A start was made with the local trial of matrimonial causes at the British autumn assizes. Local trial" is perhaps too ambitious a phrase to use, seeing that at present these trials can only take place at 11 out of the 50 assize towns spread over England and Wales, but the position has to be regarded in that limited aspect. The autumn. assizes being over, a rough idea can be formed as to the results} of the experiment, for it has been judicially referred to as "merely an experiment."
No local trials at all have taken} place at two or three of the assize! towns specified: At Cardiff,- in! fact, there were no assizes, all the! business in that area being done at} Swansea. The first divorce petitions were heard at Newcastle, on November 8. There were 14. Since then cases have been tried at Worcester, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, ete. Leeds had a substantial share, Mr. Jus-! tice Swift dealing with 46 cases in! one day, at the norma] rate for undefended suits of about eight an! hour. Altogether about 150 cases' have had local trial at these assizes. Practically all the suits were un-: defended.
The total is a small, but by no means insignificant, proportion of the aggregate number of matrix monial suits entered for trial at the commencement of the Hilary sittings—about 880, of which 746 were undefended. The material fact "to be considered in regard to these' 150 cases is not that a divorce judge sitting in London would have disposed of them all in three or four days, but the saving of cost to the parties concerned. To take the 46 cases heard at Leeds. The third-class return railway fare from Leeds to London is £2 14s. 1d. Had those cases been tried in London, each of the petitioners would have been involved in that expense, and also have had to pay the railway fares of one, two, or perhaps three "Ewitnesses, and bear the cost of pos-""sibly one or two nights' sojourn of all in London. For although funder the poor persons rules a "spoor litigant may have the assist-sh.amce of solicitor and counsel free, gall other expenses have to be borne Why himself or herself. When it is appreciated that -parties living: t north of Leeds or beyond such places as Exeter and Chester, are still further away, the saving will 2 be seen to be even greater. Roughly. it is thonzht not unlikely that 4 the local trial_of the 150 cases saved the parties about £2,000.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.