15

1	in which that judge happens to be sitting.
2	Back in 1913 a lawyer, the like of which does
3	not sit upon this Commission -- you all agree happily to
4	this one statement I shall make -- Mr. Edgar H. Cans made
5	a report concerning the sources of testamentary law in
6	Maryland. The report of that speech is reported and a
7	very fine lawyer and one of the greatest nisi prius judges
B	we ever had who should have been on the Supreme Court of
9	the United States, the closest 1 have ever coma to a think-
10	ing machine, Judge Calvin Chesnut, had to read the
11	report because of the illness of Mr. Cans. This in 1913
12	when the courts of Maryland as regards the Orphans Court
13	were in the hands of laymen. This, of course, has
14	been studiously ignored ever since the Bond Commission
15	Report. Mr. Cans said, and I quote, "I hope the day is
16	not far distant when by constitutional and legislative
17	changes the Orphans Court ,at least in the large cities of
18	the state, will be given the full dignity of Superior
19	Courts with full power to decide all questions involved
20	in the devolution of the estate of a decedent."
21	Gentlemen, that statement has proved true