THE APPLICABILITY OF ENGLISH METHODS established, that they will not inquire into the merits of a defense upon affidavits. The Civil Judicial Statistics of England for 1903, just published, show the number of judgments entered in the High Court under Order xiv as follows: Judgments: — Entered summarily Entered after trial by jury . . . Entered without trial by jury . Total
5662 503 698 6863
A somewhat similar procedure is in force in the Common Pleas Courts in Philadelphia. In the discharge of its business the High Court in England has the assistance of seventeen masters, who do all the prelim inary work above described, and try other matters especially referred to them. The New York Supreme Court has the assist ance each year in the discharge of its busi ness of 588 referees, that being the average number appointed each year, over a period of seven years, to dispose of the average number of 2272 references a year, of all sorts. It is estimated that these references cost the litigants between seven hundred and eight hundred thousand dollars a year; months of sittings being consumed in many cases. The system has become scandal ously and notoriously unfit as a whole, and has met with the severest censure by the higher court. The reports are filled with its scandals, and it has become intolerable to the business community, and to those who most desire the welfare of the court. The Chamber of Commerce of the state of New York in asking for the appointment of a State Commission to inquire into the Law's Delays presented resolutions at its annual meeting, to the legislature, which contained the following: Whereas grave abuses have been found to exist in the system of compulsory refer ences as administered by the courts in the city of New York, as being both costly and
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dilatory and otherwise detrimental to the administration of justice, and as denying equal protection of the law to certain classes of litigants, particularly those suing upon commercial accounts, etc." The Judicial Statistics of England for 1903 shows that the number of sittings of official referees in London for that year was 376, and outside of London, 30. The total amount of fees received was^j 1001, 125-, 6d, or approximately $5000. The English system of appeals, which differs so radically from our own, seems better adapted to the. conditions existing in England than in New York. The first reason is, the greater authority of the judg ments of courts of first instance in England, which is in marked distinction to our own. While but about ю per cent of the cases tried in England are appealed, it is esti mated that about 30 per cent are appealed from in New York County, and while the proportion of reversals and modifications in England on appeals to the Intermediate Court is about 29 per cent of the whole number, it is in the First Department in the city of New York 41 per cent. That the volume of appeal business is much greater in New York is shown by the fact that in 1903 there were but 1272 appeals all told in England which were divided up as follows: To the Judiciary Committee of the Privy Council, 113; to the House of Lords, 80; to the Court of Appeal, 681; to the High Court of Justice from inferior courts, 398. While the Appellate Division of the First Department (one of the four departments of the state), in the year 1902 heard 1050 appeals, in which it wrote 850 opinions. The Law's Delay Commission of the state of New York in its report to the legisla ture assigned the following "Causes of De lay, in the administration of Justice:" First, the increase of litigation resulting from increase of population and business activity; second, the inadequacy of the ju dicial force and the constitutional restric
