[0a] Since the First Edition, “a bulky volume” of new rules has appeared. No independent existence at present, and therefore anatomy uncertain. I have peeped at it, and think if it reaches maturity it will help the rich litigant very much; and, if it abolishes trial by jury, as it threatens, we shall be, in time to come, a Judge-ridden people, which God forbid. I am not afraid of a Judge now, but I should be then. The choice in the future might be between servility and a prison; and I sincerely believe that if trial by jury should be abolished, this country would not be safe to live in. Much mending, therefore, and consequently the more holes. I wonder what the Liberalism of the future will say when it learns that the Liberalism of Mr. Gladstone’s Government struck the first blow at Trial by Jury? Truly “the axe to laid to the root of the tree,” and, reversing the Divine order, “every tree that bringeth forth good fruit is” in danger of being “hewn down.”

R. H.[22] This inscription, with the exception of the names, is a literal copy.[52] Modern pleaders would say the Court would take judicial notice of the existence of Egypt: I am aware of this, but at the time I write of the Courts were too young to take notice.[138] The correctness of Mr. O’Rapley’s views may be vouched for by a newspaper report in the Evening Standard of April 17th, 1883, which was as follows:—“Mr. Justice Day in charging the Grand Jury at the Manchester Spring Assizes yesterday, expressed his disagreement with the opinion of other Judges in favour of the Commission being so altered that the Judge would have to ‘deliver all the prisoners detained in gaol,’ and regarded it as a waste of the Judge’s time that he should have to try a case in which a woman was indicted for stealing a shawl worth three-and-ninepence, or a prisoner charged with stealing two mutton pies and two ounces of bacon.”