party, despatched his clerk from Dublin to the countytown for the purpose of delivering one of them to the subsheriff. After much difficulty, he found the sub-sheriff's clerk, who would not receive them, but desired him to send them through the post-office; and stated to him that a gratuity would be expected for their execution. Shortly after the return of the messenger to town, repeated applications were made for returns on the writs, to which either denials of any knowledge of them or other evasive answers were given.

The douceur generally promised by a plaintiff to the subsheriff for the execution of a writ, varied from sums under 17. to 1007., in proportion to the difficulty of the arrest or the amount of the debt. The Commissioners investigated the charge, which had been extensively made, of corrupt and partial intimation to defendants from the sheriff's office, of process in their hands; and they state that the fact had been fully established, that from some source intimation was very generally received by defendants which enabled them to evade execution, and that abundant proof had reached them to warrant their attributing this mal-practice almost entirely to persons connected with the sheriff's office. They had full evidence of intimation of writs having been conveyed by the sub-sheriff himself in particular instances, and also of such a general communication subsisting between that officer and particular defendants, as necessarily led to such intimation. Instances of flagrant oppression were frequent a short period before the date of the report. A writ was delivered to a sub-sheriff against a female whose brother-in-law had a suit pending against the sub-sheriff, in which she was to be a principal witness for her relative. A warrant was immediately granted by the sub-sheriff to his bailiff, with directions to arrest her and carry her to the county jail. She was arrested accordingly between ten and eleven o'clock at night, and, contrary to the express provisions of an act of parliament, lodged in the public Bridewell of the town in which she resided, a place for criminals only, and consisting of but one apartment, with an earthen floor, and without bed, fireplace or furniture,-where she must have passed the night, had not the wife of the Bridewell-keeper humanely transferred her to her own apartment. It was in evidence on oath, that

the bailiffs and Bridewell-keeper stated their having the subsheriff's orders to detain her in the Bridewell, and the latter had not positively denied the charge. The suit referred to had been instituted against the sub-sheriff under the following circumstances. A writ had been delivered to this officer against the woman's brother-in-law, who was out of the bailiwick. The sub-sheriff thereupon called upon the woman, and contrived to terrify her into a relinquishment of some property entrusted to her by her brother-in-law, by holding out to her the threat of an arrest under a writ, which he alleged to be in his possession against herself. This allegation he afterwards admitted to have been wholly untrue, although it was made in a letter signed by him in his official capacity, and couched in language highly unbecoming a public officer.

"The property," say the Commissioners, "consisted, among other things, of three chests of tea, two of which the sub-sheriff sold at a price under first cost to two of his near relatives; and although the entire property so taken possession of by the sub-sheriff consisted of goods which had been purchased at wholesale prices for 1607., and the debt for which the marked writ was issued was only 70l., no balance was ever paid to the proprietor, nor any account given of the sale of his goods."-Page 13.

It was in consequence of this proceeding that an action had been brought against the sub-sheriff, and a verdict obtained in the Court of King's Bench by the plaintiff for 1607., the precise loss he had previously stated to the Commissioners to have sustained. In another case, a sub-sheriff had obtained from a defendant the double security of a bail bond under an ancient statute, and a deposit of money. The defendant afterwards satisfied the demand, but could never obtain the deposit. The numerous instances of the system of agency and accommodation in favour of defendants, tending to defeat the attempts of creditors to recover their debts under executions, described by the Commissioners to have been practised by sub-sheriffs in different counties, were destructive to the interests of both debtor and creditor, and calculated to bring general discredit on the administration of the law as it existed at the date of the report. Instead of administering their functions according to the great legal maxim,-" Nulli vendemus, nulli negabimus, aut differemus rectum vel justitiam,"-they appear to have merited the censure pronounced upon them by an Irish judge, that "they

"bought the administration of the law, and sold it for their "own indemnification*;" and it is apparent that the largest portion of their income arose from fees, not for executing, but for not executing, writs.

