REMARKS 
 
 ON THB 
 
 DEBATES OF THE 4in AUGUST LAST, 
 
 IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 COMPENSATION CLAUSES 
 
 OF THB 
 
 PROBATES AND ADMINISTRATIONS BILL. 
 
 BT 
 
 HENRY RAIKES, M.A., 
 
 BARRI8TER-AT-LAW, AND REGISTRAR OF THE DIOCESE OF CHESTER. 
 
 Tt'c avcurrriaei avrov LXI. 
 
 ApiBfioi. 24. 9. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 W. H. DALTON, BOOKSELLER TO THE QUEEN, 
 28, COCKSPUR STREET. 
 
 1857.
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 THOUGH it is a trite observation that the attack 
 of those whose praise one would shudder at, is not 
 altogether unwelcome, yet one may be excused a 
 passing- wish to have had the opportunity of ex- 
 planation, and of correcting- some peculiarly gross 
 blunders perpetrated by the great northern champion 
 of nonconformity and unaspirated vowels, and his 
 little lieutenant. 
 
 Thoug-h one mig-ht, as a matter of literary taste, 
 have more toleration for the acid froth of dyspeptic 
 insolvency, than for the sour dreg-s of sectarian vul- 
 g-arity ; yet it did excite some surprise among- my 
 friends how two persons so widely separated from me, 
 both socially and professionally, should have so per- 
 sonally attacked one who had at least never injured 
 them, and whose constant local employment they 
 relied on as their security for attacking* him as a 
 sinecurist. 
 
 Indeed, beyond making- a present of a seven and 
 ninepenny search to a relation* of Mr. Roebuck's, 
 
 * If I have wronged ray old correspondent, Mr. Falconer, in 
 imputing to him the relationship in question, I beg his pardon 
 for so offensive a mistake. 
 
 A 2
 
 who complained of the magnitude of the charge ; 
 and of tendering 1 some assistance to Mr. Hadfield 
 -in a useful practical measure, connected with testa- 
 mentary law, which he brought forward some years 
 ago, I really had had no previous collision with 
 either of these gentlemen. But unfortunately, while 
 good men forgive injuries, and great men forget 
 them, there is a degree of wicked littleness that can 
 neither forgive nor forget the most trifling favour. 
 
 To an amiable legislator, like the Olywell Street 
 Hadvocate, as his leader would deprecatingly term 
 him, there would not be half the attraction in de- 
 stroying an Institution however serviceable and 
 useful, unless the destruction also entailed the ruin 
 of private families, and a large amount of local 
 distress, and domestic privation. 
 
 Yet even on the subject of compensation to the 
 officials, cashiered or ruined by the Testamentary 
 Act, and which elicited such offensive and unpro- 
 voked personalities from a certain class of speakers 
 on the 4th of last month, there appears to have been 
 a strange if not wilful misunderstanding. 
 
 To men who have raked the retainers of rebellion 
 from the scaffolds of their dupes or clients, it might 
 well seem incredible that a gentleman might decline 
 altogether a paltry compensation if involving the 
 tenure of an office derogatory to his own antecedents, 
 and injurious to the interests of the public. 
 
 But though, as the father of ten children, on the 
 eve of losing a practice of 5000 a year, by the Act
 
 of the Legislature, I can not pretend to be indifferent 
 to the question of compensation I yet preferred to_ 
 leave it, with a simple statement of the facts of tne 
 case to the sense of justice of the House and of the 
 Government : and what little time could be spared 
 from the duties of my office, I gave to improve the 
 Government scheme, and to render the practice of 
 the new district Registries something- more than a 
 shadow and a nullity. Though after having* filled the 
 office I have done for twenty years, I have no great 
 ambition to step down into one of their country 
 clerkships. 
 
 Had the object been to have slipped unnoticed 
 into the general scheme of compensation, it would 
 have been far more politic to have presented no 
 petition, but to have canvassed members individually. 
 Yet strange as it may seem to the worthy members 
 for Sheffield, while I canvassed no private support, 
 I was unwilling that the House or Government 
 should be led into sanctioning a vote of remunera- 
 tion, that in my case might surprise them in its 
 amount ; but rather wished they might have the 
 opportunity of fixing a lower scale of compensation 
 for an exceptionally valuable office. This principle 
 though new, and apparently unjust to the richer 
 offices, is not without a peculiar sort of equity. For 
 while a proper social usage requires a certain style of 
 living and expenditure from official persons, an effi- 
 cient income that decidedly exceeds that limit, may 
 be supposed to operate proportionally as an insurance
 
 6 
 
 ag*ainst legislative and other disasters, and to render 
 the abolished functionary less dependent on com- 
 pensation. 
 
