ght Rider
street--a name derived from the days of the Knights Templar--was a
dingy passage-way leading into a yet dingier little court. Passing up
a short flight of steps, you found yourself in a large room, with deep
alcoves furnished with shelves, on which, above and on all sides, were
ranged huge volumes with massive clasps. "What are all these books?"
inquired a youthful visitor--"old Bibles?" "No, sir; they're
testaments," was a waggish official's reply. They are, in fact, copies
of wills. The originals are deemed too precious for exhibition except
on special application, and the stranger who pays his shilling only
sees a copy. Formerly, unless a searcher knew exactly when a will was
proved, the process of finding it was very troublesome, because he had
to search down indexes in Old English character arranged in order of
date only; but now the registers have been put into alphabetical form.

The great change in Doctors' Commons took place in 1858, when the
Probate Act came into operation. This was a very sweeping measure,
which at a blow superseded the whole system of ecclesiastical courts,
so far at least as wills were concerned. For them it substituted a
Court of Probate, with jurisdiction over the whole of England.
Attached to this court are about forty registries for wills. That in
London is called the Principal Registry. A will must either be proved
in the district in which a man dies or in the Principal Registry. The
Principal Registry is a very large office, at the head of which are
four registrars, who are also registrars of the Divorce Court, over
which the judge of the Court of Probate presides, being styled "judge
ordinary" of this latter. There are about forty registries scattered
about the country, in most cases in places where formerly
ecclesiastical courts existed for the proving of wills. The value of
these registrarships ranges from three hundred to fifteen hundred
pounds. They are all in the gift of the judge of the court, whose
patronage is worth about sixty thousand pounds a year, and may be
reckoned the best in England, inasmuch as he holds it continuously,
whilst the lord chancellor and other political officers merely hold
their patronage for the few years they may chance to continue in
office. Moreover, the judge of the Court of Probate, not being a
political officer, has no political pressure brought to bear upon him
in the distribution of his patronage, and can dispense it precisely as
he