The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1853-02-28
rNrycELLENT PROPOSITION.

AN EXCELLENT PRoPosHioN'
The House Of Delegates passed, on friday
, hill with regard TO the Court OF Appeaism
A., Miller, of Bo,etourt, appended to this oa'
ryder to the effect that no counsel sha'i NC
nermit,ed TO speak, in any case, more 'nan W.
hours. without the express assent oil inc oo''1
or,.;nsa before the argument shall have oeea
commenced. This proposition was ca.''ec, QUO
forms a part of the bill. We nope "' y
carried in the Senate, for II VIII DC 'ne "'sa1e
ofcu,,;ng M by the roots great and crying
.v;l Weare only sorry that il was not more
;mnera,iye. and that i, left to the Court the
rowe, 70 hermit longer speech under any
r;..,,a,s,snc.s whatever. We would have the
rule literal and absolute, and we would have
!, literally and absolutely obeyed.
ANY lawyer who cannot, in two hours, say
all he has to say upon any law question, we
care not what it may be, should not be al
lowed to speak at all. Ifull we have heard of
Chief Justice Marfhall be true, he never &C.
cupied that much time in the delivery OF any
argument whatever. 1t is true that we have
no such man nowadays, and ,nat few in any
country, or Of any age, have possessed the
power Of condensation which was such stri.
king feature of his extraordinary mind. 1t is
frce, also, that condensation is one of the most
difficult operations of the human mind, and
one which cannot be effected in hurry. But
il is also true, that those lawyers who practice
in the Court of Appeals have ample time TO
condense their arguments. They are, by no
means, in the same situation with the lawyer
who practices at the bar of the County Court
who is obliged, very frequently, to catch the
question at the first hop, and has no unle 10
concentrate his thoughts.
These long speeches in the Court oil Ap-
peals are disgrace TO the profession, TO the
State. and 10 the age. We have, in our day,
known four lawyers to occupy twentyone
DAYS in the delivery oftheir arguments upon
y single case, speaking, each OF them, four
hours per diem. AS each spoke with the ordi-
nary degree of rapidty, what they said IN that
time would fill folio volume of six hundred
pages. There have been far more protracted
discussions even than that, but that was long
enough to disgust any man with the whole
system of practice as at present pursued in this
State. The worst OF it all is, that every
hours delay costs money to the parties con-
cerned. Besides the heavy fees which they
generally hand over, they ere taxed through
the nose to support this system of loose talk
ing, which has grown into downright disease.
Causes which might have been decided and
ought to have been, twenty years ago, were
few years since, and for aught we know, may
be now on the docket, all owing to the inter-
minable length Of these dsjointed talks, fit
were libel on oratory to call them speeches.
One lawyer gables on for five or six days,
another gables for five or six more, and then
several others must be allowed to gable as
long, and thus two or three weeks are con.
sumed in hearing one cause, while there are
five hundred on the docket, each possessing
the very same inherent right to be gabbled
about as long as the one just talked over, and
the court adjourns. Of all the pointless,
"bald, disjointed chat' that we have ever
heard in our lives, the mostpointless, the bald
est, the most dsjointed we have heard uttered
in the Court of Appeals.
This everlasting talk is bad enough in Con.
gress, and in the Legislature. But there no.
body, in particular, uffers, ana the people can
apply the remedy, if they think proper, by
turning out the offenders. But here, the case
is altogether different. The people have no
hold on the lawyers, while their long-winded
talk is annually inficting injuries upon thou
sands by the delay of justice it creates. The
large majority ofpersons, we have no doubt,
would give up a moderate sum of money,
sooner than 60 to the Court of Appeals for it.
The case is carried there, it fingers on the
docket for, probably, ten years, it is then re.
nanded to the court out of which it came, the
witnesses, in all probability, are dead, and the
man is defrauded of his just claim. We have
heard of such things in our day, and we have
not the smallest doubt that they happen every
year.
This is talking age, and it is getting more
and more loquacious every year. Even in
England, the means of putting a stop to the
long speeches in the courts formed the subject
ola Parliamentary enquiry few years since
with what result we know not. If were moi
for the one hour rule in the House of Repre-.
sentatives, no business at all would be done.
We pray for the passage of this bill with the
ryder. Should it pass, we shall move to have
Mr.. Miller's statue put in the room of the
Court of Appeals, and his bust in every court.
house in Virginia.