TABLE No. 2. Being an Account of Compensation awarded to the Junior Clerks of the Masters in Ordinary for loss of Copy Money, under 5 & 6 Victoria, Chap. 84 and 103. Calculated on the Lives of the respective Masters-the Clerks holding office by tenure of their Masters' lives. according to the Northampton Tables of Observation. £. s. 4223 17 0 d. £. £. £. 8. d. 150. per ann. 2700 6923 17 0 166 9 7 3412 16 5 Ditto 3075 6487 16 5 6 months. 14 years and 255 13 4 3622 18 11 Ditto 2125 5747 18 11 In addition to the above persons, Compensation was awarded to Henry Haines, Receiver of 6d. Writs; John Holdship, Chaffwax (sinecure); Robert Hand, Sealer (sinecure); William Learmouth, Messenger; Thomas Anderson, Bag-bearer; and Richard Clarke, Secretary of Decrees and Injunctions. Recent returns to Parliament, moved for by Mr. Watson, supply the particulars of the compensations and new offices created by the Act. Facts and figures are stubborn things. The various voluminous returns in question are simplified and scheduled in the opposite folded Table, No. I.* The ages of the Incumbents, if officially ascertained, were not returned to Parliament, but it is believed that on the average they are correct as computed in Tables 1 and 2. The Table No. 2 completes the account of the entire officers compensated. And the Abstract is a summary of the gross charge on the Suitors' Fee Fund and the public. It is observable that these Tables simply include the Compensations and Salaries of the old Officers. They do not comprehend the names and salaries of all the new Officers appointed under the Act. No interest, simple or compound, has been calculated. Parliament, therefore, has really purchased the "REFORM" at the price of upwards of ONE MILLION sterling! * Commons' Returns, 27th Feb. 1844. No. 67. How was this indefensible Act accomplished? The Bill was introduced the last month of the Session of 1842. It was brought into the Lords, on the 11th of July, 1842; and passing the House of Commons in eight days, nearly sub silentio, it received the Royal Assent on the 10th of August following-the Bar being on Circuit and the London attornies generally wholly uninformed of the meaIn the Commons it moved two stages after midnight. HANSARD'S DEBATES record not one line of discussion in Parliament on the Bill! sure. The following extracts from the Lords' Minutes and Commons' Votes, will prove the legerdemain haste with which the Bill passed both Houses of Parliament : LORDS' MINUTES, 1842. Monday, 11th July. Presented by the Lord Chancellor. Read 1st time, and ordered to be printed. 15th July. Bill printed and delivered. Compensation Clauses in. 18th July. Ordered to be read a 2nd time on Friday next. Friday, 22d July. Read according to order, and committed to a Committee of the whole House, on Monday next. * A Select Committee of four Solicitors of the Law Institution in Chancery Lane is said to have sanctioned the Act. But the members of that Corporation of Attornies, it is understood, were generally uninformed. |