cating himself, innocent though he may be, must be greatly reduced by the disadvantages under which he labours.
The State, which expends enormous sums for the conviction of criminals, ought, undoubtedly, as is the case in many other countries, to provide legal assistance for the accused in order to secure a fair trial. So far as we are aware, there is only one case in which this is done in England, namely, when an offence, while in the execution of duty, is charged against a member of the police force, a body of men who are in a much better position to secure for themselves legal assistance than the majority of ordinary prisoners.
Perhaps the deplorable dearth of highly talented men at the Criminal Bar is in some degree accounted for by the curious circumstance that when a man once becomes a criminal lawyer he can be nothing else. The dismal atmosphere of the Old Bailey seems to permeate all his future prospects, and he is rarely able to emerge from it into the higher ranks of his profession. The Lord Chancellor, Mr. Justice Hawkins, and Sir Edward Clarke are, perhaps, the only living instances to the contrary; but even they belong to a somewhat bygone time, and were never exclusively criminal lawyers.
The leading common-law work of the High Court is practically divided among a dozen or so eminent Queen's counsel. It is a matter of common complaint that the leaders accept briefs, knowing well at the time they receive them that they will not be able to attend to them. There is a good deal of truth in this, although the supposed delinquents are able to put forward a very plausible plea of justification. It is certain that they cannot always know what briefs they will be able to give full attention to, seeing that there are a number of Courts engaged in trying cases some of which may last days, and some only minutes. Indeed, a counsel with a very small practice may find that, owing to the unexpected manner in which the cases on the list are sometimes disposed of, the two or three briefs that have been entrusted to him may all require his attention in different Courts on the same day, although when he accepted them he might reasonably have anticipated that the cases would be called on different days. It must, however, be admitted that there are some eminent counsel who accept briefs, although it is morally certain that they will be unable to give them any personal attention.
No other professional man expects to be paid for work that he does not perform, and there can be no doubt that the proper course for counsel overwhelmed with briefs to pursue is to return those that he cannot attend to, thereby enabling his client to obtain legal assistance elsewhere, and at the same time distributing a little work among his less fortunate brethren of the Bar. The public are, however, at fault in insisting on retaining an eminent advocate at a fancy price, when their cases could be just as well conducted at much smaller cost by men whose names figure less frequently in the reports of important trials. In any sensational cause célèbre it is almost certain that the names of Sir Charles Russell, Sir Edward Clarke, and Mr. Lockwood, will appear on one side or the other. These eminent men have, in fact, the pick of the work, and the same may be said, in regard to
