English Judges stop working for August, September, and most of
October, or twice the period claimed for holiday by the majority of professional men. All legal business therefore stops, the remaining nine months are crowded, and the delays in civil litigation are a scandal to the country. Lord Coleridge, seeing the evil, ventured to propose that the long vacation should be shortened by ten days. The Council of Judges, how- -ever, declare that they and the leading members of the Bar are exposed "to a heavier and more continuous strain than per- sons employed in any other vocation "—read that, traffic man- agers, bank managers, and post-captains—and refuse entirely to make any alteration. That the Bench is under-manned we believe, though much of the pressure arises from a bad division of labour, but the refusal of justice for three months in a year has become intolerable. As the Judges will do nothing, Parliament must interfere, and with much larger changes than that involved in Lord Coleridge's very mild suggestion.
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