* * * * *

CANDOUR IN COURT.

[In _Savell v. the Duke of Westminster_, Lord ESHER, Master
of the Bolls, said:--"It was the demands for interrogatories
and discovery of documents and commissions in cases of this
simple nature which had made the practice of the Common Law so
expensive, and caused the public to fly from Courts of Law as
from a pestilence. This oppression must be put down."]

"How does it hap," quoth ESHER, M.R.,
"That Solicitors languish for lack of bread?
That want of cases, as felt by the Bar,
To cases of want has recently led?
Oh, how does it come, and why, and whence,
That men shun the Law as a pestilence?

"It can't be denied that the public tries
To avoid an action by every means;
To a Court it with much reluctance hies,
And to arbitration madly leans.
In fact--I say it without offence--
It shuns the Law as a pestilence.

"'Tis all the fault," said this great Law Lord,
"Of demands for inspection, and similar pleas;
Of expenses that neither side can afford,
Commissions and interrogator-ees;
Till Pelion's piled on Ossa--and hence