474
LAW REFORM.
viii. The last subject which presents itself to our notice, is the Appeal from judgments recovered. Here, as in every other branch of our jurisprudence, the Courts of Law and of Equity proceed on opposite principles, though dealing with the same matter. In the former, you can only appeal on matter of law appearing upon the face of the record, or added to it by bill of exceptions, and never in any case before final judgment. In the latter, you can appeal from any interlocutory order as well as from the final decree, and upon all matter of fact as well as of law. So it is in the Ecclesiastical Courts, where a Grievance (or complaint upon interlocutory matter) is as much the subject of appellative jurisdiction as the appeal from the final sentence ; and the Court above sits on all the facts as well as on the law. But the Courts of Common Law are as much at variance with themselves ; for it depends on the Court you sue in, and the process you sue by (Bill or Original) how many stages of review you have. The principal evil of Courts of Error, is the stay of execution which they affect, thereby giving the losing party in possession an interest in prosecuting groundless appeals. The Bill of the Right Honourable Gentleman,* being a partial measure, while it intended to remedy this evil, has rather increased it ; because another more costly mode of obtaining the same delay being left open, the parties by defending actions in themselves without defence, avail themselves of it, to the enormous multiplication of frivolous trials. The true remedy I take to be this. Let the party who obtains a judgment be so far presumed light as to get instant possession or execu* Sir Robert Peel.