v. Dennis, 68 Conn. 186; Gould v. Gould, 2 Aik. (Vt.) 180; Opinion of the Judges, 16 Me. 480; Whittington v. Whittington, 2 Dev. 6 Bat. 64; Hall v. Hall, 3 Sw. & Tr. 349." And in McIntyre v. McIntyre, 9 Misc. (N.Y.) 255, it was said: "There are three parties to every application for divorce. Not only the parties to the record, but the public also, have an interest in marriage and its dissolution." And in at least one jurisdiction it is declared by statute that "the state is deemed a party defendant in any suit for the dissolution of a marriage contract." Earle v. Earle, 43 Ore. 293. And it is said that "the rights of this third party are supposed to be in the care of the constituted tribunals." Scott v. Scott, 17 Ind. 309. It would seem to be somewhat doubtful, however, whether the state is a "party" to the action in the sense that it may file a bill of review. Even under a statute providing that "whenever a petition for divorce remains undefended, it shall be the duty of the prosecuting attorney to appear and resist such petition" there is some doubt as to the right of the prosecuting attorney to appeal from an order denying a new trial, after a decree has been granted. See State v. Friedley, 151 Ind. 404.

POINTS IN PROFESSIONAL ETHICS.

From the New York County Lawyers' Association Committee on Professional Ethics.

Question No. 17. A lawyer who states that he has had great difficulty in securing testimony in behalf of his client from lawyers as to the value of legal services, in a litigation between the client and a former lawyer, involving that value, has applied to the Association to designate lawyers who will act as expert witnesses in his case. His application has suggested the formulation of the following question:

Is it the ethical duty of a lawyer, when called on to give testimony as an expert witness concerning the value of legal services, to testify as a witness giving his opinion of such value. on a proper question submitted to him, in a litigation where it is charged that another lawyer has greatly overcharged the latter's client, or may any number of lawyers who are appealed to give testimony respecting the value of such services, the nature and extent of which are not in dispute, decline to testify on the ground that they do not care to express an opinion adverse to a charge made by another lawyer and which is in litigation?

Answer to Question No. 17. We are of the opinion that mere considerations of courtesy or fraternity should not deter members of the legal profession from testifying in respect to the value of legal services, when it is contended that a lawyer has overcharged or attempted to overcharge a client, and the controversy is the subject of litigation.

Question No. 18. Is it the opinion of the Committee that an attorney who has received a retainer, but who has no express agreement with his client for his compensation, may properly notify his client, upon the eve of trial for which he has made preparation, that he will not appear at the trial, nor proceed further with the suit, nor consent to the substitution of another attorney, nor release any of the client's papers in his possession and essential to the proper trial of the action, unless his client pays or secures to his satisfaction the payment of

a bill which he has rendered, and which he deems reasonable compensation for his services to the date of his conditional refusal to proceed further in the cause?

Answer to Question No. 18. The suggested conduct of an attorney upon the eve of trial of the case for which he had been retained is unethical and should be condemned.

Question No. 19. (a) In settling an attachment case, the attorney for plaintiff demanded indemnity against sheriff's poundage, if any. I deposited with him $250. After some years I ascertained that no poundage had been paid or claimed, and demanded the return of the money, which was refused on the ground that such claim might still be presented. I then notified the sheriff to present his claim, if any, and received a letter stating that no such claim appeared on the books of the office. I renewed my demand on the attorney for the return of the deposit. It was again refused; this time on the ground that his client was as much entitled to it as mine. The return check shows that it was endorsed by and paid to the plaintiff's attorney. Am I warranted in putting the matter before the proper Committee of the Bar and asking discipline of the attorney?

(b) Am I justified in warning the attorney that I shall adopt this course?

A suit would exhaust the fund.

Answer to Question No. 19. In our opinion it is not proper to submit a complaint to any Committee of the Bar, or to threaten to do so, for the purpose of collecting money from a lawyer; nor is it the function of this Committee to advise lawyers whether or not to prefer charges against other lawyers.

