600 THE CHANCELLOR'S CASE.

cheaper than they are at present ? whether it would be better, and
cheaper to have six, or eight Chancellors than one Chancellor?
The late General Court was deemed a grievance and abolished;
because, at great expense and inconvenience, it dragged witnesses
and jurymen from all parts of the State to the seat of government.
But the Court of Chancery, like the Court of Appeals, does not
call for witnesses or jurymen from any part of the State. It brings
before it nothing but the record, documents, and papers belonging
to the case. The lawyers may attend in person, or they may send
their arguments in writing. These are some of the thoughts sug-
gested by this bill, on which reflections might be carried out to a
considerable extent.

This bill to abolish the office of Chancellor was appointed to be
read a second time on the 28th of the same month on which it was
brought into the House; but, from some cause or other, it was
unattended to on that day, and was not called up until the Monday
forenoon of the 7th of February, when it was passed, apparently, .
as a matter of course, without debate, by a vote of 33 to 23, and
sent to the Senate—in which house, on the 9th of the same month,
it was taken up and read a second and third time, by a special
order, and rejected. Upon the whole, then, on considering this
first one of the suggestions which originated from the commu-
nication of the Register in Chancery, it would seem not to have
been intended as a regular attack, but as a mere demonstra-
tion, as nothing more than a sort of preparatory feeling of the
antagonist.

The second bill from this committee, by which it was intended
to reduce the salary of the Chancellor, was entitled, "An act to
ascertain and fix the salary of the Chancellor." The place in
which it was intended to express the amount of the salary was,
as is usual in like cases, left blank, to be filled up on the second
reading; and consequently, there was nothing on the face of it, as
reported, which involved any constitutional question; or which
intimated, that such a one was to be propounded. This bill was
ordered to be put on its passage, on the first day of February fol-
lowing; but, that day was suffered to pass by, and it was not
called up until the 21st of February; when, by a vote of 36 to 26
the blank was filled up with " the sum of twenty-two hundred dol-
lars" as the amount of the Chancellor's salary, and the bill was
thus passed, and sent to the Senate,

It will be proper here to recollect, that when the present Chan-