heard panegeryzing these things, which it is no democratic metaphor, but, as we have seen, a historical truth, to call badges of servitude, as being the most admirable contrivances-full of AngloSaxon wisdom-for the assurance of universal and equal justice!

Now, what is the object of appeal at all? To correct an error, if any be committed, or give rational satisfaction that there has been none. How does common sense direct that this is to be accomplished, with the greatest dispatch as well as effect? Obviously, by applying to the best authority attainable, in the first instance. What use then of your intermediate tribunals? They cannot possibly have the requisite authority with the people, their very organization stamping them in fact with inferiority: nor can they, of course, give satisfaction to either of the parties. But what they can do, as consummately as if they were designed for it, is this: at every stage of appeal they double the expense and the delay-they enable the rich client to harrass the poor, to frustrate the law they shake all confidence in even the supreme tribunals-in fine, they infect the people with that most disastrous and demoralizing notion, that litigation is but a species of gambling or adventure. And if it has, in fact, been often compared, in England and this country, to a lottery, the infamy is, we believe, to be ascribed mainly to our system of appellate judi

cature.

::

Again if there be grounds for judicial correction, why should not the best means be as accessible to the small claimant as to the large? It has already been shown that this distinction of amount is utterly fallacious, and that in the eye of Justice as well as of Heaven, the lowest should be considered highest, and the highest, lowest. But the poor man cannot bear the expense of the highest tribunal, you say. Then, I say, you deny the poor man justice, and favor the wealthy in his oppression which is not very republi

can.

But where is the necessity for this expense?-unless you mean the lawyer's costs. Well, this obstacle we would mitigate in this way, and it will be apparent with how many collateral advantages. In case of reversal the defendant in error should be held to pay all costs; in the

event of affirmation, the attorney of the plaintiff should have none. This, besides advancing the interests of justice in other ways, which it might be invidious to particularize, narrows down the question of costs to a definite and known, or knowable, sum, which the parties proposing to appeal, may take into preliminary computation. If he believes he has justice on his side, (and we have left his attorney no interest in misleading him,) he runs but little risk in presenting himself before its most competent tribunal. But if, on the contrary, he would "try the thing merely for experiment," or from passion, he has before him the advocate's fee of fifty or a hundred dollars, than which-so far from being an impediment to justice-it would be impossible to devise a more convenient as well as salutary check upon speculation and vengeance.

With all the foregoing enormities of these intermediate jurisdictions of appeal, we find not one redeeming quality-except it be this, that they lengthen the lawyer's bill. But the profession will, we are sure, be, notwithstanding, found favorable to a change in this matter, were it only to acquit themselves of the plausible imputation of being the real owners of these courts, the inheritors of the feudal barons; with the difference only of having converted the unsubstantial “ homage "of the days of chivalry into " good and lawful money of the United States of America."

We might confirm the argument still by the strong examples of our masters in jurisprudence, the Greeks and Romans; in the confection of whose institutions, reason, or at least liberty, had something to do; and which, in no instance, we believe, admitted of more than one degree of appeal.* In truth, that our system is not merely unjust and irrational, but quite out of nature, might be very fairly presumed from the fact that the ingenious Athenians-the "beandevouring Demos"-did not fall upon some such contrivance to feed their juridical voracity; especially since they carried the other principle, of the divisi bility of jurisdiction, to such pernicious refinement, as to have, in some cases, several courts, for the different degrees of the same offence.

We have now deduced, from the nature and objects of the judicial agency in a free State, the rules which should govern the organization of a Judiciary. Then these rules have been confirmed argumentatively-motived, as the French express it so much more neatly-and the principal objections that either have, or might have, been opposed to their application, considered with especial reference to our system, and (we submit) confuted. There seems to remain but that we set in juxtaposition a sketch of this system, to render the simplest of our readers a comparatively intelligent commentator upon this complex and occult subject.

Viewed in respect of territorial jurisdiction, the Law Judicature of the State of New York, is at present divided into three or four classes. 1. The Supreme Court, whose jurisdiction is coextensive with the State. 2. The Circuit Courts; which, in the feudal theory, are but the Supreme Court making, for the public convenience, a tour of Justice, (so to speak,) and, in this migratory quality, restricting its cognizance as to the nature of the subject matter, to questions of fact as to the extent of jurisdiction, to certain districts denominated Circuits. 3. The county judicatories, limited by the county; and 4. The Justices, who "hold forth" in the lowest political subdivisions, called Towns.

The number of the judges in this State is of the first class, three; of the second, eight; of the third, about two hundred and eighty-three-five to the county, (New York excepted,) being the constitutional contingent. As to the justices, we must say, with the advertisements, they are too numerous to mention;" being as plentiful in the country as pumpkins or militia colonels.

These various judicatories are again distinguished, by a sort of cross-division, into Civil and Criminal; according to the nature of the complaint or to the party complaining. But except in matters of mere form, and the change of name into "Court of Oyer and Terminer," or "Sessions," the demarkation is faint or vague, in the inferior tribunals, and disappears entirely in the Supreme Court—a practical proof, by the way, of its essential futility.

The sectional jurisdictions are strictly impassable, unless by permission of the Supreme Court, which is termed "changing the venue" and the permission is granted only in a few cases, and upon

conditions which leave the privilege comparatively worthless.

