Staple Inn and its Story. By T. Cato Worsfold. (Henry
Bumpuu3.)—Staple Inn belonged, in the first instance, to men of trade, as its name indicates ; it passed into the possession of men of law ; it has now gone the way of Doctors' Commons and Serjeants' Inn and other less famous institutions. Of its history there is little to be told ; but that little may be learnt pleasantly enough from Mr. Worsfold's pages. It had a time of activity, when it was, so to speak, a preparatory school for the Inns of Court. In the eighteenth century this practice had passed into desuetude. In 1854 a Royal Commission was ap- pointed to inquire into the status of the Inns of Court and the Inns of Chancery. The Report of this body seems to us now some- what strange. It could find no obligation on these minor Inns to do anything for legal education. As to Staple Inn, it was evi- dently convinced that there was nothing worth inquiring into. The "available funds were absorbed by the interest on a mortgage of .28,000 upon the premises, the expense of repairs and the cost of the dinners." This was in 1854; thirty years afterwards the place was sold for .1:80,000. It does not say much for the intelli- gence of the learned gentlemen who formed the Commission that they could not foresee a large increase of value in premises so situated. Mr. Worsfold does not say what became of the money. Presumably it was divided between the " Ancients " of the time. But what can one say when the Judges and their "brethren," the Serje,ants, divided the purchase-money of Serjeants' Inn?
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