ENGLISH AND FOREIGN.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 16, Issue 832, 4 October 1870, Page 2

ENGLISH AND FOREIGN.

A parliamentary return states that the total cost of the Thames Embankment is £1,650,000. The late Mr Maclise's collection of sketches,unfinished pictures, and cartoons, was sold in London lately, and realised £3,000. A telegram from Calcutta states that the Bengal Government has received instructions to levy an education tax upon real property. There is now living in a house of Ovil Laggan, Badenoch, Inverness-shire, a woman in her 104th year. She is still ic possession of most of her faculties.— Scotsman. A Dumbarton lodge of Oddfellows on June 25 erected with ceremony a flagstaff on the field of Bannockburn, on the spot where King Robert the Bruce planted bis Standard on the day of the battle. The mail packet Shannon, from the Pacific, which arrived »»t Southampton on July 1, has brought intelligence of a serious lire at Panama. The I*ank of Panama was burnt, the cathedral was seriously damaged, if not destroyed, and several ljvs were lost. The Weekly Despatch tells us that in the House of Commons on a recent occasion, in reply to Sir J. Elphinston, Mr Baxter stated that it was true that a clerk, who had bean dismissed for misconduct, had received the sum of <£2,333 as compensation, owing to a great mistake on the part of a department of the Admiralty. A thorough investigation would be made into this extraordinary occurrence. The Admiralty need not be so much annoyed, as the great Napoleon the First made a similar mistake when dealing with Monsieur Le Bas. In the public mind \\ie sum of sixandeightpence is commonly associated with an attorney or a solicitor. This amount has been considered to represent the minimum quantity of legal advice which can be purchased, Jn itself the sum coujd not be called large. B,ut, then, it did not go far. A lawyer's bill of costs in which six-and eightpence was not repeated very frequently was wholly exceptional. The fault did not lie with the solicitors or attorneys that their services were valued in fractional sums. The rule was one wh|ch they did not make, and of which they did not always approve. To that rule, as a binding and imperative one in all cases, there is now an end. A bill, which only awaits the formality of the royal assent to become law, provides that in future solicitors and attorneys may enter into contracts with their clients for the work they are called upon to perform. Hitherto, a bargain of this kind could not be legally made. AH charges had to be maje in accordance with a scale pjf fees

fixed upon by the court. Yery frequently jthe bare fee was wholly inadequate as payment for the service rendered. The result was that sheets of paper or parchment were filled with superijuous jargon, simply in order that excuse might be found for making a reasonable charge. All parties were the losers by this. The clients, perhaps, suffered the' most. Not onjy had they to pay for work whicfy might have been dispensed with, but they ran the risk of having the documents for which they had thus paid resisted, owing to flaws due to*! multiplication of words and phrases. Some years ago ]Lord Westbury endeavoured to establish freedom of contract between attorneys and their clients ; but prejudice and vested interest were too strong for hjra. Where he failed, a non-professional man, Mr Eathbone, and a lay peer, Lord Salisbury, have succeeded in the House of Commons and the House of This instalment of legal reform is but a small one, neverther less it deserves a hearty welcome. —Daily News.