Still even if the number of cases tried is small, the work is what lawyers call "good." -There is probably no community in the world which brings fewer trumpery cases into Court; and this for two reasons, the British community is a busy one and a British subject must be on one side or the other, so that unless litigation is necessary it is not resorted to to; and secondly the old prejudice which kept Chinese out of their own law courts must necessarily have tended to the settlement of disputes between themselves and foreigners, whilst the foreigners who have always shown considerable solidarity in China were not likely to go to law' with one another for the amusement of the Chines A curious instance of this occurred some years ago when goods were lost transit from a vessel lying at Woosung, the parties interested being the shipowners, the owners of the local steamer which was conveying the cargo when it was lost and the consignee, T was asked to arbitrate, but as at least two of the parties were British the concerned having shown their faith in the Court by asking the Judge to arbitrate, abandoned or settled the matter rather than come into Court, though a friendly action to decide an interesting point might well have been brought and woul!l have been interesting to the community.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.