Question No. 20. A foreign shipping company, by written. contract, employed, as its agent in this port for the period of three years, one Maduro, agreeing that should he be discharged prior to the expiration of that time, he should be paid full salary for the remainder of the unexpired term. Maduro retained the law firm of Port & Starboard to appear for and in the name of the Company in several admiralty litigations; the firm receiving its fees from funds of the Company and appearing of record as its attorneys, not as attorneys of its agent. Prior to the agency's expiration, the Company for alleged cause notified Maduro that it would terminate his employment and send one Colorado to succeed him. Maduro demanded full salary and a settlement of accounts before relinquishing his agency. Colorado, on arriving in this port, was served with a summons in an action brought in the State court by Maduro through Port & Starboard to recover $33,000 of salary for the unexpired term of his agency, and found that these attorneys had also attached $58,000 of the Company's funds in bank; $10,000 of which, however, they released to supply the Company with current funds. He also found that one of the litigations in which Port & Starboard appeared for the Company was actually on trial, so that it was inexpedient to swap legal horses in crossing that stream. The Company, anticipating resistance by Maduro to Colorado's assumption of the agency, cabled the day before the latter's arrival in the port to one Binnacle to represent the Company in the event of such resistance.

The attention of Port & Starboard being called to the fact that they, having been sole attorneys for the Company, were now appearing both for it in said admiralty litigation and against it in the State court, they replied that their action was proper; that the Admiralty Bar being limited in number, a member of it may properly appear for A one day in his suit against B, and for B another day in his suit against A.

The Company's allegation of maladministration on the part of Maduro as a ground of his discharge necessarily involved examination, among other things, of the matters out of which arose said pending litigations in which Port & Starboard appeared for the Company.

Queries. (1) Was it professional misconduct for Port & Starboard to bring an action against the Company for its agent and attach the funds in bank, while at the same time acting as attorneys for the Company in pending litigations at a stage when it would have been inadvisable for the Company to substitute other attorneys?

(2) Are the ethical rules for the Admiralty Bar different from those applicable to the Bar at large?

(3) Does it make any difference whether the agent's action against the Company involved matters that Port & Starboard had knowledge of as the Company's attorneys?

(4) If the course of Port & Starboard was unprofessional, is it such a grievance as would justify discipline?

Answer to Question No. 20. The relation of confidence implied in the representation of the Company in the admiralty suits seems to us to have demanded that while it continued, the attorneys should not attach the funds of their client nor accept a retainer against it. We consider that the ethics of the profession should operate in all courts, and the Admiralty Bar constitutes no exception. We consider the two relations as inconsistent, regardless of whether the action against the Company involved matters of which the attorneys acquired knowledge in their professional relations with the Company.

This Committee uniformly declines to express its views upon the propriety of disciplinary proceedings, as not within its function.

Question No. 21. In the separation action of Jane Doe against John Doe, there were awards of alimony and counsel fee, none of which the defendant paid, having kept out of the State for the express purpose of avoiding these payments. The case was finally tried. The defendant did not appear, resting his defense on a Western divorce which our court set aside. The decree, among other things, gave a money judgment for some $2000 back alimony. There were several appeals from orders and in one instance the defendant was found guilty of contempt and fined several hundred dollars. Plaintiff's attorney served a notice of lien.

Later, the judgment of $2000 was sent to Philadelphia, where the defendant then was, and a suit was begun on the judgment. Thereupon the defendant entered into a collusive arrangement with his wife whereby all of the various judgments and orders directing the payment of moneys in New York were satisfied, and this satisfaction was set up in a supplemental answer in Philadelphia.

This litigation had continued for years, and the plaintiff's attorney had worked without reward, advancing large sums of money in the litigation. Several judgments for costs consisted largely of printing bills that he had paid. He even advanced moneys to keep the plaintiff from starving, as throughout the entire litigation the defendant kept out of the State and never paid one dollar either in alimony or costs.