The judges are elected by the Governor and Senate conjointly, and for various periods. Those of the first and second order permanently, until the age of sixty years; the County Judges for five, and the Justices, who are elected by the towns, for four years. All are amovable, in the mean time, by the same electoral authority; only through the different processes (according to the nature of the delinquencies) of Executive motion, or Legislative impeach

ment.

There is no special qualification of ineligibility on the ground of youth. No principle of promotion, and scarce a chance-the "active" and unscrupulous partisan being generally preferred before the ex-judge, however honest, efficient, experienced, whose office had for some time removed him from the field of political desert, by imposing upon him at least an exterior of decency and principle.

The salaries are, to the Judges of the Supreme Court, $2,500 each, per annum ; to the Circuit Judges, $1,600 each. The County Judges are paid $2 for each day they actually attend at the Court, whether of the County or Oyer and Terminer. All are allowed besides to exact fees, &c., on the proceeds of which, of course, they have principally to depend for compensation,

With respect to the appellate Judicatories-the "Courts lawyer"-we have just as many as there are tribunals of immediate resort; the Court of Errors, which has no original jurisdiction, canceling the Justice Courts which, of course, have no appellate. For, as the metaphysicians have failed to conceive a stick without two ends, so the lawyers, it seems, with all their reputed subtlety, have been unable to convert these lowest tribunals, like the rest, to the correction of errors, where there was no "court below" to commit them:-appeal, alas! like all else of human contrivance, being subject to the conditions of a beginning and an end. But a great aggravation of the mischief is that these jurisdictions are successive and subordinate.

By comparing this analysis of the system to be reformed or reorganized, article by article, with the previous rules, it will be found to deviate from principle in almost every particular. Having thus brought the various defects with the utmost precision within the reach of easy, of obvious inference, and prepared for each

its appropriate remedy, the application should have been committed to our readers, as a most instructive exercise, even were we unurged by the necessity of drawing to a close. And if we, too, like others, still subjoin our plan of reform, it is meant rather for the convenience of comparison, a sort of popular praxis, than as a project which there is any design or desire to urge upon the adoption of the future Convention, however happy we should be, for the sake of our State and through her the country's generally, that the suggestions submitted had engaged its attention, as we do not at all blush to believe they deserve it.

Before advancing our own plan-which will complete the scheme of this paperwe should like to give a respectful conIsideration to those which have been published, we understand, by others, from time to time, upon the subject; but our limits are inexorable. There is one, however, which cannot, perhaps, be thus dismissed consistently with duty, or at least with decency; we allude to the Report of the Committee of Judiciary Reform, made in 1837, by order of the Senate of this State. It must be important to our purpose to avert any confliction, as well as to avail ourselves of any concurrence, of views with a project put forth under the twofold sanction of official authorization combined with professional eminence and experience.

This Commission, composed of Messrs. Cady, Sutherland, and Oakley, (of the Superior Court of this City,) propose the following in reference to the division of the Judiciary under our consideration. We give it in their own words:

"Ist. It is proposed to add two judges to the Supreme Court.

"2d. To leave the Circuit Court system as it now stands.

"3d. To organize the counties of the State into Common Pleas Districts, of a convenient number of counties, and to appoint a presiding Judge for the Court of Common Pleas and the General Sessions of the peace for each district; whose duty it shall be to preside in the Courts of Common Pleas and the General Sessions of the peace of the (several) counties belonging to his district."

This has one merit at least-it is short; but it is also not free from a common incident of this quality-it is obscure. Not to criticise the loose and scarcely proper phraseology of the third article, it gives no intimation whether or not the

actual system of Common Pleas and General Sessions was to undergo any modifications, as to the number of Judges, time and place of holding terms, &c., in consequence of the superaddition of the District Judge and jurisdiction. The bill, indeed, whicn accompanies the report, supplies this omission, (in part, inferentially,) by overstepping a little its proper basis. These things should be conceived and enunciated with some definiteness and skill. They are matters of form to be sure; but form, our law framers ought to begin to know, is sometimes the veritable substance.

However, reduce the terms, as the bill suggests, and to even the lowest possible number, how is an individual Judge to preside (unless by mesmeric presence) in the several Courts both of Common Pleas and General Sessions of his district, supposing the plurality of counties in each district to be at all considerable? And if the number be small enough to bring the presidence in question within the limits of practicability, we are placed on the other horn, of multiplying Judges (that is to say salaries) already deemed too numerous; and, moreover, in a department for which the committee itself informs us there is little or nothing to do in the existing establishment.

"But to get it something to do is our very purpose," say the committee: "we design to retain in the County Courts much of the business now carried up to the Supreme Court; and this we expect to accomplish by elevating the character of the local tribunals, through the District system." Very well!-(though the object appears to be merely professional and the means rather cumbrous and costly,)— in the first place, this arrangement will of course, according to the hypothesis, proportionably diminish the business of the Supreme Court. Accordingly a reduction of the Judges of this tribunal would, consistently, be a part of the Committee's plan. At least they ought to be content with the present. On the contrary of all this, they propose an addition of two more!

Again, we are told by the Committee that the County Courts in the country are at present nearly deserted-chiefly in consequence of their incapacity. There can be here, then, no pretext, on the ground of business, for retaining several Judges to each Court; and that they do not serve to bring it ability or public respect is asserted by the Committee's own