Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/342

 THE LIGHTER SIDE the promptitude of Spanish procedure, the customary despatch is to be still further stimulated to secure that judgment be given within a period not exceeding two years longer. — The Law Journal. THERE has recently appeared in English, French and Swedish, a notable and sub stantial volume on Sweden, its people and its industry, compiled by order of the govern ment of that country, which, dealing as it does with all departments of Swedish life, makes an appeal to lawyers as well as to other readers. Among other subjects embraced by the scope of the work are the civil and crim inal statistics of the country, and to these attention may be drawn. As to the figures relating to litigation in civil matters, one noticeable feature is the extraordinary dim inution in the number of contested cases in recent years. Thus, for the period 1831-1840, when Sweden had a population of slightly over three millions, the average number of cases annually per thousand inhabitants was 26.69; between 1841 and 1850 the figures had dropped to 21.42, and almost continu ously since then there has been a constant diminution, so that for 1896-1900, with a population of over five millions, the average number of cases annually has dropped to 8.12. In commenting upon this remarkable decline in litigation, the compiler attributes it to a con stantly extending educational improvement among the masses which has lessened the attractiveness of going to law, but probably the more effective cause is found in the hint as to the slowness of the procedure in the various courts. Something like 40 per cent of the cases initiated are, it is stated, com promised or allowed to lapse. — The Law Times. SIR JOHN MACDONNELL, in his introduction to the Judicial Statistics for 1903, shows the chief movements of legal business during the last ten years. One of the most conspicuous facts to be gathered from the summary is that the business of the High Court has shrunk, while that of the County courts has expanded. In the King's Bench Division, the proceedings begun increased 1.42 per cent, but the popu lation increased 5.90 per cent; while in the

Chancery Division — the only section of the High Court in which an actual reduction took place — the proceedings begun decreased 4.24 per cent. In the County courts, on the other hand, the increase of business — it is 8.70 per cent — has been more rapid than the growth of the population. Between 1894 and 1903 the number of proceedings begun in the County courts rose from 1,175,340 to 1,342,911; while those commenced in the High Court fell from 83,947 to 83,167. Now that the jurisdiction of the County courts has been extended, this tendency is likely to be much more evident when another decade of litigation is reviewed. — The Law Journal. FROM the earliest times the law's delay has been subject for denunciation. The pompous pretense that the machinery of the law must move at slow and dignified pace is strictly kept up to-day as in olden times. The case of Harry Gagan, of Cleveland, injured by a railway train, which was begun through his guardian ten years ago, when he was a boy of eleven, and which went up through all the courts and was remanded to the original court for retrial, has now been held invalid because the boy has become of age, and must sue in his own name. John Rudnik, of Chicago, was injured in 1885. In 1904 the Supreme Court of Illinois awarded him $10,000. If the person or firm in whose employ he was injured was prudent enough to put away a sum of $10,000 in 1885, the beneficent operation of the principle of compound interest at six per cent has, by this time, added $20,000 to the original deposit. The injurer gets the $20,000; the injured gets the $10,000 — evidently a wrong has been done. The man whose leg is crushed earns his money when the crushing happens. If appeals, demurrers, replies, rejoinders, and other jockeyings lead justice astray for nine teen years, it is not the innocent that ought to suffer. — The Bar. MR. H. T. DARLING, the 'Father of the Ushers' at the Law Courts, has retired after forty years' service in the Chancery Courts. Interviewed by a representative of the Daily News, who questioned him as to the state of the Chancery Courts when he first knew them, he said: —