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1	because of this report, I think the citizens of a city
2	of 942,000 people have been rather fortunate in having
3	lawyers on this Court. However, as you know, the situa-
4	tion is different in the counties. You will recall,
5	without much effort, the great play in one of the papers
6	of Baltimore City concerning our county to the south.
7	Many allegations were made of inefficiency, a thirst for
8	per diem, a thirst for mileage, a few other matters.
9	As I said, when I came on this Court, I considered it
10	somewhat of an honor.
11	Not having been granted a hearing before
12	this report was made, I wonder what the reasons', for
13	the abolition can be. I have worked on this myself, one
14	mind, one person, with some conferences here with the Chief
15	Judge. When I read this thing, I thought Ivould examine
16	briefly the situation in the 48 states of the Union.
17	I know there are more than 48 at the moment but two of the
18	new states have come from a Federal jurisdiction recently,
19	Alaska, Hawaii, and, of course, the District of Columbia
20	is a kingdom of its own.
21	I have discovered from what I have done that half of our states have separate probate courts. The