, 1870-12-17
Law REFORM TN 1I.I1WnYu

a :" Ao6Auo- an eminent Eugllsl
oar17stet, on visit to this city, spent sev
ernl days in our Law Institute, with th,
view of ascertaining, from the decision
ind Textbooks, the progress which h.t
been made in this direction In Illinois, AMI
confessed his utter surprise to find that ".
had not even begun the work; we were re-
tanning numerous subtle, obscure, ant
Wholly needless "hctions Of law and 9th
er lmpediments to Justice which had bee,
swept away ten or twenty years age
IN England. It seemed to him Al
anomaly that, eonjoined with tht
most progressive constitution ever formed
Tor any State or county, We should rst.ir
the most antiqoated, unartistlc, aud cum
brous system Of administering the reme.
dies which it is the object Of all law to se-
cure.
Our correspondent assumes, without any
sufficient data, that majority Of the law.
,eFs OF Illinois desire no change in this re.
| epeet, and eTen asserts that the leading
lawyers Of New York and other Statas do
not Ike their simpliaed syatem Of practice,
The fact that no State has ever returned
from the new practices 10 the old, OF eyen
seriously proposed to do so, sufficiently
controVerts the latter statement, No vota
having ever been taken among the lawyers
Of Illinois on tha point, it ia Impos sibls
that the limited acquaintance of any single
lawyer would enable him to shed
much light on a question involving
the views of 30 many to whom he WAS a
strangeT. When this subject was moved in
the recent Constitutional Convention, it
was not found that the adherence to the
| present system WIS 80 inveterate as our
correspondent supposes, On the contrary,
the convention came within one or two
votes Of taking up :he subject for it's own
action, and YES only deferred from doing
TO by the argument, that the whole subject
would be entirely within the ordinary
powers Of q Legislature, and that, as one
| class of Judges already exercised both law
and equity powers, there would bs no need
of any constitutional action here, as there
had been in England, in New York, and
elsewhere. To borrow the slightly ngram-
1natical averment Of our Lawyer, :" " What
>"io "oA+o ~ ooAa Aosl Heeos u 1acta,
md it is merely fancy that the majority
Of the lawyers Of Illinois want the system
Of practice as obscure Is Rufus Choate'a
three haudwritings, one of which could he
only read by himself and his clerk, an
other only by his clerk, and the third.nei-
ther his clerk nor b,msa1f con1d raaa Tha
ru1es and modes of nrac,;ce ac.or5;r, ~
Ch;,tv. m;cbt IN liza ,,,ro.- 10 a;r;aes
INTO those Th;cb tho lawera con,nrshsnd
and the eliepta do mt tbose ,rb;ch .bs
Jn1pes con,nyehand ana tha ,ow~sa a. H.
not md thoae which mt eran NJ cb;tt1
himself erer connrabendad ba;no o. ~
trinsiea1lv vaona nnsn,,s, snt;s1 ~ +aohn;
| cal as 10 rasa the limits NJ c1aar com nrsh.n-
| s;b;1;.v hr a,v huvu,,, IND ha,~a~a- 49,.
ID 1on;csl 1e.rn.a ~ en,,,ia o' '''''1@
our coresnonaent dan;ao }ba +rr+b ,f
mn, def,n;t;on ~ tha 5nharan+ .,d fr,s.
mental i7;s,;nc+;on hatuesn 1avena oon;tr
viz.. That The lar rsc.ras Va 49, ~
the rights that orox mt of II vh;ia aon;,s
seeka to cnard tha fntnra and tha -inht,
that prow ont of it.r He eava verv raa5,lr.
"Thas Ia not at I'll true a. proposition. Nlne-
q :; ~ On 1hs se q
future, Bills t. redeem. bills 10 impcach = Re,
nona or a1 f a Ell H. Pns1 s,
Aproceedins at law"
o1r lawyer IS not vel! mp in the theory
OF the os'g'n OF "bills to redeem" They
originate IN common law theory (slnee
superseded through the influence OF courts
OF equts}, that the mortgage constituted
| CONVEYANCE