after revolution to 1805 81

an inferior court of a record which had been im-
properly removed from it by certiorari, with in-
structions for proceeding without regard to the
removal; now its office was enlarged by statute to
return a record properly removed, on appeal or

error.²⁵

There was no limit to the length of arguments;
a single argument would often take days. And of
course this means that much time was devoted to
mere display and the delectation of audiences.
Arguments were also orations. The practice of
that period, however, required longer arguments
than would now be needed strictly for the business
in hand, for speech was still the chief means of
presentation, all papers were read to the judges, all
arguments made in their utmost fullness, and all
authorities which the court was expected to con-
sider were gone over fully with the court then and
there, in open court Generally speaking, judges
were not expected to do any reading in a
case. The method of the hearing on ap-
peal and that on arguments at trials were
the same. And while it is in this later time cus-
tomary for judges to read papers in equity cases,
and to study them out for themselves, living law-
yers of no great age will recall a time when a hear-
ing in equity regularly began with a reading of
the papers to the court, and then a reading of the
record of testimony followed, and there was a
reading of authorities in full during the argument;
and such was a hearing on appeal up to the end
of the eighteenth century and later. The practice
of reading the authorities fully in court has not

25. See Evans, Maryland Practice, 1839, 441 ff.