NOTES.
The meeting of the American Bar Association was noteworthy in more respects than one. The address of David Dudley Field was of the highest character, and should be carefully read by every lawyer in our land. Simeon E. Baldwin's address was a scholarly production, and Judge Henry B. Brown and Walter B. Hill read papers which were masterpieces of logic and good sound common-sense. The banquet was a grand affair, and our Chicago brethren who had the matter in charge certainly left nothing to be desired. The meeting was well attended, and successful in every way.
Twenty-seven States outside of New York, containing a population of thirty-four millions, are said to have about thirty-five thousand lawyers. There remain, after these States and New York, fourteen other States, five Territories, and the District of Columbia, with a population of twenty millions; and these should, in the same proportion as the twenty-seven States, have over twenty thousand lawyers, making a total of sixty-six thousand. Now, compare this proportion with that of other countries. France, with a population of forty millions, has six thousand lawyers, and twenty-four hundred other officials who do the work of attorneys with us; and Germany, with a population of forty-five millions, has in the same category seven thousand. Thus the proportion of the legal element is, in France, 1 to 4,762; in Germany, 1 to 6,423; in the United States, 1 to 909. Now turn from the performers to the performance. The report just mentioned contains, in text and appendix, a statement of the length of time required in the courts of the country for the final decision of a lawsuit; and a melancholy record it is. "It appears," says the report, "that the average length of a lawsuit varies very much in the different States; the greatest being about six years, and the least about one year and a half." I might add that very few States finish a litigation in this shorter period. Taking all these figures together, is it any wonder that a cynic should say that we American lawyers talk more and speed less than any other equal number of men known to history?—David Dudley Field's Address before the American Bar Association.
As is well-known, there are two Courts in America of co-ordinate criminal jurisdiction in capital cases. Last year Judge Lynch had decidedly the whip hand of Judge Law. The former bagged 144 to the latter's 87. The total for the States was 231. In no other civilized country is there any such record as this in proportion to the population. What it means, says the "Journal of Jurisprudence," may be gathered from the consideration that whereas in Scotland executions at present average much less than one per annum, at the American rate there would be twenty per annum.—Irish Law Times.
Though the "Green Bag" does not aim to give reports of judicial decisions, it occasionally finds one which it seems appropriate to place in a "useless but entertaining" magazine, as witness a recent case in one of the New York courts.
The head-note is as follows:—
"A reargument will not be granted for the omission of the court to notice a recent statute alleged to be decisive of the case, where the statute was not urged as controlling either at the trial or on the argument; its existence being then unknown both to court and counsel."
The learned court, after stating that the newly discovered statute had been in force seventeen days at the time the transaction in question took place, proceeds to surmount this obstacle as follows:—
The case was decided rightly upon the facts and law as presented at the last general term when it was decided. It is not claimed that the court overlooked any point presented at that time, but it appears that court and counsel were ignorant of the statute above quoted, and the case was decided upon the facts and law as they were supposed to exist at that time. The parties are presumed to know what the law is even if the court does not; and when the assignment was offered in evidence it was the duty of the plaintiff to make such objections to its introduction as he intended to rely upon, and all other objections were then and there waived. . . . . No good purpose can be served by granting a reargument and reversing the judgment. The assignment was eminently equitable and just, and under the present judgment the property will be equally divided; but if it is reversed, the assigned property will be diverted from an equal distribution among the creditors. . . . Motion denied."
