"A solicitor of over twenty years' standing has been struck off the Rolls for a matter of a payment of 15s. which he is said to have evaded fifteen years ago. There are two questions to be considered; (1) Was the appellant guilty of dishonesty in a matter of professional conduct? (2) Was the course taken of striking him off the Rolls one of excessive severity under the circumstances? The case was very different from Renner v. Justices of Gold Coast (1897, A.C. 218). It was said that the 15s. which he might have charged to his client would not furnish a sufficient motive, but it was not shown that he was in a position to charge the penalty to his client, and wrong things were sometimes done for very paltry advantages. It was said that if the act were dishonest it was a very small one, but in a solicitor's practice there should be no small dishonesties. True it was that the act was done long ago, and that the record disclosed no other delinquency either before or after. But the court was entitled to reflect that the fact had become known in spite of the appellant, in circumstances of some notoriety in which any leniency might have grave consequences, and that it had been established in spite of an ingenious but somewhat audacious attempt to conceal it by discreditable denials. The appellant might have pleaded that he had long forgotten the circumstances, that he had never recalled the act without regret, and that he had atoned for a single fault by years of unblemished professional conduct. Had he done so, no doubt a different complexion would have been put upon the matter, but he staked all on his affidavit and his affidavit was not accepted. In an appeal relating to the conduct of a solicitor in such a community as Port of Spain it was necessary to bear in mind how greatly the conditions differed from those which prevailed in this country. A small community was one in which a solicitor was relatively a conspicuous person, in which the professional body was limited in number, and was therefore less able to overbear by the sheer weight of its probity the misdoings of a single member. The public benefits by the steady pressure of authority in keeping its legal advisers to the line of their duty, and the court which exercises that authority must largely depend on the high standard observed by its officers, not being assisted by the presence of the powerful professional organisation which exists in this country. It is for the court in the first instance to consider the form in which they ought to assert their disciplinary powers as it is also to consider the circumstances under which to exercise the power of re-admitting a repentant offender, which their lordships were glad to be informed that they possessed. It followed that English analogies were not always closely applicable in such cases, and they must rely on the judicial discretion of the court whose order was under appeal. It was not the interest of the appellant alone that had to be considered, nor was the absence of complaint from any individual who had been aggrieved of great importance in his favour. The profession to which he belonged, the community which it had been his duty to serve, and the Government to whose revenue ordinances he owed obedience, had all to be considered. The alteration of a deed after execution was never a thing to be lightly regarded. Honesty of purpose without due knowledge of the law would not save it from being in many cases a mischievous act. The appellant's case was that in this alteration his purpose was honest though his knowledge was defective. The effect of the decision below was that in truth the position was the other way about. His proceedings were pessimi exempli, and their lordships were not prepared to say that he had received harder measure than he deserved. The appeal would be dismissed with costs."