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worst system of procedure of which I have any knowledge is that established in the state of New York by the present "Code of Civil Procedure." This Code, undertaking to provide for every conceivable contin gency of practice and procedure, has come to be a procrustian bed to which litigants or litigated questions are fitted in the most arbitrary fashion. Appeals from every kind and class of interlocutory ruling are pro vided for, and, in a recent case, with which I am personally familiar, what ought to have been a simple complaint or declara tion in an action for deceit, has been in controversy in the courts upon one tech nical question or another for something like three years, and the end is not yet. This would have been impossible under the Fed eral system in equity or in the courts of Massachusetts or of England. The law's delays in the state of New York are mainly due to the provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure and the technical con struction of those provisions which has now become habitual to the judicial mind in this state. The remedy, to a large extent, might be found, I think, in the virtual
repeal of the present Code of Civil Proce dure, the enactment of a general practice act in the shortest and simplest terms with provisions for the establishment of rules of practice from time to time as they may be required, such rules to be promulgated by the Court of Appeals or such other judicial body as might be selected for the purposeIncidentally, all appeals from interlocutory orders and from rulings upon technical ques tions of pleading and practice should be abolished except in cases where a certificate of judicial doubt can be obtained. Trials should be enforced by the provisions of law when cases are reached upon the calendars, except in such instances as would make it too plain for argument that an adjourn ment or a continuance was right and equitable. I regret that personal illness (I am dic tating this brief commentary from a sick bed) prevents me from further reviewing the very interesting question which you have submitted. WM. HEPBURN RUSSELL. NEW YORK, N. Y., April, 1905.
OHIO The law's delays were, in the time of Shakespeare, a cause adequate to drive a litigant to suicide. They still continue to be a live subject for the consideration of statesmen and jurists. That they are so, is sufficient proof that no remedy can be made to order; for otherwise the time and thought given the subject of celerity in civil procedure would long ago have solved the difficulites, and removed all ground for complaint. Mr. Crane thinks the problem of secur ing celerity in civil procedure has been solved in England to the satisfaction of lawyers and laymen. I doubt it, notwith standing the admirable showing in his ar ticle. And I am sure, the rules to which
he calls attention would be of slight service in preventing the congested trial dockets in the large cities of the United States. A brief glance at conditions in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, in which is situated the large city of Cleveland, and the general civil procedure of the state, will indicate why I think those rules have no vital message for American conditions. Mr. Crane's article shows that the High Court of England, corresponding roughly with our Court of Common Pleas, has to do annually with less than two hundred and fifty cases for each one hundred thousand of population. The Court of Common Pleas of Cuyahoga County, even without probate, admiralty.
