district system you may devise, (and least of all
the system proposed by the gentleman from Som-
erset, by which additional labor will be thrown
upon our judges,) it is utterly impossible for any
one judge to attend to the orphans' court business
of more than the county in which he resides.
I have no great anxiety upon the subject of this
section of the bill, I do not wish to have this
article incorporated upon the constitution because
I am the projector of it. I do assure this Conven-
tion that the idea is not altogether original with
me. I have but followed in the wake of the opin-
ions of a. large portion of persons in whose judg-
ment I have the utmost confidence. I believe that
if you wish to have some useful, practical plan
which will bring relief to the people and dispatch
the public business with promptness and efficien-
cy, we must devise some scheme or other of this
kind. We must entirely break up the system of
circuit riding.
[Here the Presiding Officer's hammer fell, the
gentleman's time having expired.]
Mr. CRISFIELD said: I promise the Convention
I will not occupy thirty minutes, in the first
place, the gentleman from Prince George's says
that my proposition superadds judicial duties. He
states that I was adding labor to the judge. Well,
so I am; but at the same time I am taking it
away from him. I add to him the entire perform-
ance of the chancery jurisdiction in his district,
and also the performance of the orphans' court
jurisdiction. What is the extent of the judicial
labor I propose to add? The orphans' court duty
will bo quite light if the powers of the regis-
ter of wills shall be enlarged as I propose. I will
read the 19th section of my report, which shows
more clearly the alterations in the powers of the
register I desire to make. It is as follows: "To
facilitate the dispatch of business in the orphans'
court of this State, the General Assembly shall,
by law, prescribe rules of practice in the said
courts, enlarge and define the powers and duties
of the registers of wills and authorize them to
pass such orders as may be necessary and proper
to bring any cause, suit, or business depending in
the said courts, to a final hearing and determina-
tion; but no order, act, or proceeding of the reg-
ister of wills, of a judicial nature, shall be binding
and conclusive until ratified and confirmed by the
couit."
Now, with this enlargement of the powers of
the register, the business of the orphans' court to
be performed by a judge, except cases of unusual
litigation, which occasionally arise, will not take,
I feel satisfied, one week in the whole twelve
months, in most of the counties. Take my own
county;—the only one I profess to be acquainted
with. The judge, under my system, can perform
all the judicial duty of the orphan's court required
to be performed by him in Somerset county in
one week, and can perform it as well, and I think
better, than it generally has been performed. I
require the register to do all the details of that
office, subject to the revision of the judge, and
the public interest will be as well protected, and
the judge will not be required to be in that court
one week. This is the amount of the judicial |
duty superadded to the judge on account of the
orphan's courts under the system I propose.
How is it with regard to lhe chancery juris-
diction, proposed to be conferred on the district
judge exclusively? What will be the extent of
the increase of judicial labor on that account?
Take my own county again as an example. Not
one-tenth of the equity business of that county is
brought up to the high Court of Chancery. Carry
down the business of that county which has been
done in the Chancery Court here and it will not
prolong our terms one week,
Mr. President, I have some acquaintance with
this subject, and I venture to affirm that if, ac-
cording to my proposition, you confer upon the
judge who shall exercise the common law juris-
diction in Somerset county, the probate jurisdic-
tion, as I modify it, and the entire discharge of
the chancery jurisdiction, it will not add more
than a week—I am sure not a month of addi-
tional labor. I apprehend lhe same may be said
of the other counties in the district. I have not
the game acquaintance with them as I have with
my own, though I have a general acquaintance
with them all.
This is the extent of the superadded labor; now
what is taken off? I take from that district one
county. This is a curtailment of one-fourth of
the present service performed. I feel confident
that a man fit to be a judge, one who has the
slightest degree of activity and energy, will per-
form the whole business of the district to the sat-
isfaction of the people in two-thirds of the year.
I speak with a knowledge of the subject. I know
it can be done. I have been in these courts, and
I have witnessed their proceedings.
Now, as to the continuance of causes on ac-
count of the absence of the judge) occasioned by
want of time. In a practice now of nearly twenty
years, I have never known this thing to occur, I
have known causes to be continued time and
again, and continued improperly, too; but it was
not the judge's fault. He sat patiently to hear
the case. I never saw a case continued, becauao
the Court would not sit to hear it. I have known
the Court to prompt gentlemen to be more indus-
trious, and not waste time in the trial of their
causes. Was not this right and proper? I do
not presume that a court ever existed which did
not prompt suitors to hasten the dispatch of busi-
ness, I have seen very unreasonable delays in
the transaction of business often attempted; de-
lays not required for the purposes of justice, and
which are alike injurious to suitors in courts and
the public; and, in my judgment, a judge is not
fit for his position who would allow such delays.
The public interests require that courts should
terminate their sessions in the shortest possible
period, because of the large expenses attending
their sittings.
The gentleman says that this district system
imposes upon the judges the duty of traveling.
Is there any district in the State in which it
would take a judge over twelve hours to travel
from one point to another? Is there a single
district proposed in my substitute in which a |