The Courts of justice seem to be almost as paralysed
as Parliament. Tray ity Foir recently declared that Mr. Belt, the sculptor, did not do his own work, but paid assistants to do it for him, taking all the benefit of their work. That is, of course, a serious accusation, but one would have thought it could have been disposed of in a few hours. The trial has, however, lasted days, and is now to be postponed, till November, when the jury will have forgotten half the evidence, as Baron Huddleston is obliged to go on circuit. Miss Helen Taylor used hard words about Mr. Scrutton's con- duct in the matter of St. Paul's Industrial School, implying that Mr. Scrutton benefited pecuniarily by the ill-treatment of the boys there. That should have been a matter of a few hours' inquiry, but it has gone on for days, and would also have been left over till November, but that it has been settled. by consent, the plaintiff accepting 21,000 for damages and costs. Part of the mischief is, no doubt, due to the disposition of the Bar to make trials of this kind amusing by .excessive cross-examina- tien, but part also must be attributed to a want of judicial strength. Cannot the country afford a suffragan Judge or two, to carry on business when a regular Judge is ill, or indis- posed to be worked to death.
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