Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 2

[76] extensive and my time is so limited that I am unwilling to enter upon it. I will, however, say that the English are better artists than we are, and understand their machinery better; of course, they despatch business quicker. There is often a style of argument before our Supreme Court at Washington which is superior to any thing I have heard here. I cannot agree with McDuffie, who, having heard a writ of right before the Court of Common Pleas, in which the Attorney-General, Talfourd, Follett, Wilde, Vaughan, Williams, &c. were counsel, went away saying that there are half a dozen lawyers in South Carolina who would have managed the cause better than these lawyers, the flower of the English bar; and as many judges who would have tried it better than the English Common Pleas. I will not quit the Bench and Bar, without speaking of the superior cordiality, friendliness, and good manners that prevail with them in England as compared with ours. They seem, indeed, a band of brothers. They are enabled to meet each other on a footing of familiarity, because all are gentlemen. The division of labor sets apart a select number, who have the recommendations, generally, of fortune or family, and invariably of education, and who confine themselves to the duties of a barrister. In social intercourse the judges always address each other familiarly by their surnames, without any prefix; and they address the barristers in the same way; and the barristers address each other in this style. Thus the young men just commencing their circuits addressed Taunton, the old Reporter, who was on his seventy-fifth circuit, simply as ‘Taunton.’ I believe I have already written you that I was received as a brother, and was treated with the same familiarity as the other barristers. Such a course will seem inconceivable in America, where we are starched by forms of our own. There would be more stiffness and formality at a dinner-party in Boston than at a table of English peers. I have been again and again where all were titled people about me, and I have heard nothing which denoted the title. The answer is plain ‘yes’ or ‘no;’ and you speak right on without the constant interjection of ‘Mr.’ or ‘My Lord,’ or ‘Sir’: all this gives a grace and ease to intercourse which is quite inconceivable to those who have not enjoyed it. But I will not fatigue you with these things. I hope to talk about them upon my return, when I can see how the conclusions from my experience strike you.

The very day on which I received your letter of Jan. 16 from Washington, when I was sitting next to Lord Denman at dinner (it was at Lord Brougham's), I took the liberty of mentioning what you had written me about the case of De Vaux v. Salvador.¹ He told me that your judgment