators, and the astonishment of some of the gentlemen of the jury themselves--many of them the very first men of the county--Snap jumped up on the form, pulled out his purse with an air of wild exultation, and proceeded to remunerate Sir G.o.dolphin Fitzherbert and his companions with the sum of two guineas each. Proclamation was then made, and the court adjourned till the next morning.

NOTES.

Note 1. Page 11.

Thomas De Quincey--a man whose genius and diversified and profound acquirements const.i.tute him one of the most remarkable men of the age; and the book quoted in the text is worthy of him.

Note 2. Page 20.

The legislature hath since shown many indications of agreement with the opinion of my unhappy swell: having lately abolished arrest on _mesne_ process altogether, as affording creditors too serious a chance of preventing the escape of a fraudulent debtor; and having still more recently made a step towards the abolition of arrest on _final_ process!

[1844.]

Note 3. Page 60.

??? ?a? ?p? ???ss?? ???t?? ??????? ??e? a??.

Note 4. Page 107.

_Blackstone's Commentaries_, vol. iv. pp. 134-5.

Note 5. Page 108.

_Blackstone_, vol. iii. p. 400, where it is stated, however, that "that practice is now disused."

Note 6. Page 110.

_Blackstone's Commentaries_, vol. iv. p. 135.

Note 7. Page 113.

By a very recent statute (6 and 7 Vict. c. 73, ---- 37, 43)--pa.s.sed in 1843--salutary alterations have been made in the law regulating the taxation of the bills of attorneys and solicitors. Except "under special circ.u.mstances," a client cannot now have his attorney's or solicitor's bill taxed, after the lapse of twelve months since it was delivered. If as much as one-sixth of the bill be struck off, the attorney or solicitor must pay the costs of the operation; if less than one-sixth, the client will have that satisfaction.

Note 8. Page 122.

This was written about the year 1838-9.

Note 9. Page 124.

This mode of treating the remains of a _felo de se_ was (on the 8th July 1823) abolished by Act of Parliament (stat. 4 Geo. IV). The remains of a _felo de se_ are ordered by that act to be buried privately in the churchyard, but without the performance of any rites of Christian burial. The Prayer-book also prohibits the "office for the burial of the dead from being used for any that have laid violent hands upon themselves."

Note 10. Page 160.

I suppose myself to be alluding here to a very oppressive statute, pa.s.sed to clip the wings of such gentlemen as Mr. Snap, by which it is enacted that, in actions for slander, if the jury find a verdict under forty shillings, _e. g._ as in the case in the text, for one farthing, the plaintiff shall be ent.i.tled to recover from the defendant only as much costs as damages, _i. e._ another farthing; a provision which has made many a poor pettifogger sneak out of court with a flea in his ear.

Since this was written, a still more stringent statute hath been made, which, 'tis to be hoped, will put down the nuisance.

Note 11. Page 196.

"Can the author of Ten Thousand a-Year," asked some anonymous person during its original appearance--"point out any cla.s.s of Dissenters who allow their members to frequent theatres?" The author believes that this is the case with Unitarians--and also with many of the members of other Dissenting congregations--especially the younger members of even the stanchest Dissenting families.

Note 12. Page 212.

This fearful-looking word, I wish to inform my lady-readers, is an original and monstrous amalgamation of three or four Greek words--??a??-?a?t-a????p?-p????--denoting a fluid "_which can render the human hair black_." Whenever a barber or perfumer determines on trying to puff off some villanous imposition of this sort, strange to say, he goes to some starving scholar, and gives him half-a-crown to coin a word like the above; one which shall be equally unintelligible and unp.r.o.nounceable, and therefore attractive and popular.

Note 13. Page 243.

"Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloe, Quaerenti pavidam---- Matrem.

---- et corde et genibus tremit."--Hor. i. 23.

Note 14. Page 264.

See _ante_, p. 138.

Note 15. Page 307.

So much curiosity has been excited among lay readers in this country and in America, and also among professional persons in France and Germany, as to the real nature of the species of action mentioned in the text, that the author is induced here to give some further account of a matter which enters so considerably into the construction of this story. The action of Ejectment is described with minute accuracy in the text; has been in existence for at least five hundred years, (_i. e._ since the close of Edward II., or beginning of Edward III., A. D. 1327;) and its venerable but tortuous fiction has been scarcely even touched by the "amending hand," which lately (1834) cut away so many c.u.mbrous, complicated, and _quasi_ obsolete portions of the law of action, (see Stat. 3 and 4 Will. 4, c. 27, -- 36.) The progress of this action is calculated to throw much light on some of our early history and jurisprudence. See an interesting sketch of it in the first chapter of Mr. Sergeant Adams' Treatise on Ejectment. It was resorted to for the purpose of escaping from the other dilatory, intricate, and expensive modes of recovering landed property anciently in existence. The following is the description given of it by Lord Mansfield--and is equally terse and correct, and applicable to the present mode of procedure. "An EJECTMENT is an ingenious _fiction_ for the Trial of t.i.tles to the possession of Land. In _form_ it is a trick between two, to dispossess a third by a sham suit and judgment. The artifice would be criminal, unless the _Court_ converted it into a _fair_ trial with the _proper_ party. The control the Court have over the judgment against the Casual Ejector, enables them to put any _terms_ upon the plaintiff which are _just_. He was soon ordered to give _notice_ to the _tenant in possession_. When the tenant in possession _asked_ to be admitted defendant, the Court was enabled to add CONDITIONS; and therefore obliged him to _allow_ the fiction, and go to Trial on the _real merits_."--(_Fair Claim_ v. _Sham t.i.tle_,[*] 3 Burr. 1294.) This action is now, in effect, the only direct common-law remedy for the recovery of land in England and Ireland; in many of the United States of America the action of Ejectment is retained--"with its harmless, and--as matter of history--curious and amusing English fictions."--(4 _Kent's Comment_. p.

70, note _e_:) but in New York, the action of Ejectment is "stripped of all its fict.i.tious parts."--(_Id. ib._)

[*] These fantastical names are now almost invariably abandoned for those of "John Doe" and "Richard Roe."

Note 16. Page 309.

_Blackstone's Commentaries_, vol. iii. App. pp. ix. x.

Note 17. Page 310.