638 THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.—1 BLAND.

Maryland, he read in the statute book, and in the Declaration of
Eights of the State, that a salary of twelve hundred and seventy-
heard; (In the matter of Lord Portsmouth, Coop. Rep. 106.) yet in all other
cases the matters in controversy must be heard in open Court; for, publicity
in judicial proceedings is of the very greatest importance; "it is one of the
best securities for the honest exercise of a Judge's duty, that he is to exer-
cise that duty in public. " (Wellesley v. Beauford, 2 Russell, 9.) Publicity
is also one of the best shields which a skilful and impartial Judge can have
against the assaults of party, of prejudice, or of intrigue. It is to the en-
lightened and powerful public opinion to which the Judges of Westminster
Hall are constantly exposed, and by which they are always held responsible
and protected, that their great diligence as well as their luminous and im-
partial judgments are to he ascribed.—(Debates Virg. Con. of 18S9, page 734.)

But whatever may be the composition or structure of a Court of last re-
sort, it is important, that it should have assigned to it no duties hut such as
are properly appellate, as regards the substance of the case, or the points
involving the merits which have been controverted and adjudicated upon
by the Court of original jurisdiction. According to a well regulated course
of judicial proceeding the parties to a controversy should have the means,
and be allowed an opportunity of bringing before the Court of first resort
all their allegations and proofs in any way pertinent to the subject in litiga-
tion. And, when the case has heen so prepared for final decision, the judg-
ment should, as nearly as practicable, be pronounced upon the merits, or
upon those points on which the parties themselves have relied as involving
the merits.

To allow the revising Court to reverse the judgment of the tribunal of
original jurisdiction, because of any mere technical objection; would be,
nine times in ten, to put aside the real merits in dispute for the purpose of
correcting a mere matter of form which had either been deemed unworthy
of attention in the Court below, or which might have been at once amended
there had it been noticed in time; or to allow the revising Court to reverse
the original judgment on any other ground of merit, than that which had
been specially taken in the Court below, would he, in effect, to allow the
Appellate Court to assume original jurisdiction by bringing before it a con-
troversy which in truth, never existed; or a new point of controversy which,
if it had been presented to the Court below, might have been shewn to have
had no just foundation whatever.

The sending of a case back, for amendment and further proceedings
thereon, almost always involves a virtual admission, that an appeal had
heen taken which ought never to have been allowed; either because the ob-
jection should have been made and removed in the Court below; or if not
there made, should have been treated above as having no just foundation;
or because the error was of such a technical nature as not in any way ma-
terially to affect the merits. But the greatest evils of an ill defined power
in the Appellate Court to remand a case in equity are those which must
inevitably arise from having the judgment of that Court sent, without rule
or guide, on a rambling excursion through the case in search of those loose
conjectures, ambiguous inferences, or latent evidences in relation to some
supposed merits, for the purpose of letting in which the case should be sent
back for alteration, (Kemp v. Pryor, 7 Ves. 245,} by which means a contro-
versy, all the facts of which were from the outeet fully known to all con-
cerned, may be varied and vexatiously continued to no purpose; or a false