from 1806 to 1851 141

the judges, to file separate opinions;²⁰ there was
no fixed practice.

There are some enlightened contemporary com-
ments on the work of the court in a pamphlet pub-
lished in Baltimore in 1846, over the name of
INA, "Paragraphs on the subject of Judicial Re-
form." ²¹ Some recommendations made in it have
since been adopted. A few of its comments may
be worth reproducing. It is remarked that in the
disposal of 1157 cases from 1806 to 1842,²² there
were 568 affirmances and 576 reversals of the judg-
ments of trial courts, and that this had brought a
suggestion that the trial courts were more fre-
quently wrong than right It was conceded that
the result was a bad one, but the suggestion made
failed, of course, to allow for the fact that only
a very few cases were appealed. And it over-
looked a practice which was permitted up to 1825
of raising on appeal questions which had not been
presented to the trial courts at all. Efforts made
by the Legislature by an act of 1763, chapter 23,
to secure judicial decisions by the courts of law:

according as the very right of the cause, and matter in law shall
appear to them, without regarding any such omission, defects,
advantages or pretences as aforesaid, so as sufficient shall appear
in the proceedings upon which the court may proceed to give
judgment,

had failed because of lack of cooperation by the
courts; and a statute passed in 1785 (chapter 80),
and repeated in 1809 (chapter 153), for a liberal
allowance of amendments had applied, by its

20. 4 Harris & Johnson, 165, 456, 481; 5 Harris & Johnson, 199.

21. Peabody Library, Baltimore, Vol. 143, Bound Pamphlets. The
identity of the author has not been learned.

22. An average of thirty-two cases through these years, but the
count is only of reported cases.