Mr. CRISFIELD. I have been at the bar in
my district since 1832. In my own county I
have never missed aterm, and in the adjoining
counties I have attended a large proportion of
the time. I have never, in the whole course of
that time, seen a single cause continued because
the judge would not stay to hear it. I now
further remark, that I understand that in the
neighboring judicial district, such is the prompt-
ness of the court, that the bar have interposed
to get a law passed to allow them to continue
causes by consent.
Mr. BOWIE. That is not the question I asked
the gentleman. I asked him if there have not
been causes continued from term to term, and
not tried?
Mr. CRISFIELD. Yes, it has been so; and it
is because those concerned in the trial of cases
did not choose to have them tried,
Mr. BOWIE. I have no doubt that the counsel
in a cause do frequently consent to have it con-
tinued. But I say that if you devise a system
by which a judge presiding over your docket
will not be called upon, or induced by any other
consideration whatever, to depart from his ju-
risdiction, such a state of things will not often
arise in which either parties of lawyers will de-
sire a continuance. No man wants a cause de-
layed, if he can have the witnesses present, and
a willing judge to listen to his case. My friend
knows very well, that under the present system,
when the judges are unwilling to remain longer
than six, or eight or ten days, and are anxious
to get back to their homes to attend to their pri-
vate affairs, that the habit of members of the
bar will be to adapt themselves very much to
the disposition of the bench. It will be so for
ever, in the nature of things. You can devise
no system like this, which will not conform it-
self to the habits and disposition of the bench
who are to try the cause. If there is any im-
pelling motive to induce a judge to go home
and retire to his domestic affairs, and seek re-
pose in the bosom of his family; if there is any
such motive, (and there always will be in a cir-
cuit system,) you never can devise a scheme by
which the bar will not conform themselves to
this feeling. But if it is known the judge is al-
ways present, lives among you, and has no in-
ducement to go away, and is always ready to
try your cause, you will have for the most part
no such thing as a continued cause, at least be-
yond a very short time—perhaps only from one
term to another.
The annals of your State will now show con-
tinued causes to a very great number, I have
no doubt that if a statistical table could be fur-
nished, taking my own county as an illustration,
out of a docket of some three hundred and sixty
to three hundred and seventy cases, you will
find sixty or seventy trial causes that have been
continued for the last ten years, and God knows
when they ever will be settled. Out of the
whole amount, as I have just stated, you cannot
get over eight to twelve causes tried at any one
term. I ask any gentleman to state, upon his
own experience, within the whole State of
Maryland, whether at any one term you can get |
over twelve or thirteen causes tried out of a
docket of two or three hundred. I do not con-
fine myself to my own judicial district, I have
had the good fortune to practice in the old and
excellent county of Calvert, which my friend
(Mr. Sollers) represents, and I ask him if he
does not know that upon the calendars of that
court there have been causes that have been
continued for the last ten or fifteen years?
Mr, SOLLERS. I will answer the gentleman.
I think there are some causes that have been
continued seven or eight years. But I never
knew a cause continued that it was not in my
opinion, the fault of the lawyer or client en-
gaged in it.
Mr. BOWIE. I think the gentleman mistaken
in his judgment,
Mr. SOLLERS. I really think I am right.
Mr. BOWIE. The gentleman puts the fault
upon the bar; I rather think it grows out of the
evils of the circuit system.
Mr. SOLLERS. I fasten it where I think it
belongs.
Mr. BOWIE. I do declare that I have never
attended a court in the gentleman's county that
has set over five or six days, except on one occa-
sion when a person was tried for murder. I
never have seen a term in that county when the
court entered into the second week.
Mr. SOLLERS, (in his seat.) I have.
Mr. BOWIE. I mean for jury trials. The law
docket has been closed, and the whole amount of
causes disposed of—I will not say within a week,
but in three or four days. If you examine that
calendar) you will find it has been so for years
past, varying as it does from three hundred to
three hundred and fifty cases.
Mr. SOLLERS. Not that many.
Mr. BOWIE. Very nearly I suppose at the pre-
sent time, and has been so I believe for the last
two or three years.
Mr. SOLLERS. I suppose that in my county
they number now from two to three hundred
trials, made up mostly of continued causes, arising
from the fact, as I stated, the utter and certain
negligence of gentlemen to attend to their business,
Mr, BOWIE. My friend will allow me to differ
with him altogether. I do not think he is right
in throwing all the fault upon the bar, for it would
be their pleasure, as it certainly is their interest,
to bring on the trial of their causes; indeed, every
propelling motive the human mind can conceive
of, would induce them to try their causes; for un-
til then they get no fees or compensation. It is
because they have not time to do it. The evils
of circuit riding are so intolerable to the judge
that he becomes weary and impatient to get home
and is apt to favor the continuance of causes.—
The evil is more the fault of the circut system
than any thing else, and may be expected to con-
tinue under any similar system.
But our business is to devise some scheme by
which the people of the State shall be relieved
from these onerous taxes upon them in the form
of costs growing out of delay. I care not what |
