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Courts of justice in California were, in early times, equal if not superior to those of any new country or border settlement founded since the days of Justinian—equal if not superior in ability, stupidity, or what you will. Anything that courts of justice could do any where or under any circumstances, good or bad, ours could achieve. Yet I may safely say that the judges, on the whole, were honest men; and while frequently neither educated in law nor specially fitted for the position, they were far above the average magistrates in general intelligence and practical judgment. On the supreme bench and presiding over the district and county courts, particularly in the cities and more thickly populated parts, have been from the first occupation of the territory by citizens of the United States until the present day, as able and erudite jurists, men of as broad and enlightened intellects, as might be found elsewhere in Europe or