an "inquisition of witnesses"—summoned, not to decide upon evidence, but to prove facts. The policy of the law, in requiring more than one witness to establish a fact, is as old as law itself. . . . The old law, however, required twelve witnesses to agree upon a disputed fact, in order to establish it; and so it was that, when the first twelve witnesses summoned failed to agree, they were "afforced" by summoning additional witnesses, till twelve were found that would agree. This grew to be incon venient; and some six hundred years ago the rule requiring twelve witnesses to concur was relaxed, and the concurrent evidence of a majority of the twelve witnesses was taken as sufficient. This was unquestionably a sensible inno vation and a decided improvement; but, in the latter part of the fourteenth century, dur ing the reign of Edward III., the English law courts, with their characteristic zeal for upholding the forms of antiquity, even when the substance had been rejected, restored the rule requiring twelve concurrent witnesses to establish a disputed fact. But these old judges were not so impractical a set as their pedantic adherence to ancient forms might indicate; and, being unwilling to resort to the inconvenient and expensive "afforcing pro cess, to obtain twelve witnesses who would agree, they resorted to the simpler and more direct method of compelling the original twelve to agree, whether they would or not, by holding them "sine cibo et potti until they did agree! The very reasons upon which this remark able rule was based showed the courts' rec ognition of the wisdom and propriety of the majority rule; for it was said that the minor ity were inexcusable in holding out against the majority; that, as they were all merely witnesses to the same fact, if the majority agreed upon what that fact was, nothing but stupid obstinacy, "impious stubbornness," or corruption, could account for the minority taking a different view about a matter of plain fact and not involving opinion or judg
ment at all! Thus was the "unanimity rule" established; and it is to an origin, based upon such essen tially different conditions and upon such ab surd and illogical reasons, characteristic of an age of intellectual night, that the modern advocates of unanimity of verdicts in civil juries cling with superstitious veneration
THE progress of the "Proposed Reforms in Marriage and Divorce Laws," from thé re port of the Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reforms at the meeting of the Ameri can Bar Association in 1882 to the present time, is set forth by Amasa M. Eaton in the April number of the Columbia Lau' Review. Since 1892 reform in marriage and divorce laws has been one of the most im portant subjects before annual Conferences of the State Commissions on Uniformity of Legislation. Several excellent acts have been drafted by these Conferences, none of which, however, have been adopted by any of the States. Referring to one of the acts proposed by the Twelfth Conference, 1902, Mr. Eaton says: Even though no State has yet adopted in its entirety the Divorce Procedure Act rec ommended by the Conference, some of its features have been adopted, and probably more will be, and more States will follow the examples set, and adopt some of its features that other States have adopted. However, even should no general adoption of our act result, it cannot be said that the work of the Conference is a failure. It will have shown, at least, that such a law is not the one called for. If so, the question then is, what is the legislation that is called for? Why should not the general rule suggested, be adopted, that any competent court, having actual jur isdiction over the parties, shall have jurisdiction over divorce between those parties, irrespective of the vexatious question of domicile? Would not the cause of justice and the peace and quiet of the State, be bet ter subserved by such a rule?
