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their being sent here. His mind had inclined to the posi-
tions assumed by the gentleman from Howard, (Mr. Mer-
rick, ) and the gentleman from Allegany, (Mr. Walsh. )
He thought it was better that the justices of the Appeal
Court should not sit in the seclusion of the chambers
above and rust, but that they should go out on the cir-
cuits and mix with the people, and carry fresh to them the
decisions of the Court of Appeals. He had not been struck
with the force of the arguments on the other side. His
mind strongly inclined him to this circuit system, but
there was one doubt in regard to the practicability of it,
and on the solution of that would depend his vote. The
doubt with him was, whether the judges having circuit
duties to perform and also to sit on the Orphans' Court
bench, would have the time or be able to attend to their
appellate duties. He submitted this question to the gen-
tleman from Howard, and believing that he (Mr. P. ) rep-
resented the majority of the Convention, upon the an-
swer, he thought, would depend the success of the three-
judge system.
Mr. Merrick believe that he spoke the voice of nine-
tenths of those in favor of the three-judge system in say-
ing that they proposed to retain the Orphans' Courts as
at present constituted. He would say further that he
came to the Convention the determined friend of the Or-
phans' Court system as now existing, and thought it
would be a very unwise thing for the Convention to in-
terfere with a system to which the people had been ac-
customed since 1777, and against which no complaint
had been made or no voice sent up here for its abroga-
tion. He believed it to be the best system that could be
devised. In regard to the time, he thought that the ap-
pellate duties of the justices would not require their pres-
ence in Annapolis more than six months of the year, and
this would leave two months each in the spring and fall
for the circuit duties. As to the salaries, they were will-
ing to place the salary of the appeal judges at $4, 000 and
of the circuit judges at $3, 000.
They did not ask more of the Convention than this, and
thought that their salaries were not more than sufficient
to secure judges of talent and integrity. He had read a
day or two since in one of the newspapers of the city of
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