82 court of appeals of maryland

yet entirely disappeared; the accumulation of
books on the right side of the counsel table in the
picture of the court room before 1903 affords visi-
ble proof of the existence of the practice at that
time. It was not until toward the middle of the
nineteenth century that papers were regularly pre-
pared and given the judges for reading; the prac-
tice of doing so was once an innovation, and like
all other innovations had its opponents and view-
ers with alarm. Lord Eldon's custom earlier in
the nineteenth century of reading the papers in his
chancery cases for himself was an innovation in
its time, disapproved by his professional brethren.
Lord Campbell²⁶ said,

In the first place, it is impossible. In the vast majority of
cases which come before a judge, * * * * he must take the
contents of written documents from the counsel, trusting to
their honor and accuracy, and to their reciprocal supervision.
Secondly, it would be exceedingly dangerous for a judge to be
in the habit of deciding upon facts or points of law of his own
discovering; for if noticed at the bar, they would very likely
have been found capable of being easily answered or explained
away. Thirdly, such a habit must breed a morbid propensity to
doubt, and it holds out a tempting bait to procrastination, by
affording a ready excuse for idleness.

At the time with which we are now dealing, then,
and for many years after, only one copy of the
record, in manuscript, was filed on appeal, and
that was read in court. No briefs were filed, but
it appears that lawyers sometimes left their own
notes of argument with the judges when a case
was taken under advisement. One case at least
was submitted on such notes.²⁷ But the effort in

26. Lives of the Chancellors, chap, ccxiii, vol. vii, 628 ff. of 1847 ed.

27. Hemsley v. Nicholson's Lessee, 3 Harris & McHenry, 409. The
fact of submission appears in the original papers.