The defendant had but one attorney through this litigation, and he was entirely familiar with all the circumstances. Yet he, with a new lawyer representing the plaintiff, drew this collusive agreement, which deprived the plaintiff's attorney of his lien, even for the costs made up largely of printing disbursements advanced by him.

Was this action on the part of the defendant's attorney ethical? If not, what should be done in the matter?

Answer to Question No. 21. This Committee uniformly declines to express its views upon the propriety of disciplinary proceedings; and it does not advise persons of their property rights or the means of enforcing them. The attorney's lien and his right to reimbursement were property rights.

We do not regard it as ethically proper for an attorney to enter into or advise any collusive or other agreement to destroy any property right unjustly.

Question No. 22. "A," an attorney, represents two creditors of "C," and is desirous of filing a petition in bankruptcy against "C." "A" knows that "B," an attorney, represents a third creditor of "C," and suggests to "B" that "B" should have his client join with "A"'s clients in signing and filing the petition.

This was done under an arrangement between "A" and "B" with the knowledge of the clients, that if "A" represents the receiver in bankruptcy, the fees which "A" thus receives will be divided between "A" and "B." Is this considered unethical? I should like to have this question answered entirely irrespective of whether "B" is to do any work or not in connection with the receivership.

Answer to Question No. 22. The Committee does not express any view at present as to the propriety of an attorney for petitioning creditors assuming also to represent the receiver and thus sustain two-fold obligations that may conflict; yet, since in this district the Federal Court itself undertakes to safeguard by its special order under Rule 20 the propriety of such representation in each particular case, we are of the opinion that the facts recited in the question do not alone constitute unethical conduct.

A FAMOUS COLLECTION OF LAW BOOKS-SALE TO HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

THE portion of the library of the late Mr. George Dunn, of Maidenhead, England, which was sold in Sotheby's auction rooms recently, comprised one of the most remarkable collections of manuscripts and early printed books relating to English law which has been sold for some years. The bidding began at £1000 and closed at £3750 by Messrs. Sweet and Maxwell on behalf of Harvard University. Many of the items are already in the libraries of the Inns of Court and so they are also in Harvard Law Library, so that on that account there is no reason why one should make the purchase more than the other. It can only be a matter for regret that such an admirable collection has left this country. The fact of the matter is that there is a tendency here to regard these old volumes as being of little value because much of the law which they contain is obsolete and the type in which some are printed is unfamiliar. In the utilitarian spirit of the day, as it is called, they are condemned as useless lumber. It is stated that even from the libraries of one of the Inns of Court old law books have recently been sent to a second-hand bookseller. At least the bibliophile and student of legal history will condemn such vandalism. For one of the first points to be noted in the 355 lots forming Mr. Dunn's collection was the beautiful condition of the printing and paper. The ink is much clearer after 300 years than it is in many books produced in the present century, and the whole appearance of the volumes is more attractive than modern work. Moreover, in many cases they were enriched with fine old bindings or had been rebound in dainty form by some of the best craftsmen of the last century. But a collection of this character makes a much wider appeal than just

to the book-lover. The introduction of printing, as Professor Hearnshaw has pointed out in his essay on legal literature in the Cambridge History of English Literature, "effected a great, though silent, revolution in law, as it did in every department of learning. It widely disseminated legal knowledge; it greatly facilitated the standardizing of justice throughout the country; it provided politicians with an armory of those juristic weapons with which they fought the battle of English liberty in the seventeenth century." Legal education and learning have both been influenced since to a considerable degree by the developments of printing.

