we consider the amount of additional work which has thus been thrown upon them since the time when the last general increase in their salaries took place, and the change in the expense of living, we begin to think that their demand for a revision of their scale of remuneration is not without reason. The liberality of parliament has already authorised the Lords of the Treasury to increase the maximum salary of certain sheriff-substitutes to £1400 per annum, although we never could understand how that act came to be passed, as the increase was not made dependent on the amount of work done, for those whose salaries are increased have colleagues doing precisely the same amount of work; nor upon length of service, because, though, in point of fact, it took effect in the case of men who had served long, the increase might fall to one who had held the office for one year only; nor upon superior position, for their colleagues exercised exactly the same jurisdiction as they did. Still the act recognised the principle that readjustment of the scale of remuneration was required.

This has been also partially acknowledged by the Treasury, who, under their discretionary power to raise the salaries of sheriffsubstitutes to any point within £1000, have, in Aberdeen, Dundee, and Perth, recently increased the fixed salaries payable out of the consolidated fund to an extent which makes the whole remuneration amount to about £1000 a-year.

But after all, the amount of work done is not a fair criterion to go upon. A judge of certain qualification is required, and his whole time is demanded by the public. He is restrained from the power, if his work be light, of spending his vacant hours remuneratively in his district; a power which, before 1852, all sheriff-substitutes possessed, and which was even recognised by Government, in such cases as that of the late sheriff-substitute of Elginshire, who held also the Government office of Distributor of Stamps. We by no means disapprove of the restriction-nay would perhaps extend it. The administration of justice would not be more endangered by a sheriff being a factor, than by a procurator-fiscal being the law-agent of a party against whom, or School Act, Dwelling-houses for Working Classes Act, the Passenger Act, Factories Act, Joint Stock Company's Act, Bankruptcy Acts, Nuisance Acts, Boundaries of Burghs Acts, Acts for Regulation of Lunatics and Asylums, General Police Act, Protection of Fresh Water Fish Acts, Prison Acts, Regulation of Uni ns Act, Registration of County Voters Act, Schoolmasters and Parochial Buildings Act, Vaccination Act, Paupers Removal Act.

those for whom he is responsible, a criminal charge founded on negligence may be brought. In both cases, in such a country as this, the actual administration would probably be pure, but in both alike it ought to be above the shadow of suspicion. One effect of the present regulations is that the emoluments of the resident magistrate are sometimes greatly inferior to those of the officials of his court.

The great practical obstacle in the way of increasing the salaries of sheriff-substitutes throughout the country has always been the very great number of these officials, coupled with the somewhat notorious fact that, if the salary be tested by the work actually performed, many are greatly overpaid. England has sixty county court judges; Scotland has fifty-five sheriff-substitutes. It is no doubt true that the jurisdiction of the Scotch judges is much more extensive, and the duties much more multifarious than fall to the lot of the English official. In addition to being the county court judge (and with a vastly larger jurisdiction, both in law and equity) the sheriff-substitute performs duties analogous to those of bankruptcy commissioner, of lunacy commissioner and (assisted by the procurator-fiscal) of coroner, and when we add his criminal jurisdiction, both as a judge and magistrate-for he performs a great part of the work done by the English magistrates, both at petty and at quarter sessions-it is evident that the fair comparison between the numbers of the Scotch and English officials is not simply setting the fifty-five sheriff-substitutes against the sixty county court judges, but against an array of bankruptcy and lunacy commissioners, of coroners, of recorders, of magistrates, whose name is legion. Nevertheless, allowing full weight to these considerations, it must be admitted that the number of sheriff-substitutes is much too great. This has gradually been forcing itself upon public attention. Some two or three years ago Mr Grahame, the sheriff-substitute of Dunblane, published a letter to Lord Kinnaird, suggesting the amalgamation of a number of the jurisdictions. In April 1864, a series of letters appeared in the Edinburgh Courant, in which the same idea was wrought out in greater detail, and a scheme of abolition and fusion was propounded, whereby full employment would be given to nearly all the sheriff-substitutes who were retained, while it was proposed to distribute the salaries of the suppressed offices, so as to raise the minimum drawn by those who were left.

Parliament having now authorised an increase in the maximum salary, is it too much to think that the Lords of the Treasury would be fully warranted in making such small grants within the discretion already confided to them, as would in combination with a systematic suppression of superfluous offices, raise the minimum to something approaching one-half of what the English County Court Judges receive? Such a sum would be by no means too large, even in the more remote districts, for the position of a Sheriff-Substitute, who is now in general, a member of the bar, in all cases is a man of a liberal and expensive educacation, and expected to associate on terms of equality with the county families, besides maintaining the dignity of the resident representative of the law in the district.