 But while the net income of this magnificent 
 though now doomed office, perhaps too naturally 
 excited the righteous indignation of less fortunate 
 professionals, a few other figures might have shewn 
 the scale on which the business was transacted, and 
 proved not only that a large income arose from a 
 large business, but that a wide circle also derived 
 benefit and employment from this office. A hig-hly 
 accomplished examiner, and 16 or 17 clerks of 
 different grades, receive in salary and wages 
 2436. 18s 2d a year. 
 
 The stationery alone is 251. 17$ Qd. The 
 stamps about 65,000 a year. And about 2700 
 Probates and Administrations, and a still larger 
 number of office copies, annually issue from the 
 Registry, representing- about six or seven millions of 
 property annually transmitted through this office. 
 
 It is due, not only to myself, but to the exemplary 
 and venerable Prelate who appointed me in 1837, to 
 take some notice of the vulgar personality that was 
 heaped upon my appointment, and the nature of my 
 office, even at the risk of an appearance of egotism 
 most painful to myself. 
 
 It is really rather hard not only to deprive a man of 
 a practice 5000 a year, but to abuse him for telling 
 the truth. And probably no other members but those 
 for Sheffield would have stated what they might
 
 have known to be false of a brother professional 
 whose necessary absence and unremitting* employ- 
 ment they alone relied on for the impunity of their 
 assertions. When my predecessor died in 1837, it 
 was in the power of the then Bishop of Chester to 
 have made any appointment he chose ; and, indeed, 
 any appointment would have been better than none. 
 For even twenty years ago, the stoppage of probates 
 and administrations for a few weeks, would have 
 closed mills in Lancashire, and locked the trade of 
 Liverpool, not to mention the many cases of indi- 
 vidual grievance that would have arisen. Three 
 forms of appointment were open to the Bishop. 
 He might have adopted the practice of earlier times, 
 and appointed a non-professional relative as a sine- 
 curist, with a solicitor as his deputy. Or he might, 
 on the other hand, have succeeded in inducing some 
 eminent counsel of the Civil or Common Law Bar 
 to take the precarious office. But is it for a moment 
 to be supposed that men of eminence in the profes- 
 sion, like Dr. Lushington, or the late Sir John Jervis, 
 the only common lawyer whose opinion on our 
 practice was worth the paper it was written on, 
 would have come down and buried themselves in a 
 country town, would have given up their practice, 
 their brilliant and ever brightening prospects, the eclat 
 and ambition of London life, of Parliament and the 
 Bench, to devote themselves to the monotonous rou- 
 tine of an office, then of 3000 a year, which the 
 next session might abolish, to have their incessant
 
 8 
 
 devotion to their country duties, and every reduction 
 of costs and improvement of practice they introduced, 
 denounced as sinecurism by the Hadfields and Roe- 
 bucks of the day ? The thing- was too absurd to be 
 thought of. The only other course the Bishop 
 adopted. He frankly and generously bestowed 
 the valuable but precarious office on the son of an 
 old friend, who, however humble his talents, had 
 achieved a University and Circuit reputation for 
 industry and method. From family connection he 
 had been induced to study the Testamentary Law, 
 and though his Sessions' practice perhaps did not ex- 
 ceed the junior business, whose distribution caused 
 such excitement on the Northern circuit on a certain 
 notorious elevation to a silk gown, some six years 
 later, yet he was at any rate free from official pre- 
 judice, and the oppressive sense of previous deserts 
 that will always interfere with the adaptation and 
 usefulness of medieval appointments. 
 
 The excellent Prelate in freely and fully giving 
 me this appointment, only suggested three things : 
 that I should discharge it always in person, that 
 some of the charges should be reduced, and the 
 number and remuneration of the clerks increased. 
 It is needless to say, that all these suggestions 
 have been religiously attended to. The former with 
 a regularity that should call forth from myself 
 the warmest gratitude for uninterrupted health, 
 during the last twenty years; and the latter to 
 an extent that would be gratifying, but for the
 
 altered prospects of the many clerks, whose services 
 will here at least be no longer required. One word 
 as to the age of the appointee of 1837. Any col- 
 lege gyp, or law stationer's errand boy, could have 
 taught Mr. Roebuck, that though a Queen's Counsel 
 may be made, by a political job, without practice, yet 
 that at least some degree of seniority is required to 
 make a Master of Arts and Barrister at Law, not to 
 mention some amount of learning, at least in the case 
 of the former title. 
 
 The income as was above stated, was not much 
 above 3000 a year in 1837 ; and 3000 was sunk 
 in stamps and other necessary expenses incidental to 
 so great a business. 
 
 But the activity and moderation of charges, with 
 which the business was carried on, coupled with the 
 increasing wealth and population of the two coun- 
 ties, comprised in the jurisdiction, soon advanced the 
 annual receipts. And this in spite of several great 
 reductions in charges originating with ourselves, 
 and of an Act of the Legislature some years after, 
 which took away the discount formerly allowed on 
 stamps, and obliged us to pay the value net for them. 
 This act, which took away at one blow 700 a year, 
 being clearly for the public good and right in principle, 
 thoug'h carried too far, was not opposed on our part. 
 
