use of this Convention, their respective accounts;
provided the whole amount shall not exceed
one hundred dollars.
Mr. C. said it would be recollected that when
this question was moved, there was a limitation
placed on the amount to be charged, of $50.
He understood it would be $10 more; and he
would state frankly that, besides those amounts,
a small remuneration was due the gentleman
who had kindly volunteered his services, and
had made no charge for them. He made this
proposition entirely without the gentleman's
knowledge, and he hoped the Convention would
give their assent to it. The second order was;
2. Ordered, also. That the secretary distribute
to each member of the Convention, three copies
of said map, and one to each officer of the House,
and deposit the remaining copies in the library.
Which was twice read and adopted.
Mr. Howard, chairman of the Committee on
Militia, said: Before the regular business is taken
up. I ask leave of the Convention to submit the
following
REPORT:
Sec. It shall be the duty of the Legislature to
pass laws for the enrollment of the militia, to
provide for redistricting the State into divisions,
brigades, &c., to pass laws for the effectual en-
couragement of volunteer corps, either by the
payment of an annual sum not exceeding one dol-
lar to every member of a company regularly mus-
tered and reported to the adjutant general, or by
some other mode which may induce the formation
and continuance of at least one volunteer compa-
ny in every county, and division in the city of
Baltimore.
Which was read,
The PRESIDENT announced that the Doorkeep-
er had returned, having notified the absent mem-
bers to return.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY.
The convention then resumed the consideration
of the order of the day, being the report submit-
ted by Mr. Bowie, as chairman of the Committee
on the Judiciary.
The question pending before the Convention
being on the substitute offerered by Mr. Bowie,
for the amendment offered by Mr. Jenifer, and
the substitute as offered by Mr Michael New-
comer,
Mr. BOWIE observed that he had very little to
say in favor of the amendment which he had
proposed; but, in looking over all the judicial
circuits, as they had been established by a vote
of the Convention, he found that Kent, Queen
Anne's, Talbot and Caroline counties formed one
circuit, and that Calvert, Anne Arundel, Mont-
gomery and Howard another; Baltimore county,
and Harford and Cecil another, and St. Mary's,
Charles and Prince George's another. Now, he
thought it was utterly impossible for one judge,
in those circuits, to attend to the chancery and
common law business. The great complaint of
the present circuit system, to which the attention
of gentlemen had been called, was that the equi-
ty business was not attended to in the counties, |
and there was an immense business of that de-
scription in nearly all the counties. He would
state to the convention, that which his colleague
would vouch for, that on the equity aide of Prince
George's county alone, there were, at this mo-
ment, nearly eight hundred cages on the docket,
three-fourths of which were undisposed of. And
he believed that his friend from Charles, (Mr.
Brent,) would say that a large amount of
equity business was done also in his county. In
St. Mary's, ho understood, there were three or
four hundred suits. It was utterly impracticable
to get the business done. It was so now, and
must continue to be so in large circuits. For the
Eastern Shore there was a district of four coun-
ties. He did not know what might be the
amount of chancery business done there; but he
held it was impossible for the circuit judge to at-
tend to the chancery business and the common
law also. And so it was in Baltimore county,
and Harford and Cecil counties. It was, there-
fore, the bounden duty of this Convention to de-
vise some mode by which the chancery business
should be transacted—one of the most important
branches of the law. He thought it could be
done, by establishing an Orphans' Court in each
county, and enlarging its power, by giving it
chancery jurisdiction. But the objection was,
that it required a legal mind to preside over it.
He, however, did not conceive that to be an ob-
jection. On the contrary, it was a beautiful
feature in the system, that under this mixed sys-
tem of Equity and Orphans' Court jurisdiction,
you may establish a system by which you might
insure the services of the best legal learning in
the State, and the salary he proposed by his
amendment was not a very large one. And
when the scheme came to be analyzed, it would
be found that it would not cost the people, in
any one county, more than two or three hundred
dollars a year, over and above the costs of the
present Orphans' Courts. In his county, it would
be a saving of about one hundred dollars per an-
num. He had heard it said that measures of this
sort had been gotten up to make places for mem-
bers of the bar. Now, he would say that a man
who would get up here and make such an as-
sertion, offered a direct insult to the feelings and
pride of every honorable gentleman on that floor.
Was there, he would ask, a member here so base
as to be influenced by such a motive as that—to
create offices, in order that he or his relations
might hold them ? He had beard that such in-
timations had been thrown out—that such opin-
ions had been entertained and expressed. He,
however, had not beard them. He did not be-
lieve it, and he regarded it as a base slander,
come from where it might. It was the bounden
duty of the Convention to adopt such a judicial
system as would work off the vast amount of
business which was now hanging on the dockets
of the several courts throughout the State.
He spoke from experience, when he said it
was utterly impossible, unless the common law
and chancery jurisdictions were separated, to
dispose of the business. The two must be sep-
arated, or otherwise business would go on ac-
cumulating year after year. We knew that |
