minated membership in the original Inn;
but since the abolishment of the rank of sergeant at the English bar
Serjeants' Inn has ceased to exist,--the name surviving only in the
locality,--and the four Inns have readmitted those of their members on
whom judicial honors were bestowed.

Each Inn possesses certain smaller or subordinate Inns, which formerly
served as preparatory schools, but which are now mere collections of
chambers. There are thus attached to the Inner Temple Clement's Inn,
Clifford's Inn, and Lyon's Inn; to the Middle Temple, New Inn.

All the Inns of Court are unincorporated voluntary societies. In our
modern nomenclature the name "inn" may seem a strange one for an
institution of learning; but the term is a literal rendering of the
ancient title _hospitia_ applied to them in the Latin records, as
distinguished from public lodging-houses (_diversoria_).

Each Inn consists of a hall, a chapel, a law-library, a set of rooms for
the benchers, and a large number of houses, divided into small suites
known as "chambers," and occupied chiefly by barristers, solicitors, and
students, though tenancy is not restricted to these classes. The quiet,
the studious environment, and the freedom from certain social obligations
unavoidable in more fashionable quarters, have at all times rendered
residence in the several Inns peculiarly attractive to that large class in
England which consists in the main of young men of good family, moderate
fortune, and no particular occupation.

The Inns possess the exclusive right of "calling students to the bar,"[A]
also of "disbarring" a barrister for questionable practices,--a right
exercised by Gray's Inn in 1864 in the case of the late erratic but
brilliant Dr. Kenealy, counsel for the notorious Tichborne "claimant."
From their decision no court, as such, can give relief. The disbarred one
has only the right of appeal to and review by certain of the judges. The
Inns neither govern nor license attorneys, who are admitted to practice by
the courts.

[Footnote A: The origin of this term dates from the venerable custom of
calling students to the bar that divided the benchers' dais from the body
of the hall to bear their part in the "meetings" or discussions on knotty
legal topics. We are informed by Lord Campbell that Sir Edward Coke "first
evinced his forensic powers when deputed by the students to make a
representation to the benchers of the Inner Temple at one of the 'moots'
re