COURT OF EXCHEQUER. 131 The complete extinction of the Admiralty Court of Scotland has been long anticipated, and it is apprehended, that the incorporation of its jurisdiction with the High Court of Justiciary and Court of Session, will take place by the provisions of the new reformatory judicature act. Whether the alteration be beneficial to the country, remains to be proved. By the process, which is about to be instituted, of concentrating the most opposite varieties of cases in the Court of Session, that tribunal will undoubtedly have sufficient employment of a mixed nature to engage its serious attention. The coming changes will most likely have the effect at least of injuring the admiralty and commissary procurators, whose practice will benefit the Solicitors before the Supreme Courts. Though some saving will accrue to the treasury on the reduction of the number of officials in the courts, we question if the measures in contemplation be altogether desirable. The present constitution and arrangements of the courts, we have noticed, are in general excellent, and do not lie under those objections urged with propriety against the Welsh judicatures, or the still more clumsy and inefficient routine of English ecclesiastical courts. A little salutary excision of needless excrescences, it is justly conceived, would better answer the ends of a desire for reformation, than the root and branch destruction of those hitherto useful and well managed judicatures it is proposed to molest. It has already been casually remarked, on noticing the changes incidental to the institution of local authorities at the Union, that the office of Treasurer was abolished, and that the revenue department was consigned to the management of certain judges or barons, with a king's remembrancer.* It has now to be farther The barons of the Scottish Exchequer are not necessarily noblemen or barons. They are merely judges of ordinary rank, who are invested with this title in order to assimilate them with the barons of the English Exchequer. The designation, which is now honorary 132 SCOTTISH EXCHEQUER explained, that the old Scottish Exchequer establishment was at this period considerably augmented, and its judicial authority much improved by acts of the British parliament. The institution was arranged in two departments, both under the command of the barons. These judges, four in number, of whom there is one with the title of lord chief baron, form a court for the purpose of hearing and determining all cases connected with the revenue, brought before them at the instance of the solicitors of taxes, customs, excise, stamps, general post office, &c.* This court sits at Edinburgh, where the whole establishment is situated, during four terms annually, each of about three weeks in duration. The practice of the judicature is entirely on the English model, and the juries who are employed are composed of twelve men only. Certain peculiar regulations are likewise enacted relative to the qualifications of advocates entitled to act as counsel at the bar. Besides thus acting as judges, the barons have a very extensive authority with respect to property falling to the crown by reason of bastardy, escheat, or otherwise, which they have the power of conveying gratuitously to those claiming to be nearest of kin. It is but justice to state that an instance never occurs where the barons refuse the prayer of petitions of this nature, when properly grounded, even at a certain loss to the private revenue of his Majesty. The second division of the establishment consists of a very extensive ramification of offices for conducting the business connected with the various descriptions of revenue drawn from the country, passing through the in both cases, is derived from the ancient custom of employing nobody but barons to superintend the collection of the royal revenues. The ordinary barons of the Scottish Exchequer have each salaries to the amount of L. 2000, the Lord Chief Baron has L. 4000. * The General Post Office of Scotland, and the office for distribution of stamps, are both subsidiary to the boards in London. A list of their officers, which is undergoing continual alterations, will be found in the Almanack. The former of these establishments is now probably the best managed of any government office in Britain. Exchequer. Besides the king's remembrancer, already noticed, there are several solicitors, attornies, receivers of the king's rents, a receiver of bishops' rents, a clerk of the pipe, an auditor, with deputies, clerks, assistants, ushers, macers, and keepers. The duties of most of these officers may be easily comprehended. Under the direction of the barons, they check and pass the accounts of tax collectors, sheriffs, commissioners of supply, and others engaged in gathering the public revenue. It will be remarked, that his Majesty, in virtue of hereditary right, still receives a considerable sum from his private property in Scotland; but, by a wish to conciliate, or from a feeling of liberality, it is gratifying to notice that much of the money thus collected for his own use is dispensed in charitable donations to public bodies, and others having a claim on the royal bounty. As far as we can learn, most of the public income now collected in Scotland is sent direct to the treasury, instead of being lodged as formerly in this intermediate establishment. This new arrangement has very much lessened the consequence of the institution, and though accounts continue to be docqueted in the old form, this, as a matter of expediency, must also soon be abrogated, when the duties of the officers so employed will be incorporated with those of the functionaries of the supreme government. Among other projected alterations in the Scottish courts, it is intended that the number of the barons is to be reduced, on account of the lightness of the business coming before the court. This alteration, in all probability, is only a preliminary step to the final abrogation of the judicature, which is perceptibly waning towards its dissolution.