Formerly there were not many students' books, as legal education was mainly oral by means of readings and moots. The collection now going to America, however, contains manuscripts showing the nature of the instruction. One volume is of particular interest. It consists of readings upon statutes by Thomas Fitzwilliam in 1465, and another series by William Wadham in 1519. The latter appears to be notes taken by a student of Lincoln's-inn who heard them. Another manuscript, nearly a century later in date, contains a series of twenty-seven readings by Charles Calthorpe in Furnival's-inn "on Tenures, vulgarly called Copieholds." The few students' books that there were naturally had a considerable circulation. Perhaps the best known of them is Perkins' Profitable Booke, represented in the Dunn collection by ten editions, including some unknown to the writer of the author's life in the Dictionary of National Biography. The first was in Latin, and was published in 1528 without a title-page. The second followed four years later. The date of the first English translation is not known definitely, but it seems to have been somewhere about the middle of the century. The latest copy in the collection is dated 1593, and appears to have been printed with wide margins for the convenience of making notes. Another students' "classic" was that now known as Doctor and Student, which, too, was originally published in Latin and a few years before Perkins' book. The author was Christopher St. Germain, who is generally thought to have been a member of the Inner Temple, though upon slight evidence. Mr. Ingpen in his recently published Middle Temple Bench Book has shown that there is rather more foundation for adding his name to the roll of notable Middle Templars. The first edition of his book was published in 1523, but is not represented in the Dunn collection, though there are two copies of the second, dated 1528. The earliest translation into English was "imprynted by me Robert Wyer dwellynge in Seynt Martyns Parysshe in the felde besyde Charyngcrosse on the Bysshop of Norwiche Rentes," and, although undated, is attributed to the year 1530. The second portion of the book was printed by another man and in Southwark. A second issue was produced under a similar arrangement in the following year. The monetary value of these publications has been considerably enhanced in recent years by their typographical interest, but it is obvious also that their subject-matter is of considerable importance to students of legal history.

Fortescue's De Laudibus legum Angliæ is one of the best known of early printed law books. It is represented in the Dunn collection by five copies, including one of the rare first edition, of which the date is not known definitely, printed by Edward Whitchurch, the printer of the Great Bible. The others are translations by Robert Mulcaster, including the first printed by Tottell, a famous printer of law books, in 1567. The volume naturally associated in the mind with Fortescue's work, on account of Coke's equally extravagant laudation of both, is Littleton's Tenures, based to some extent upon an earlier work of unknown authorship with the title The Olde Tenures. Two

volumes in the collection contain both works bound together and also three other ancient legal treatises in small compassNatura Brevium, Diversité de Courtz et lour Jurisdictions, and Articuli ad Narrationes Novæ pertim formati, ranging in date from 1523 to 1539. The collection contains copies of thirty-eight editions of Littleton's Tenures, of which the earliest was printed by the famous Pynson in 1496. Among them may be mentioned one with a signature of Henry Mordaunt, no doubt the fourth Baron, who, like other members of the family, was a member of the Middle Temple.

Some of the earlier legal classics are represented in the collection by manuscripts, such as one dating from the thirteenth century of Bracton's De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliæ, which differs in several points from the earliest printed edition, of which also there is a copy, printed in 1569. The copies of Britton include a handsomely illuminated manuscript on vellum, which is described in Reeves' History of the English Law, and a copy of Wingate's second edition, which belonged to Sir Roger Twysden, the learned seventeenth-century legal antiquary. Of Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium there are a manuscript and seven printed copies, including one with a most elaborate binding of early sixteenthcentury workmanship. The same binder's work, identified by the initials M. D., is also remarkable among the eight copies of Fitzherbert's Justice of the Peace. Two other copies are noticeable, one for having an inscription made by J. Payne Collier "the first law book I ever owned, and nearly the last I ever bought"-and the other as having been apparently the gift of Miles Sandys, afterwards a distinguished Treasurer of the Middle Temple. There are five copies of different editions of Lambarde's Eirenarcha, dealing with the duties of a justice of the peace at the end of the sixteenth century, including one of the first edition, dated 1581, and another presented by the author to Ralph Rokeby, Master of St. Katherine's Hospital.

The chief work of ecclesiastical law in the sixteenth century, which is still a useful authority, was Lyndewood's Constitutiones Provinciales, of which the collection includes a fifteenth-century manuscript, besides eleven printed copies. It was one of the earliest books printed at Oxford, and only twenty-one copies are known to be in existence of the volume, which was issued about the year 1484.

