necessarily cost the State a little more than
$50,000 a year. These are the differences in
the systems.
If it were proper to draw the analogy, we
have had the proposition before the conven-
tion this morning, and the convention has
deliberately stricken out one item, one sec-
tion, which would have saved the State in
its various departments more than $10,000 a
year, upon an entirely unnecessary and mere
ornamental appendage to the courts. If con-
sistency be the aim of gentlemen, I do not
see the consistency of striking out that sec-
tion, and then insisting upon retrenchment
where retrenchment is necessarily attended
with a weakening of the judicial power all
over the State. I do not know that there is
a single county that is an exception, from
which the cry has not come up that their
equity business particularly was not attended
to. In the county where the judge chanced
to reside, usually the equity business was
kept along with something like order and
proper shape ', but in all the other counties
there was great inattention to it.
I might instance particular counties. The
judge goes to a county on the occasion of
holding his semi-annual term of the court.
He attends, usually, in the first place, to the
trial of the criminal business, giving that the
precedence, and making a sort of general jail
delivery. As soon as he gets through that,
then attends to magistrates' cases, and then to
the civil docket. By the time he gets through
these cases, civil and criminal, his trunk is
packed to go to the next circuit, and it is al-
most always an impossibility to induce him lo
remain to take up and dispose of the equity
matters which are pending. He has usually
an intermediate term for equity business.
Sometimes he is there. Quite as often, I be-
lieve in the experience over the State, he is
not there. If he is there it is still almost an
impossibility to get matters attended to. I
know in my own practice, of cases which
should have been tried long ago in some
counties, which have been standing four or
five years untried, although every effort has
been made to get a hearing before the judge,
it has never been successful.
Now I lay down this proposition. As be-
tween a system that administers justice, and
one that denies justice, the question of econ-
omy ought not to have any weight in this
convention. If under the system as reported,
or under the system as it is proposed lo be
modified, we can get this business done in
the counties, and under the present system
we cannot get it done, it is certainly the in-
terest of the State, and of all the citizens of
the State, that the more effective system
should be adopted although it may be more
expensive. It is no economy to leave the
business undone. There are suitors in this
State, now suffering a greater loss twice over
from the neglect of their business and the |
utter impossibility of getting it done, than
the difference between the two systems pro-
posed. I therefore trust this convention will
adopt some system which shall secure the
result of the transaction of the business. 1
do not desire that there shall be one cent of
expense beyond what is necessary to secure
that. If gentlemen are satisfied that the bu-
siness can be done without this additional
expense, very well. I shall be glad to vote
for it. But I do not see the possibility.
Gentlemen have said here that there has
been no clamor upon this point. I grant it;
and there never will be a clamor upon this
point; because the great mass of the people
are not litigants. They are not in the courts.
They have not equity cases there. But those
who are so unfortunate as to have cases in
court, business men who want transactions
of this sort, who are charged with the man-
agement of estates, who have business in the
equity court to be adjusted and settled, do
complain, and complain most loudly. The
legal profession, who are connected with these
cases throughout the State, complain. They
are cursed by their clients for neglecting
their business and not forcing it to a conclu-
sion, when they know perfectly well that the
fault does not .lie with them; that it is an
impossibility to obtain a hearing from the
judge in these cases; that it is an impossibil-
ity for the judge, pressed as he is, to attend
to them, to give them a practical hearing,
1 trust therefore that this will be the first
question, and take precedence of the question
of economy. How can the business beat be
done? How can the ends of justice be se-
cured? How can we prevent persona from
being incarcerated in jail for the want of the
presence of a judge to bear their cases or to
take bail, in some instances longer than the
term for which they could have been sen-
tenced, even if tried when first arrested and
found guilty? Such cases have occurred,
and yet at the trial they have after all been
acquitted. This is not just. It is an utter
denial of justice. It is time the convention
should take this matter in hand, and make
this its first grand object. Let justice be
done.
On motion of Mr. PURNELL,
The convention took a recess until eight
o'clock, P. M.
EVENING SESSION.
The convention met at eight o'clock, P. M.
The roll was called, and the following mem-
bers answered to their names :
Messrs. Goldsborough, President; Abbott,
Annan, Belt, Berry, of Prince George's, Bil-
lingsley; Blackiston, Briscoe, Brown, Cham-
bers, Crawford, Cunningham, Cushing, Del-
linger, Dent, Duvall, Ecker, Edelen, Farrow,
Gale, Galloway, Hebb, Hodson, Hoffman,
Hollyday, Hopkins, Hopper, Horsey, John-
son, Keefer, Kennard, King, Lansdale, Lee, |
