Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/518

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Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, HORACE W. FULLER, 15^ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anecdotes, etc.

THE GREEN BAG. Д BALTIMORE correspondent offers the fol** lowing suggestions concerning " A Serious Problem." Editor of the " Green Bag " : Mr. Percy Edwards's article, " A Serious Problem," in the " Green Bag " for August. 1893. is interesting and suggestive. It is, however, a mistake to suppose that " the law " is increasing in anything like propor tion to the reports and the digests and the treatises that follow them so rapidly. Thousands upon thou sands of cases merely iterate and re-iterate the principles of law as laid down in thousands upon thousands of other cases. And still the reports keep pouring from the presses, and still the digests and treatises keep treading on their heels, till it may fairly be said that the man who is rich enough to own a complete law library, and keep it " up with the times," is too rich to practise law. But think of the expense which the mere "getting out" of these "reports" entails upon an overtaxed people. Think of the awful expenditure of energy and brains wasted in the compilation of Treatises and Digests which are old before they are new, — energy and brains that, hut for this temptation, might have rendered some real service to mankind, might have invented a new religion or discovered a new bacte rium, with a complete and useless system of " cul ture " and '-progressive innoculation." It may be asked, If the principles are settled, whence the innumerable cases? The answer is, partly, The cases are the results of attempts to defeat the application of the principles to new sets of facts. These attempts are sure to continue while fees can be gotten for making them. It is the stories of these attempts and the pretty uniform defeat of them that multiply the " reports," and render their volumes so bulky. Now and then — and only now and then — does such an attempt result in an actual extension of the law, in the amplification of an old, or the elucidation of a new, principle. 61

But this is not all the answer. Many of the new cases grow out of necessary judicial constructions of new statute law. Many a page ol the "reports " is taken up with elaborate elucidations of some single sentence or paragraph of a legislative Act. And this is not surprising when we remember that a very large proportion of our legislative Acts are written without reference to the grammatical rules of the language in which they are nominally expressed. But the answer is not completed yet. The en deavors to defeat the application of well settled prin ciples to particular facts is greatly stimulated by the practice of writing long opinions, — a practice doubt less encouraged by the modern conveniences of stenographers and type- writers. It may be said of long opinions that they are never necessary, and are almost invariably obnoxious. The points essentially involved in the most intricate and important cases are usually to be disposed of in a few brief sentences. The objection to long opinions is that they complicate the law; that they suggest •' loop-holes " where none exist; that they involve endless obiter dicta, -- the most aggravating and detestable nuisances of our law. Why not attack these symptoms in order, and see if we cannot do something with the disease in that way? First, extend the practice of designating cases "not to be reported." Let the courts of final resort allow no official report to be made of any case which does not distinctly present a new aspect of the com mon law, or a new construction of a statute. Second, keep down the statutes. With every possible facility for special sessions, when needed, give us one Con gress to the Presidential term, and make that term six years, with no re-eligibilitv; and let us have legislative sessions at even longer intervals. Third, give us short opinions, strictly confined to the matter in hand. The early English decisions are examples in this regard. Perhaps they are not strictly models, as they sometimes sacrifice clearness to brevity. The English opinions of to-day, as a rule, seem to hit the happy medium, and afford a most striking contrast to the voluminous dissertations of many of our courts. The second of these remedies will probably be applied about the time when '•all our ships come in. ' But the first and third, resting with such a judiciary as that which is America's pride and boast, perhaps need only mention for speedy application.

JAS. T. RINGGOLD.