which it exercises jurisdiction in numerous special cases under various Acts, including the Married Women's Property Act, the Coal Mines Regulation Act, the Building Societies Act, the Friendly Societies Act, the Employers and Workmen Act, the Industrial and Provident Societies Act, and, most important of all, the Employers' Liability Act. But the Court is principally useful to the public as a tribunal for the recovery of small debts, and this is proved by the fact that in 1889, out of 1,034,689 plaints entered, no less than 1,022,295 were for sums not exceeding £20.
Waiting to be called—Outside the Court.
Upwards of 500 Courts are held in the various districts of England and Wales, and these districts are divided into circuits, which are distributed among the County Court judges, and are fifty-nine in number. The majority of circuits have one judge, but some have two.
Undoubtedly many of the judges in London, and in large provincial towns, have a great deal, though not by any means an excessive amount of work devolving upon them.
In some of the busy Courts, such as those of Brompton and Whitechapel, they are fully occupied, but, on the other hand, there are Courts in some provincial districts where the judges have so little to do that their office is almost a sinecure. In either case, however, the salary is the same, the County Court Judge receiving £1,500 a year, whether there is any work for him to do or not.
The judges were formerly paid by fees, but now they draw fixed salaries from the Consolidated Fund.
In addition to their salaries, they are allowed travelling expenses, to enable them to visit the various Courts of their circuits, in each of which they are bound to hold a sitting once a month, except in September, which month is a holiday. In many of the little villages that they have to needlessly visit, the opening of the Court is a mere matter of form, and it is not, perhaps, without justice that many of them complain of the irksome travelling that is thereby occasioned.
In 1889 the judges on no less than thirty-three out of the fifty-nine circuits held only 150 sittings in the year, and in some cases the sittings were less than a hundred. A large proportion of these sittings, too, were merely nominal, an hour or less being quite enough to enable the judges to get through the business of the Court.
It follows, therefore, by the present system