The collection contains no less than sixty copies of Magna Carta, with various ancient statutes ranging from a manuscript ascribed to the year 1335 to an edition printed by Tottell in 1587. Some of them are most beautifully illuminated specimens of the finest workmanship, and, of course, the Year Books are a noticeable feature in this fine acquisition which Harvard University is to be congratulated upon having added, at a comparatively small expenditure, to an already famous law library.— Law Times.

"THERE were differences of opinion, which might naturally be expected to arise between a young man of twenty-three and an old man of nearly ninety." Per Sir J. Hannen, in Sugden v. St. Leonards, L. R. 1 Prob. Div. 154, 196.

"JUDGES are not necessarily to be ignorant in court of what every one else, and they themselves out of court, are familiar with; nor was that unreal ignorance considered to be an attribute of the bench in early and strict times. . . . And in later days we have ventured to take judicial cognizance of the moral qualities of Robinson Crusoe's 'man Friday' (see Forbes v. King, 1 Dowl. P. C. 672), and Esop's 'frozen snake' (see Hoare v. Silverlock, 12 Q. B. 624).” Per Coleridge, J., in Lumley v. Gye, 2 El. & Bl. 216, 267, 118 Eng. Reprint, 749, 768.

EFFICIENCY IN COURTS OF JUSTICE.*

THE demand of our time is for efficiency. That demand is insistent wherever metal glows, bricks are laid, or steam or electricity is harnessed to work man's will. It is heard on the furrowed field. It has called forth specialists and experts to teach each man how better to do his own work or run his own plant. And it will not halt abashed at the door of church or court because of any floating of incense or flutter of robes.

The church has its work to do in the world. It must do it or meet reproach and neglect. I think it is doing it better than many suppose. The court has also its work to do in the world, and that work in its fundamentals is simple. So long as men are men differences will arise between them which they can not or will not settle themselves by any peaceable means. There must be an arbiter to decide. Society demands peace within its borders and provides the court as an arbiter. But the court must decide by application of rules governing the transactions out of which the dispute arose.

Laws are those rules of human conduct which one must obey or take the consequences imposed by civil authority.

In essence, then, the function of the court is to ascertain the facts, apply to them the law and decide the issue. In essence, the method by which the facts are ascertained is immaterial. In essence, the procedure by which the differences are laid before the court is immaterial.

These constitute the ritual of a court. They form no part of the Living Word which it is there to speak, and in their essence they are not law at all. But instead of leaving them as rules of the court, which the court could apply or waive as it saw best fitted to ascertainment of the very right of the controversy, we have made of them laws. We have enacted them, and imposed them as binding upon the court's own action-with the result that infraction or disregard of the ritual is frequently as fatal to a litigant as infraction or disregard of the law governing the transaction involved.

Why have we done this thing? Why have we exalted court procedure after the fact to a parity with the law governing the fact, by which alone that fact should be judged and the consequences imposed?

There are many answers to that question, but I can not convince myself that any one of them is good or that all put together justify us in leaving this condition of things unchanged. The most that the answers do is to explain how this condition was brought about.

One answer is historical. Our fathers in the early colonial days had no courts as we understand the term. In the New England colonies, and some others, they had no law except such of the common law as they considered fitted to new conditions in the new world and so chose to adopt, and such as they framed themselves from Holy Writ or other sources. They had no law books. They had few lawyers, and the earlier judges, even Chief Justices of the Colonies, were not trained to the bar or learned in the law. In all of the thirteen colonies the legislative and the judicial functions were combined in the same men, with the executive participating and the clergy potent in counsel. To this day in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the legislature is known as the "General Court." It is not surprising that there was no recognized practice or procedure in those earlier courts. Nor is it surprising that the

* From the address of HENRY C. HALL, President of the Colorado Bar Association.

colonial experience led to a segregation of the executive, the legislative and the judicial functions when the Constitution came to be framed; a segregation also adopted in the several States composing the Union.

