Autograph Letter Signed ('C Fane') to G. Joy, discussing the reform of the Court of Chancery.

12mo, 3 pp. Thirty-three lines. Text clear and complete. Fair, on lightly-aged paper, with traces of mount on reverse of second leaf, which is docketed 'C. Fane to G. Joy | 19 Augt. 1844'. A significant and interesting letter, on a topic later tackled by Dickens in 'Bleak House', by a judge who was an active member of the Law Amendment Society, and whose decisions, according to his entry in the Oxford DNB, 'were frequently the subject of comment', although 'very few of his judgments were reversed on appeal'. Fane sympathises with Joy's 'misfortunes', as he does 'with the case of every man, who has the misfortune to be involved in a Chancery suit'. There is however nothing that he could proposer, 'relating to Insolvency or Bankruptcy', that could 'redress the wrongs to wh. the delays of Chancery have subjected you'. The main cause of these delays is the 'tossing of the suitor from the Judge to the Master, & from the Master to the Judge, till the subjt. in dispute is wasted in expense'. The only remedy is for the judge to be compelled 'to carry out his own desires without references to Masters', or to 'so raise the station, power & responsibilities of Masters as that they shall become independent judges'. Small contemporary cutting laid down at head of first page, reading 'SUBDIVISION COURT, WEST SIDE. | Commissioners. | Sir Charles Frederick Williams, kt. Josh. Evans, esq., hon. Robert G. Cecil Fane.'