TEN YEARS CHANGES ON THE ENGLISH JUDICAL BENCH.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3750, 23 July 1883, Page 4

TEN YEARS CHANGES ON THE ENGLISH JUDICAL BENCH.

A correspondent oi tho Pall Mall Gazette, referring- to the deuth of Sir George Jassul and the '"retirement of Sir Robert I'liilliinore, says:—Theromoval of so many distinguished judges during tho List few years would seem to indicate that the longevity of the members of the judicial bench in not now what it oneo was. In comparatively recent times it was almost a proverb that our judges were unusually long-lived men ; and there are not wanting examples still living among , us to justify "the truth of theory. Sir Samuel Martin died very recently, many years after his retirement from tho bench, at a ripe old age. Ho left surviving him, Sir John By leu, for many years a Justice of tho Common Pleas, once his contemporary on the bench, now an octagenarian, as well as Sir Henry Keating, Sir John Mellor, and other legal luminaries of the last generation. Sir Alexander Cookburn and Lord Chief Baron Kelly wcro both well advanced in years when death removed them from their labours, and Sir Frederick Pollock, the eminent predecessor of the last named judge, was the holder of high judieal rank for twonty-two years, and after that long period of service lived to onjoy an honoured retirement of several years. Tho heavy losses ■which the Court of Appeal has sustained in the removal in tho spaco of a few years of men like Lords Justices Amphlett, Mellish, James, Thesiger, Lush, Holkor, same of them in tho full maturity of their powers, •would almost seem to indicate that the age of judicial longevity has gone. Looking to tho present constitution of the Supreme Court of Judicature, it is a remarkable and almost startling fact that, with tho exception of Viue-ChanceUor Bacon (now the oldest judge, as well as the longest in service upon the bench) and three of his learned colleagues in tho other Divisions—Sir James Hauneri, Mr Justice Grove, and Mr Justice Denman-all her Majesty's judges have been appointed within a space of a little more than ten years."