In that constructive period it was natural also that the several legislatures in setting on foot the State courts should not only provide what their jurisdiction should be and how it should be acquired over the person, but also how it should be exercised when once acquired. System was desirable, and in courts scattered through sparsely settled communities with judges riding circuit, system was more easily attained by legislative enactment. There was a widespread prejudice against lawyers, at times accentuated to the point of bitterness, with frequent attempts to debar all paid lawyers from practice in the courts. The influence of the comparatively few lawyers who had attended the Inns of Court, and read law in the office of some special pleader in London, was strong among their brethren and in the courts, but not strong enough to lead to the adoption in toto of the then English pleading and practice.

The outcome was a system largely legislative in source, and far more simple and direct than what then obtained in England, as instance the pleadings and practice in Massachusetts.

But, as in the federal government, the system was one of checks and balances. There was a fear, voiced by the people through the legislature, of vesting too much power in the Judge, of making that power lasting.

All traditions of the race were abandoned when, as by the New York Constitution of 1846, resort was had to election of Judges for short terms by popular vote. The great body of the Common Law of England had been propounded by Judges who all held under executive appointment, and never by election at the polls, a method perpetuated in our federal judiciary. The codification movement, headed by David Dudley Field, and following the work of Bentham in England, led to Practice Acts and Codes of Procedure in the several States, including our own, intended to abolish distinctions in forms of action, simplify and harmonize procedure, and reduce the importance of adjective law. But here again it was the legislature regulating the courts, instead of turning the whole matter of procedure over to the courts to regulate for themselves.

In 1873 England, which had been lagging far behind in the efficiency of her courts-as witness the writings of Dickens, himself a court reporter-leaped to the fore with her Judicature Act, and her Canadian and other possessions have followed her.

The essential difference between the American and the English practice seems to be that here the legislature makes the rules for the courts, and there the courts, which have the work to do, make their own rules, free to change, amend or waive them on the instant as the occasion requires.

Again, we have so distorted our jury system, which still functions well in England and Canada, as to make it an instrument of intolerable delay, especially in criminal cases-witness the Thaw case and the Darrow case, now on trial, as well as the McNamara case which preceded it-and then turn to these words from an address delivered in January before the New York Bar Association by Mr. Justice Riddell, of the High Court of Justice, Toronto: "I have never in all my thirty years' experience at the Ontario Bar on the Bench taken more than thirty minutes to find a jury, even in a murder case. In murder cases before me I have never been more than a day and a quarter, and in most cases less than a day."

..

The fact is that instead of leveling up our courts we have been leveling them down. In our jealousy or distrust we prefer

to elect our judges by popular vote, for short terms and on inadequate salaries, to a bench where they sit hampered and cramped by various rules of our devising and with which they must comply, and enforce compliance, on pain of "reversible error." Into this court come litigants who do not want justice; they want to win. They retain adroit counsel with instructions, such as I have known to be endorsed on the summons, to make the litigation as costly and tedious for the plaintiff as possible. These counsel dodge through the underbrush with which the legislature has choked the court, and play the game of hide-and-seek just as long as the rules permit. It becomes, in many instances, little more than a match or trial of skill between counsel.

One

of the District Judges said to me only the other day that in one county of his District it is a recognized thing that the attorneys, and not their clients, are on trial.

In such a court the elective judge sits watching the game, often the only man in the court room who sincerely desires to see justice done, but compelled to give to each litigant and his attorney his "statutory rights" in the playing of the game. It is too often true, however, that the trial judge does not exercise the powers which he possesses, even under our system, and that he could confine counsel to the issue and the record far more than is done.

Then comes the cunning injectment of "reversible error" into the instructions asked of the Judge, and the motion for new trial and the writ of error prayed out from an entirely different court, which requires a printed record, printed bill of exceptions and printed briefs, in order to review at some distant day the voluminous chronicles of the maneuvers in the court below, as well as the facts and the law upon which turn the very right of the controversy.

You will understand that I am only illustrating what is made possible under our system, and is made practically impossible under the English system. Such cases catch the public eye, while little heed is paid to the volume of unspectacular litigation which is being well and thoroughly tried and decided in the regular course of the administration of justice.

