172 court of appeals of maryland

Eldridge Gerry Kilbourn, Arthur W. Machen,
and George T. King.

At the October term, 1865, the rules of court
were revised extensively, and many of those now in
force were then adopted. Records and briefs were
required to be furnished in a number sufficient
for the use of counsel, reporter and court; and the
briefs were to contain abstracts of the cases, with
full and explicit statements of the points relied on,
with the authorities sustaining them, accurately
cited and distributed under their proper heads.
And the regular time for argument was further
reduced to two hours.

Judge Cochran died in 1866, at forty-six years
of age, and the vacancy was filled by the appoint-
ment on March 19, 1867, of Peter Wood Grain,
of Charles County, who had been an associate
judge of his district from 1847 to 1851. Judge
Goldsborough died on July 23, 1867, but the place
he left vacant was not filled before the next re-
organization of the court, under the constitution
of that year.

During the fifties and sixties of the last century,
with the rapid improvement of travel, the exist-
ence of any group which might be termed a spe-
cial bar of the court, waned. Judge Mason, writ-
ing after 1870, said:⁸

Every day that passes, owing to the great travelling facilities
for members of the bar to follow their cases to the Court of
Appeals, renders less frequent those splendid combinations of
professional talents in individual cases which was once so com-
mon in Maryland, even as late as the time of Mr. McMahon.

8. Life of McMahon, 102.