charge of equity business. When engaged
in business in a different part of the circuit,
if an injunction were needed, or any equity
business, it was an impossibility to procure
ajudge. Men have ridden fifty, sixty or one
hundred miles, in an inclement season, over
roads which were almost impassable, then to
find that the judge had gone to another part
of his circuit. It has been a denial of justice
In many of the counties of the State. I
appeal to the experience of gentlemen on all
sides of the convention, if this has not been
the case, to a greater or less extent, in all the
counties in most of them the ordinary civil
business has greatly accumulated. I hardly
think I should exaggerate if I should say
that in all of them the equity business has
greatly accumulated, and is undone.
Another difficulty which has been expe-
rienced has been that under the system which
has prevailed, worthy, and excellent, and
well-meaning men have been elected to fill the
judgeship in the various orphans' courts, in
litter ignorance of the testamentary law of
the State and of the general principles of com-
mon law as applicable to them. What has
been the result? They have administered the
law, as they have said, upon the plain princi-
ples of common sense; but although the un-
written law and the statute law are of course
consonant with common sense, yet in the
imperfection of human reason, it has some-
times unfortunately happened, that the com-
mon sense of the judges has not accorded with
the common sense of the law.
Again, as under that system the real estate
of deceased persons could not be interfered
with by orphans' courts, estates have remain-
ed unsettled. When there was a small
amount of real estate; from the trouble of
bringing an action in equity, the judge being
off in a distant part of his circuit, and coming
then but once or twice a year, it has been
almost impossible to procure a settlement.
I need not speak of the delays in the dis-
charge of persons arrested for crime. In some
instances it has occurred that persons have
been confined awaiting trial, longer than
would have been the punishment if they had
been convicted of the crime for which they
were arrested and charged with having com-
mitted.
In digesting and preparing a system, the
committee strove to remedy, so far as possi-
ble, all these defects. For this purpose they
decided upon a system of circuits, three coun-
ties in each circuit, and three judges to com-
pose a bench. This enabled them to obviate
another difficulty which has been at times
very serious. When a judge has been dis-
qualified from silting in a pending case, or
unable to sit on account of his health or for
any other reason, it was provided that one
of the judges should be resident in each
county, so that while the judges should sit in
the discharge of ordinary nisi prius duties as |
a bench in all the counties, yet during the
greater part of the year, one judge would
always be at or near the county seat of every
county, accessible for the discharge of equity
business; and there would be no unnecessary
delay on that account.
Then yielding to what seemed to be the de-
sire on all sides, that the entire real estate as
well as the personal property might be ad-
ministered in the orphans' court, this report
purposes to add to the jurisdiction of that
court concurrent jurisdiction so far as the
real estate of deceased persons is concerned
with the equity courts; providing that the
circuit judge resident in the county should sit
as chief judge in the orphans' court, thus se-
curing at all times one judge upon that bench
who from education and habits may be pre-
sumed to know something of the law of the
State. Some of them perhaps would not
know as much as they should; but they would
be more likely to know something about it
than those who bad never paid any attention
to it at all.
As to the system proposed by the amend-
ment of the gentleman from Allegany, I do
not know that I should call it a system, but
the plan proposed—it is of course a sufficient
deviation to render it an impossibility that
the county judge can act as cheif judge of the
orphans' court; because in some instances he
has to Bit as judge, and alone at all times, in
three or four different counties. With that plan
it will be impossible to secure the other end at
which the committee aimed, to provide that
there shall be a judge for the transaction of
equity business accessible in each county; be-
cause he can at all times be accessible only in
his own county for the discharge of important
business.
It is of course for the convention to select
between these plans. So far as the compen-
sation of the judges is concerned, the amount
which the State will paly fur salaries upon the
plan or project of the gentleman from Allega-
ny has an advantage over that of the com-
mittee. I think if this State is not already
surfeited with cheap justice, they have hut to
adopt this plan, and in a little while they will
become so. I thought they had become satis-
fied that cheap justice like cheap law, and
cheap medicine, was in the end a very dear
article. I know that by dispensing cheap
justice, suitors have lost more in a single suit,
than the entire difference of expense between
these two plans for asingle year. That is for
gentlemen to consider. I am satisfied that
under the system as proposed by the com-
mittee, justice can be administered with a
promptness, a certainty, and an accuracy,
such as it never can do under the other sys-
tem. Of course the convention will decide
whether the expense is too much to pay for it.
1 do not think it is.
Mr. STIRLING. My colleague has very well
explained the principles of this report. There |
