1867 and after 189

error, in criminal cases as well as in civil cases, but
still the writ of error is permitted, as it has been
since the simpler method was provided two hun-
dred years before. It is seldom used, however.
Its long endurance furnishes a noteworthy instance
of persistency in adherence to obsolete methods.

As has already been stated, the old special bar
of the court, the group of lawyers who congre-
gated at Annapolis with the judges at each term
of court, spent the term there and argued the ap-
peals for the state, may be said to have been en-
tirely a thing of the past within about a decade
after 1867. To the end of the century, and even
later, there were a few lawyers who went to An-
napolis a day or two in advance of their argu-
ments to rest and put themselves in what they
considered to be the state of mind desirable for
an argument, but those who did this no longer
constituted the old special bar. The lawyers who
had tried the cases now regularly followed them
to Annapolis. The improvement in transporta-
tion was, of course, largely responsible for the
change. In addition to the railroad which after
1840 reached Annapolis from the junction to the
west, a short railroad line from Baltimore City
on the north side of the Severn River was opened
in 1881; and after that, lawyers from Baltimore,
who together had the larger part of the business
before the court, came to Annapolis each for only
a few hours in a day.

While this change was going on, the place of
oral argument in the presentation of a case was
undergoing a change. It has been seen that until
the middle of the last century, and for some time