 But though it is an undoubted fact, that the 
 income has risen from above 3000 a year in 1837 
 to above 5000 a year in 1857, it is neither my 
 fault nor misfortune that Lancashire has been pros-
 
 10 
 
 perous, that wealth and what is more important 
 still the distribution of wealth has vastly increased. 
 It has not been the least gratifying 1 characteristic of 
 the income, that it has not arisen from the miserable 
 fees of felony, or the more splendid Parliamentary 
 penalties on infatuated speculations, but from a light 
 enumerative duty, as it were, on the ever widening 
 competence and property of the district; a very 
 feeble type of the vast increase of revenue to the 
 state collected in the form of the stamp duties. One 
 would suppose such a picture of steady national 
 prosperity, would have rather excited the gratitude 
 than stirred up the bile of any one who did not 
 hate his country, almost as intensely as he hated 
 its God and its Church. 
 
 As these remarks are avowedly confined to the 
 pecuniary questions raised by the very personal 
 debate of the 4th of August last, it is not my object 
 to g"0 into the more technical merits or demerits of 
 the late Act. The practical advantages are mainly 
 confined to the substituting- of a single probate for 
 the two or even three that the variety of jurisdiction 
 too often entailed. Yet it must not be supposed 
 that this change, though a great and creditable 
 simplification is any g-ain to the public in expense ; 
 for from the disproportionate rise in the scale of 
 stamp duties for the larger amount of properties, 
 the duty paid on the ag'greg'ate will far exceed the 
 ag'greg'ate duty paid on the several probates. If a 
 will is proved in Chester under 4000, and in
 
 11 
 
 London under 6000, the respective duties of 60 
 and 100 amount to 160; but'when a probate is 
 taken under 10,000 for the whole, the duty is 
 180, or 20 more; and so on for similar sums of 
 increasing amount. Now I do not complain of this, 
 but am rather glad that a support should be thus 
 unintentionally given to the public revenue, losing, 
 as it must, to an infinitely greater amount by the 
 opening of common form practice to the whole of 
 an immense profession, which, however generally 
 respectable, must number within its ranks a larger 
 number of exceptions than a small exclusive and 
 nominated body like the Eegistrars and Proctors. 
 While the far juster option given to prove in the 
 local or central office will, in many smaller cases, 
 tempt ignorant or dishonest executors to dispense 
 with probate altogether, on the not unfounded 
 idea of undiscovered impunity. Again, as to the 
 economics of the new districts. It is rather absurd 
 that when so much stuff has been talked for the last 
 twenty years about the 300 or 3000 testamentary 
 jurisdictions of which about forty only were in 
 actual practice, independent of any larger office 
 here in the Chester diocese two new testamentary 
 offices are erected at Liverpool and Manchester. 
 Now, though it may be fairly said, the importance 
 of these localities justified a deviation from the 
 general scheme of consolidation which it is presumed, 
 as distinguished from strict centralization, was the 
 principle of the measure ; yet, on the other hand,
 
 12 
 
 there was in existence already at Chester both 
 building 1 and organization quite adequate to the 
 wants of that large and wealthy district. A quiet 
 and somewhat decayed place, at an easy distance 
 from the great haven and workshop of the empire, 
 seemed more suitable for the calm deposit of titles 
 and the methodical transaction of testamentary 
 business, than those crowded marts, exposed as they 
 are to popular commotion and destructive fires, and 
 to whom the little increase of business though a 
 serious loss to Chester will be but a paltry gain. 
 Had things been left alone in this respect, not only 
 would the great expense to the public have been 
 saved of erecting* costly architectural absurdities in 
 central situations in Liverpool and Manchester, but 
 as far as I am individually concerned, there would 
 have been no claim urged to compensation. On the 
 contrary, I should have been prepared to pay a 
 round annual sum to the fee fund for the satisfaction 
 of retaining to Chester the important position of 
 legal capital of North-Western England, which it 
 has enjoyed for three centuries, and for the still 
 dearer gratification of maintaining the many rela- 
 tions of employment and mutual good offices that 
 must now be dissolved for ever. 
 