The practical difficulty in determining which Sheriff-Substitutes shall be retained, and which abolished, arose very much from the impossibility of obtaining accurate statistics of the amount of business transacted in each court. This, however, is now in the way of being remedied. An elaborate series of returns was

moved for by Mr Baxter, the details, it is understood, having been prepared by a Sheriff-Substitute. Another series of returns was also moved for by the Lord Advocate; and the Sheriff Clerks of the various counties are at present engaged in the preparation of both sets. These are of the most voluminous and minute character, and will provide ample material as a basis for any discussion that may take place in the ensuing Session of Parliament. We understand that a considerable instalment of the returns will be ready to be laid upon the tables of the two houses, immediately upon their assembling. When this shall have been done we may probably return to the subject of Sheriff-Court Reform, and consider some of the details that ought to claim the careful attention of the legislature. For that its attention must early be directed to the subject we think cannot be doubted.

Meanwhile no one can deny the importance in giving increased weight and influence to the position of the local judges, of placing their emoluments on such a footing as shall make this office an object of ambition to meu of high legal attainments and experience, for there is no reason why an increase of salary should not be accompanied by a stipulation for increased professional standing. Three years standing we cannot but think quite insufficient, as a general rule, to afford a guarantee for that experience required for the discharge of the multifarious duties thrown on

the Sheriff-Substitutes, much longer standing is required for the County Court judgeships in England. We are very far, indeed, from saying that the ranks of the Sheriff-Substitutes do not already contain many men who are all that can be desired. Many of those who took office while the emoluments were miserably inadequate, were so, and of late years the appointments have been accepted by many able and rising men at the bar. The whole body are, nearly without exception, valuable public servants both as magistrates and judges. Among the later appointments many have accepted office under the belief that they would participate in that amelioration of their position which they thought they saw slowly, but steadily approaching. This is, we think, the best answer to the complaints that are sometimes heard, that men who have recently been appointed, knew what they were taking, and should not agitate for an increase of salary, -a complaint, not perhaps so entirely without justification, or so easily answered, when directed against those who seek for this increase by the abolition of the office of the Principal Sheriffs, from whom they have received their appointments. We should not wonder if the recent promotion of one of the Sheriff-Substitutes of Edinburgh to the office of Sheriff-Depute of Aberdeenshire, had a material effect in checking that branch of the agitation.

We have, however, somewhat digressed from what we had proposed to ourselves as the peculiar object of this paper, viz., the desirability of a reduction in the numbers of Sheriff Substitutes, and a reconstruction of the districts under their charge. The principle upon which the distribution of these officials throughout Scotland was based, was that all the lieges might have cheap and speedy access to a judge at their own doors, and that the benefit of a stipendiary magistrate might be available in the administration of criminal justice throughout the land, whether in the preparation of cases to be tried before the Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh or on Circuit, or in the trial of offenders by the Sheriff-Substitute himself, or by the Sheriff, if he thought proper to attend, summarily, or with the assistance of a jury. It is evident, however, that a distribution of officials over the country, made at a time when the facilities of locomotion were so vastly inferior to what they now are, must stand in need of a thorough revision. Vicinity is now measured not by distance but by time, and a judge is much nearer the doors of a litigant if separated by twenty miles of railway than by ten of road. The Act of 16 & 17

Vic., cap. 92, which amalgamated certain of the Sheriff deputeships has now by the lapse of time come nearly into full operation, and while effecting a considerable saving to the public purse has not diminished in the slightest degree the benefit which the amalgamated counties were in use to receive from their nonresident sheriffs, while each county had one of these officials to themselves. Facilities of railway communication have even since the date of that act increased so much that we can easily see how the number of these officials might be still farther diminished without in the least impairing the principle of the double Sheriffship.

But our present concern is with Sheriff-Substitutes, whose number might easily be diminished by at least a dozen. A glance at the railway map of Scotland will, even without the statistics which we have been promised, suggest those which ought to be abolished. Those of Tain and Nairn in the North, Dunblane or Clackmannan and Kinross in the midland counties, Selkirk and Peebles in the south, imperatively demand such treatment. It is little short of an absurdity to say that it is necessary to maintain well paid judges in these distrets. Now that the Highland railway is open, Fort-William is not farther from Inverness than Kingussie used to be, and surely our island population of 100,000 is not so unruly as to require five and a-half Sheriff-Substitutes to look after them, although we admit that from the peculiarity of their position they require exceptional treatment. Nor when we see Sheriff-Substitutes of the highest reputation discharging the whole duties of districts with populations varying from 100,000 to 150,000, can we imagine a good reason for Stirlingshire with its 91,000 remaining divided into two districts now that the county is intersected with railways.

We would not propose that in the towns where a SheriffSubstitute should cease to reside, the ordinary Sheriff Courts should cease to be held. On the contrary, not only would we retain a small debt court in each town, but we should propose that it be made imperative on the Sheriff-Substitute to hold an ordinary court in each once a week, or oftener if required. We have heard a difficulty suggested as to the mode to be adopted in conducting the criminal and especially the magisterial business in such amalgamated jurisdictions. Probably the simplest plan would be that one procurator fiscal and Sheriff-Clerk depute should be appointed for the amalgamated district, and that all persons