Amongst the institutions from which the people derived their notions of law, the manor courts, for the recovery of small debts, were not the least important. We think that these were well calculated, under judicious management, to bring justice home to every man's door. They enabled the lower classes to state their cases in their own language, where they did not speak English, as was often the case, to a jury who understood them, and to whom their bargains and customs were familiar. They prevented the people in poor districts from being obliged to go with their witnesses to the quarter-sessions, distant, perhaps, thirty miles from their homes; and that they have not been more resorted to, is a proof, if other evidence were wanting, that they have been generally badly regulated. These courts are held by seneschals, who are appointed by the lords of manors. Their pecuniary jurisdiction is conferred by charter, and differs very much in extent. In some cases it is limited to 40s., in others it extends to 2007., and in some there is no limit whatever. Where the office of seneschal is filled by respectable men, their courts are well conducted; but it was given in evidence before the select committee of the House of Commons, which inquired into the operation of these tribunals in 1837, that frequently persons of a very low description,-in some cases keepers of public-houses, and men who could neither read nor write, had been appointed to that office. One of these persons admitted to a commissioner on the Irish Corporation Inquiry, that each party who got a verdict in his court put a certain sum of money into a stock-purse ;-that these sums were accumulated till the close of the evening, and at its termination the seneschal and jury (one jury having acted throughout the day) and the various successful parties sat down and consumed it all in whiskey in the public-house in which the court was held. Another possessed, at least, one of the attributes of justice, for he was, poor man, not figu

*Mr. Justice Day.

ratively, but literally blind*. It was scarcely possible, that in the hands of low persons the judicial powers conferred by those charters should not be made a means of exercising great oppression. As the remuneration of a seneschal arose from fees, he would naturally encourage, as much as possible, business to his court; and as the plaintiffs brought it, there was, at least, a motive for persons, such as we have described, being satisfied with little evidence of the justice of their side of the question. There was, we grant, always a jury; but then it appeared in many cases that it was composed of idle persons, who attended regularly for the liquor which they received as the price of their verdict. It was stated by a magistrate of the county of Clare, that he knew two or three men who were notorious drunkards, who travelled ten or twelve miles to be on the jury at the manor court; and that they sometimes went circuit with the seneschalt. He declared, that a rich man would have ninety-nine chances out of a hundred of getting a decree in those courts with which he was acquainted. He described some cases of grievous oppression arising out of such verdicts, and of the riots created by the execution of the decrees. The bailiffs, in many cases, were men as bad as the old process-servers of the quarter-sessions, and totally unworthy of credit as witnesses. Sometimes a process called a distringas was issued, and the goods were taken under it before the cause was inquired into. A witness described a case of this sort; he stated,-

"I have known a distringas to be granted against a man who had eight or nine milch cows,—a very comfortable farmer,—I dare say, a ten-pound freeholder. He thought it was a hardship to see his cattle taken, and the people collected about him; and the man who had the distringas had thirty or forty people with him. A fight arose, and the poor man died soon after from the beating he got. There were some of the other people nearly killed also."

In describing the grievous oppression to which the unfortunate peasantry were subject under the provisions or maladministration of the law, the custodiam process ought not to be forgotten. This is a grant from the Crown of the lands of a debtor to a creditor, and it takes precedence of all other

claims. It commences in the Court of Common Pleas by a civil outlawry; and when it is estreated into the Exchequer, the grant is made. The outlaw might have had other creditors, some of whom might have held mortgages. The tenant was liable, in such cases, before the law was altered, to be compelled, under distress, to pay his rent; and after he had paid it to one, to be attached for not paying it to the custodiam creditor. Under this process of attachment, wretched tenants have been frequently committed to prison, where they have lain for years.

It was stated by an Irish magistrate, in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on the State of Ireland in 1825*, that under the old Constabulary Act no person could be appointed a constable that was a Roman Catholic. At all events, that such was the opinion of the grand jury of his county, on which he had been accustomed to act for upwards of thirty years. It was universally admitted, that many of the police were Orangemen; and it was stated, that the first Orange lodge which existed in the county of Limerick was instituted by them. They frequently wore Orange insignia. The police and the people at that period habitually regarded each other as mutual enemies, and there were deadly conflicts between them. That the persons to whom the preservation of the public peace was confided should belong to a secret society which was believed by the people to be hostile to them, was a circumstance little calculated at least to promote the object for which such persons were appointed.

One of the charges advanced against the Irish is, that they have little value for an oath. If the fact be so, it is another proof that a people are always what their institutions make them. There was scarcely any matter, from the preliminary step necessary to obtain payment for a public work presented by a grand jury, down to the merest trifle in the various departments of the law and revenue, that was not vouched for by affidavits ;-and the manner in which these were hurried over by a clerk or crier, who generally read the

* Fourth Report, p. 26.

+ Minutes of Evidence on State of Ireland in 1825, before the Lords, pp. 226,