Again, why should we have the expense and delay of going up to a distinct court on a printed record?

Since justice is one, why not have one state-wide court of justice with its trial and appellate branches, the judges assignable by the presiding judge to conduct trials on circuit or sit in review on an appellate branch? Why not have all rules, records, and proceedings those of that one court, and all judges interchangeably going where there is need of them, relieving the congested dockets, and not sitting in chambers waiting for a new crop of litigation to grow? Why not pay them salaries adequate as an inducement to the ablest lawyers to leave a lucrative practice, with a tenure and old-age pension befitting the dignity of the office? Why not subject them to the discipline of their fellow judges, and, if accused, to trial and judgment by their fellow judges, instead of swinging full pendulum from the futility of impeachment to the dubious experiment of recall by popular vote?

At

Surely no man is called to higher service than to sit in judgment upon his fellow-man. Society should exact the highest qualifications and pay its highest wage for that service. present society in this State does neither. In too great a degree we make political availability the test. We select good campaigners, to stand or fall with the rest of the ticket. We have never taken advantage of the constitutional permission that the election of judges may be held on a different day, separate and apart from elections for any other purpose. No sooner has the elected judge become well acquainted with his duties

than he must stand for re-election, if he wishes to continue on the bench.

It is perhaps a sufficient commentary upon the present need in this State for the proposed recall of judges to note in passing that every justice of the peace, every county judge, every district judge, in fact, every trial judge in this State, except possibly some police magistrate, will be automatically recalled at the November election. I mean, of course, that they must then succeed at the polls, or be retired, as under the proposed Recall Amendment, and the same is true of the District Attorney.

In other words, if the people so will there can be a clean sweep of the entire trial bench of this State at the coming election and their places filled by new and untried men. Such a system would not make for efficiency in a bank or a railroad. Does it make for efficiency in a court?

Thus far I have touched upon courts of record, chiefly on the civil side, but there remain those of the Justices of the Peace, the "poor man's courts" as they are sometimes called. How well they meet the requirements of life in small communities, or in farming sections, I have had little opportunity to observe, but in our cities they should be swept with a besom! They are a shame and a blight and a scandal. They have been made into collection agencies for usurers; instruments of blackmail, extortion and oppression in nameless ways, even where the justices are themselves upright men. With justices untrained to the law for the most part, tempted by a fee system to encourage litigation and multiply costs against those who can least afford to pay them, aided by constables who have the same inducement, and surrounded by cormorants also hungry for prey, the most defenseless portion of our community is exposed to the most shocking injustice and imposition, practised in the name and under the color of the law. The fees are statutory. The summons and garnishment writ are duly made out and served, and the washerwoman who is behind one day in paying the last dollar on the instalment plan for some household necessity is muleted, in addition, with five or six dollars in costs, all of which go into the pockets of the justice and the constable. That is a plain case of honest debt; but there are infinite varieties of grafts and "frame-ups" which can be practised upon the erring and the unwary.

We should select our ablest judges, those with widest human sympathy and sagacity as well as learning in the law, to perform in cities the functions now assigned to Justices of the Peace. We should pay them what it is worth to society to have justice based on understanding and tempered with mercy extended without cost to those who most need it and now have least chance of getting it. We should abolish the fee system altogether, and make these courts the refuge of the overborne and submerged, the open gate of a Temple of Justice glorious without and within.

We are met to consider the ways and means of administering justice, which is the end of all law, and not at this meeting to especially consider reform in or codification of the law itself. To increase efficiency in our courts, wherever lacking, should be our aim.

It may well be that neither the English system nor the Canadian system as a whole would stand transplanting into our conditions and environment. But we can learn somethingat least from their practical operation, and possibly we can learn more from what is being done in the Municipal Court of Chicago.

Litigation there is conducted under rules provided by the Court under the control of the statute, and of it Judge Cutting (of the Cook County Probate Court) in a recent address, after