Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 6.djvu/299

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Our Homestead Act was probably intended to exempt in all cases a homestead of the value of $500 from attachment and execution. Such an exemption is expressly made in favor of unmarried persons, whether male or female, and in favor of married men, for the benefit of themselves, their wives, widows and minor children. The act, however, taken by itself, does not extend, unless possibly by implication, to married women holding real estate in their own right; they alone seem to be excluded from its humane provisions. If a case involving this question were to come before our full bench, very likely the court might hold that the omission in the Homestead Act is remedied by the first three lines of the eleventh section of chapter 183 of the General Laws (relating to the rights of husband and wife); but no such decision has yet been made, and the question is one upon which even sound and able lawyers may well differ. Would it not be well to so amend the Homestead Act as to make it plain and certain, in this respect, and to place the rights of married women to homestead exemptions on an equality with those of other persons?

Would it not be well to strike from section 6 of chapter 215 of the General Laws the words "city or town," and substitute therefor the word "county"? The section provides that "in all suits before police courts the action shall be made returnable to the city or town where one of the plaintiffs or defendants resides." The following section provides that "writs and proceedings in civil actions shall not be made returnable before a justice of the peace within any town or city having a police court, but shall be returnable and returned in said town or city only before said court." Perhaps Cheshire county may be taken as a fair example of the counties in the state. There are in Keene, the shire town, fourteen lawyers, and, to use the language of the statute, a "learned, able and discreet" police justice. In none of the adjoining towns are there any lawyers; and, while in all of them there are justices of the peace who are men of sound judgment, good common-sense and high character, none of them have a sufficient knowledge of law to hear and determine causes in accordance with its rules and principles. If it is urged that such men, although not learned in the law, will do substantial justice, the reply is obvious that unsuccessful litigants seldom recognize the justice of their defeat, and will generally appeal if they think they can do so with success. Suppose, for example, that John Doe, who lives in Roxbury, has a small claim against Richard Roe, who lives in Surry, both towns adjoining Keene and both being too small and the population too scattered to maintain a country store, the suit, unless brought in the supreme court, must be returned and tried outside of Keene, the common center; if counsel are employed they are obliged to close their offices and drive six or eight miles out of town; a trial that lasts an hour wastes a day, or, if a continuance is had, two days; the court and the witnesses are also put to unnecessary inconvenience; and the increased expense must ultimately fall upon the parties;—all of which, together with the extreme probability of an appeal, constitutes, in such cases, a practical denial of justice. As a consequence, suits for very small sums are generally brought in the supreme court; are subjected to months instead of days of delay, and at the end even the counsel of the successful party must elect between taking the lion's share of the proceeds or discounting largely from a fair and reasonable compensation for the services rendered. So great are the inconveniences of the existing statute, that even when suits for sums less than $13.33 are to be brought, it is not uncommon to bring them in the