The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-03-18
VIRTUES AND VICES OF COURTS-
THEIR ENORMOUS COST.


dustry, flowing steadily and imperceptibly
till the tax-gatherer comes, and then con-
verted into torrent of imprecatiens, was
dug by the present Constitution. The
mighty canal is denOminated the judiciary
system. II lawyers interested in its main
tenance were not the sharpest people-next
after edItors-in the world, courts, save for
the proper trial and punishment of crimi-
nails, would soon cease to exist. They
cost infinitely more than they pay, and il
they had not been handed down to us as
heirlooms, invested with cobwebs of an,
tiquity, the people, long ago, would have
voted the judiciary system an insuffer-
able calamity. There are absolutely
thirty-fve district judges in Texas,
each making law with marvellous rapidity
that makes the soberest barristers' heads
swim. These judges alone cost the people
1922, 500 per annum. Two Of these big
wigged gentlemen are holding courts in the
same county, each costing the plundered
people $1,000 per annum, and each has his
little satellite, in the shape of noisy dis
trict attorney, each costing $2400, and then,
to cap the climax of luxurious superauities,
the Legislature, even now, has created
about half a dozen more of these delec-
table courts, each costing $500. But these
little salaries, amounting, with those of
clerks and sherlffs and bailiffs, to not less
than 1920, 900 per annum, constitute only
small part Of sums really wasted
on civil courts and their adjuncts.
Every case now requires the intervention of
a jury and while one jury is setting" that
a verdict may be ''hatched' there is an
other 'nest- hiding" while lawyers and court
are in torture to find out what sort of an
egg will be laid and whether, if the verdict
do not ''sound in damages" it may not be
both damaged and-unsound. The SER
vices of these twentY-four jurors are worth
to the State two dollars each per diem and
instead of paying this in products of indus
try, they cost each this sum. In other
words there is surely dead loss of three
dollars daily to society for each juryman
while acquiring thirst for Office and idle
ness and whisky. The time of witnesses,
added to this of jurors, makes these incl
dents of a court, sitting ten days, cost more
than one thousand dollars. There are forty
of these costing forty thousand dollars each
term, or eighty thousand dollars, to be
added to the sum of judicial salaries. There
are certainly one thousand lawyers incident
to all these multitudinous courts, Federal
and State, in all the counties of the empire
of Texas. These are the sharpest, if not
always the greatest, most intelligent and
conservative men of the community. They
were educated professionally because of
precocity of one sort or another, moral Ur
intellectual. II their energies were devoted
to practical pursuits, agricultural or me-
chanical, they would add annually to pub
lie wealth at least two thousand five
hundred dollars each; but they add moth
ing and abstract, each, this average sum
from the Golfers of honest toll, and here we
have dead loss to the State of five thou
sand dollars for each disciple of Coke, who,
his virtues and genius, is prac-
tical ''deadbeat" fattening on human fol-
lies, and yet Solomon, in all his glory, was
not arrayed like one of these. The pro-
fession costs the hard-handed producers of
the country one thousand times FIVE thou
sand dollars or the weighty sum of five mil
lions per annum. Somebody must dig it
out of the ground. The lawyers do not,
and it doesn't grow on the trees. Suppose
we add together the items of the States
account against the civil side of the courts.
The sum total of loss to society in dollars
and cents, to say nothing of popular idle
uess begotten by fascinations of COLO
quial excellence expended upon honest
country pumpkins by the loquacious
profession, on the shady side of vii
lage greens, is not less than five mil
lions per annum. When we reflect
that courts and sheri1fs and lawyers of Texas
do not collect, as we are informed, and pay
over to plaintiffs half a million aHnually,
and that it costs the poor, unthinking peo-
pie five millions to get the hatf million,
it seems WRoO strange that the courts and
lawyers and judges are not incontinently
and indiscriminately knocked on the head
1t is simply question of dollars aud cents,
of profit and loss. There is no profit, and
it is all dead loss. We have not mentioned
another little body of satellites that swing
in paler and narrower orbits about the re-
splendent glories of the courts OF record
These lesser judicatories are especially use
full in breeding rows among ignorant peo-
Pile. They have their little shysters and
to maintain a proper degree of
litigious animation in the lower strata of
society, and are especially .benefcent in
towns and cities in stirring up the negroes
aud unlettered foreign populations. OF
these there are perhaps five in each county,
costing each, with their offices and wit
nesses and in idleness substituted for in
iustry, and lawyers and constables, $4,000
per annum--or million and a halt dollars
wrested from the products of
popular toll and used in generating idleness
md vice. Railways enrich, courts and
dleness desolate and impoverish States,
md yet the people and press embrace and
owe and cherish and multiply the one ca
amity and denounce and dread the surest
practical blessing that Gods providence
,ver vouchsafed to man. The more miles !
II railway and fewer courts Texas pays for,
he richer the State, the purer ITS morals. |
he broader its intelligence and more rapid
IS progress. SO true is all this, that many,
cry sensibly, have long believed it were
viso to enact prospective law declaring
hat, after a fixed period, men shall trade |
Ipon honor Then honesty and an honest
anne would make credit illimitable, and
tainless name, from childhood to the grave,
ronld have l;mikless nnnnevei value.