 Of all the parties to this long-expected, yet most 
 needless change, the Government is the least to 
 blame. For while the silly restlessness, the need 
 of doing something so characteristic of an age of 
 more activity than genius, which induces rival
 
 13 
 
 factions to bid against each other in the novelty 
 rather than value of their wares, almost necessitated 
 some step or other in innovation, it has been highly 
 creditable to ministers that both the country and 
 the officials have been considered as much as they 
 have been. In 1843, the far stronger government 
 of Sir Bobert Peel was committed to a measure so 
 sweeping and inconsiderate, that attached as most 
 of our body were to his policy and party, we had no 
 hesitation in offering it the most earnest and active 
 opposition in our power such as it would have 
 been neither right nor wise to have given to the late 
 measure. Though to move, as it were, the previous 
 question, one might congratulate the public on the 
 peace and security of our Indian Empire, that 
 afforded the opportunity for abolishing institutions 
 coeval with the Monarchy, which had been accepted 
 by the [Reformers of the 16th century, and spared 
 by the Long Parliament of the 17th 5 though it 
 evinces a noble confidence in the resources of the 
 country to tamper with the collection of a revenue 
 which, always steadily increasing, is alone paid net 
 into the hands of Government ; yet, considering the 
 general ignorance and prejudice that prevailed on 
 the subject, we should be thankful it is no worse. 
 
 But now that the eclat of a great change has been 
 enjoyed, that the measure has done duty in the 
 Queen's speech, and the Law Lords have chatted 
 their little irrelevancies on its theoretical points, it 
 becomes a matter of practical moment to provide for
 
 14 
 
 the working- of it. It would be highly desirable at 
 the earliest moment in the next session to pass some 
 useful working-curate sort of bill, suspending- alike 
 the useless destruction and unpopular compensation 
 of the late Act ; only providing 1 that the one prac- 
 tical reform comprised in it should be carried out, 
 and that any Diocesan or Prerogative Probate 
 should cover all effects in England and Wales, only 
 requiring a Prerogative Probate in the case of 
 funded property, if thought desirable by the Bank 
 of England. Thus leisure would be afforded for the 
 extensive architectural demands of the Act, and 
 some rules laid down for practice, both in town and 
 country, that is really left to conjecture in the mere 
 sketch of the late enactment. Or the Compensation 
 Question itself might be settled by allowing the 
 present officials, say seven or ten years of grace, 
 which would secure the business being well done, 
 and the measure removed for the time, and might 
 be taken as a not unfair scheme of compensation for 
 eventual abolition. 
 
 On the eve of a compulsory retirement from a 
 monotonous though lucrative office, it may not be of 
 much consequence to myself how far the privilege of 
 vote and speech is abused in Parliament ; but for 
 the country at large it becomes a matter of serious 
 consideration, whether it will permit every useful 
 and absent public officer to be made the butt of any 
 demagogue who has a personal or sectarian spite to 
 gratify.
 
 15 
 
 Had I appointed a deputy, lived in Belgravia, 
 visited the Continent, cut down the number and pay 
 of my clerks, made no provision for the increasing 1 
 business, either by supply of stamps or additional 
 buildings, I should have been pretty sure of the 
 indulgence or connivance that worthless or unprin- 
 cipled men rarely refuse to similar characters. Or 
 again, had I yielded to the whispers of ambition, 
 and obtained the Parliamentary position that has 
 during the last ten years been twice within my 
 reach, I should have obtained from fear of reply 
 the respect that no conscientious discharge of duty 
 would have won. 
 
 Most reluctantly have I deviated from natural 
 tastes and accustomed habits, to write about myself j 
 and at some inconvenience have spared a morning- 
 from probates and administrations, and the ^interests 
 of widows and ^orphans as Mr. Hadfield hath it, to 
 notice an unprovoked attack in the terms it merited. 
 
 But if my past employment has not been satis- 
 factory to the members for Sheffield, I flatter myself 
 my future leisure will be still less so. 
 
 For though a successor drawn from the smoking 
 room of the Reform Club, would probably afford 
 abundant employment in reusing his grants, and 
 advising on his blunders to ^nf^ex-ofcjiial, who had 
 breathed Testamentary Law for years j yet it may 
 be hoped that some of the many able men,, released 
 by the late Act from routine employment and local 
 notability, may meet their foes and slanderers in the 
 
 A 000019712 9
 
 16 
 
 press, and on the hustings. While I can promise 
 those respectable members of Parliament who were 
 not satisfied with ruining- an absent man, without 
 useful life and disinterested appoint- 
 funds nor energy shall be wanting- 
 to give the townsmen of ElKott and Montgomery 
 an opportunity of comparing 1 the law of Mr. Boe- 
 buck and the English of Mr. Hadfield, with those 
 of another candidate. 
 
 Mr. H^dfield, on a recent occasion, boasted of 
 belorfging'to.a^Church that feared no loss. Probably 
 as a classical scholar, he had a sly reference to the 
 traveller in Horace, whose unencumbered condition 
 enal)led him to sing among bandits. But though 
 it is of course vain to despoil a man of the religion 
 he neither professes nor values, he may probably 
 regret the loss of a seat, and its privilege of abusing 
 at once the Queen's subjects and the Queen's 
 English. 
 
 ^ 
 
 ' ""' THE END. 
 
 -bi