* * In the church of St Giles at Edinburgh, a kirk formed out of the choir of the ancient cathedral,-standing adjacent to the parliament house, there are pews along the front of the gallery, appropriated to the use of the Barons of Exchequer, the Lords of Session, and the magistrates of Edinburgh, with an enthroned chair for his majesty's commissioner, or legate, to the General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland. During terms, these legal 134 THE LORDS ATTENDING CHURCH. ther collaterally with the alterations of this nature any change will take place in the judicial appointments of the head members of the court, is not as yet conjectured. It is extremely probable, that the establishment will be subjected to a revision, and that the number of barons will be gradually reduced. The existence of this venerable institution has hitherto been one of the most prominent characteristics of an ancient order of things in Scotland, and when the time arrives that it shall be extinguished, the people will have lost what at one period their forefathers would have fought to maintain. Its removal will only be another act in that singular political tragedy now acting in Scotland under the auspices of the Secretary of State, who seems to have an intention of remedying the defects in the treaty of Union, whereby a confederation of general interests, instead of an entire incorporation of institutions, was accomplished. Although sorry for the injuries which the country, and especially Edinburgh, must suffer for a season in consequence of the silent but not unobserved emigrations of Scottish institutions connected with the State, we are in some measure glad that a greater intimacy with England is drawing closer and closer; for it requires little philosophy to discover that Scotland would have been a much more wealthy country, and a vast deal more free of local oppression, had the amalgamation of its interests been effected with those of its neighbour on the day dignitaries attend divine service every Sunday in their robes of office, preceded by their officers and macers. Besides being furnished with a huge bible and psalm book, the Barons of Exchequer have each laid before them, during the seasons of summer and autumn, a nosegay of flowers, and sweet scented herbs, which shed a pleasing perfume through the antique aisles. This custom resembles that which obtains with regard to the Lord Chancellor, who has a nosegay placed before him of the largest possible dimensions. Agreeable to a very ancient practice in Scotland, it is also customary to lay bunches of flowers on the benches of the deacons of the crafts and their adherents on the first Sunday after their election. "EXCHEQUER LADIES." 135 on which James I. ascended the English throne. It is nevertheless worthy of remark, that this is not the general sentiment of the nation, who still insist on maintaining an individuality in the empire, though, by an inconsistency, they would not interfere to arrest the progress of its decay. Most of the separate government establishments in Scotland, including the Scottish Exchequer, were much in need of a reformation of some kind, in consequence of the little attention paid to them by the ministry since the Union, and also by reason of the flagitious manner in which they were filled with sinecurial officers, through the influence of Scotch noblemen at the helm of affairs. Though the institution just alluded to cannot be charged with the commission of any improprieties of a nature so derogatory to the integrity of the country as some others, the existence of a separate purse has been decidedly injurious to the common revenue. It may possibly not be known to the stran ger, that besides the needless expenditure in support of a numerous train of officers of state, officers of the crown, officers of the household, continued since the Union, few of whom have any actual duties, the Exchequer has attached to it a species of "civil list," containing the names of probably five hundred individuals, whom it annually supports by the payment of pensions. This bead-roll of paupers is composed principally of females, many of whom are impoverished ladies of quality left in destitute circumstances; but whatever may now be the precise privileges, conveying a title to draw eleemosynary stipends of this nature, it is an undeniable fact, that at one period the bounty was often bestowed on very improper objects. The Scotch, who seldom lose an opportunity of applying nicknames as a satire on vanity or vice, deformity or misfortune, designate these pensioners "Exchequer ladies." The list is not inserted in the Almanack, or any other publication. The Scotch have adopted a very beneficial practice in relation to the judicial system worthy of imitation |