1867 and after 187

There have naturally been far-reaching changes
in the court and its work in the sixty years since
the last constitution was adopted. A decided ma-
terial change was in the abandonment in 1903 of
the room used by the court in the State House for
the preceding hundred and twenty-two years, and
the taking up of its present quarters in the build-
ing nearby. It was on November 10, 1903, that
the removal was made, and a brief ceremony was
held in the new court room, Mr. Bernard Carter,
Mr. Arthur W. Machen and Mr. Arthur George
Brown, all leading attorneys of Baltimore City,
addressing the court on the change, and Chief
Judge McSherry replying to them.⁶ A note of re-
gret was touched; treasured associations were
being left behind with the old room. It was a
bright, cheerful room. Even with the two win-
dows behind the judges covered as they were, there
were two other large windows opening to the
southeast and three to the southwest, and the sun
streamed in all day. The easterly windows af-
forded a broad view out over the mouth of the
Severn River and across the Bay to Kent Island,
and lawyers who practiced in the court before
1903 recall more or less furtive glances out over
the distant prospect by the judge sitting on the ex-
treme right of the bench. The court room in use
now, in comparison, suffers from lack of light; it
is lined and furnished in dark mahogany, with
red carpet and hangings; beautiful, but dark.
Little light is admitted from the outside, and the
artificial light which must be relied upon dur-

6. See 97 Md., XXVIII.