The annual meeting of the Society for Promoting the Amend-
ment of the Law is full of promise to the Law Reformer. Thephi- losophical and elo9uent letter of Lord Denman would alone have sufficed to attach importance to it. The honest lawyer and patri- otic citizen, from his honoured retirement, addressed to a Willing audience an approving recognition of the County Courts and the success that has attended them ; a skilful use of that manifest suc- oess to urge such reforms in the higher tribunals of the law as shall enable them to keep their place in the public estimation ; and above all, a fervid pleading for such an education of the highest branch of the legal profession as shall enable them to serve a more highly civilized society as efficiently as their predecessors served less cul- tivated generations. A liberal education for members of the bar is the most indispensable guarantee of good laws equitably and judiciously administered. Though the mere lawyer generally makes an indifferent lawgiver, the lawyer's accurate knowledge of technicalities is necessity for the accomplished legislator; and the liberal and lughmmded advocate is required to inspire with life the dead letter of laws engrossed on paper or parch- ment. The benefit that has accrued to the public from the simplicity and despatch of the proceedings in the County Courts, is a warrant that increased simplicity and despatch may safely introduced into the proceedings of courts where higher professional skill, and men impressed with a sense of their responsibility to a wider public opinion, have to deal with larger interests. These were the weighty truths enforced by sood Lord Denman; and their enunciation was warmly welcomed by legislators of both Houses and all parties, and by a numerous assembly of men of the most varied pursuits in active business life. Such a demonstration would at any time have been import- ant and cheering ; it is doubly so at a moment when the highest legal office of the realm is occupied by one who acts as a torpedo An every effort and aspiration for the improvement of the law.
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