§ MR. G. B. GREGORY, who had given Notice of his intention to ask Mr. Attorney General, Whether his attention has been directed to a Return recently issued, showing the number of days on which Judges of County Courts sat in 1869, from which it appears that fifteen of such Judges, receiving salaries of from £1,500 to £1,800, sat for periods amounting in the whole of such year to from six to twelve days only; and, 169 whether such Return is a correct representation of the whole of the work performed by such Judges respectively—said, that since he had given Notice of his Questions he had found, by a Return supplemental to one delivered last Session, that the minimum of sittings was 88, and the maximum 216. Therefore, he would not trouble the Attorney General by putting the first Question that stood in his name on the Paper. But perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman would be kind enough to answer the last Question—namely, Whether there is any check upon or control over the appointment of Deputies by County Court Judges?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL, in reply, said, the 9 & 10 Vict. c. 95, s. 20, provided that a deputy might be appointed in case of the illness or unavoidable absence of a County Court Judge. The cause of absence was to be entered on the Minutes of the Court. But if he was asked who was to determine whether a County Court Judge was ill or whether his absence was unavoidable, he should be obliged to say the County Court Judge himself was the judge of his own illness. There was a further power undoubtedly, with the approval of the Lord Chancellor, to appoint a deputy for a period not exceeding two months.