Fitzroy Street.
_Legal Customs_ (Vol. ix., p. 20.).--The custom, related by your
correspondent CAUSIDICUS, of a Chancery barrister receiving his first bag
from one of the king's counsel, reminds me that there are many other legal
practices, both obsolete and extant, which it would be curious and {42}
entertaining to collect in your pages, as illustrative of the habits of our
forefathers, and the changes that time has produced. I recognise many among
your coadjutors who are well able to contribute, either from tradition or
personal experience, something that is worth recording, and thus by their
mutual communications to form a collection that would be both interesting
and useful. Let me commence the heap by depositing the first stones.
1. My father has informed me that in his early years it was the universal
practice for lawyers to attend the theatre on the last day of term. This
was at a period when those who went into the boxes always wore swords.
2. It was formerly (within fifty years) the custom for every barrister in
the Court of Chancery to receive from the usher, or some other officer of
the court, as many buns as he made motions on the last day of Term, and to
give a shilling for each bun.