Stevens County tribune. (Morris, Minn.) 1877-1880, 1880-04-01
MIR. EDITOR.

MR. EDITOR.
In your review of my letter published in
issue before last of the Tribune, you say
that you are at q loss to understand whence
comes the authority for the assertion that
the New York Code recognizes no change
of venue, and that it is an innovation in
our practice dating back only to 1877" OF
course you did not understand me, Mr..
Editor, to say that changes Of venue were
unknown to the New York Code. / said
that changes such as are provided for by
the law of 1877 are unknown, that is, the
place of residence Of the Defendant was
not, in transitory actions, designated as the
locus where the suit mast be tried. The
New York Code was and is (unless it has
been changed by the new code and proceed
ure passed last winter or the winter beforc)
precisely like our compiled statutes of 1866.
1t is so given in Waite's Practice Vol. l.
D 181 ct seq. You will see that after pro-
viding where certain local actions, such as
actions to recover real property, or against
public officers &c. shall be tried, it is pro-
vided just as our statute provided before
this amendment, that all other actions shall
be tried in the county in which the Parties
or any of them reside, not. you will observe,
where the defendant resides. See Vol l
Waites practice p 1874. The innovation that
was made in cur law in 1877 consisted in
providing that all actions, except local ones,
should be tried where the defendant resid-
ed. BY reference also to 2 Waite p 623 you
will have this view confirmed, for it pro-
vides how the change may be effected. 1t
admits that the plaintiff can try his suit
where he resides, subject to the power of
the court to change it, when such a change
is necessary for the convenience of wit
nesses, or for fair trial. That of course
was always the rule both here and there.
(See General Statutes 1867 The parties,
either plaintiff or defendant, could always
obtain change upon these grounds. But
our amend ment of 1877 gives the plaintiff
no election, and lays aside all question of
the convenience of witnesses, and makes
the action triable at all events where the
defendant resides Such, Mr.. Editor, is
the purview of the law of 1877 referred to in
my former letter.
But now, in your last issue, comes the
venerable father of the profession in Nor
ris, with few sensentious and characteris-
tic phrases, briefly to criticise your critic"
Stripped of its redundant verbiage, there
are but two points in the ESQ called critique
worthy of notice. The first is the brilliant
simile of the monster dwarf with the arms
of an Octopus. Could any thing so horri-
BILE appear to the counsellor after nights
refreshing slumber, or is it but the vagary
of disordered imagination, when mon
sters start up before the affrighted imagi-
nation of men, tits generally thought that
the services of a physician should be called
into requisition. However that may be,
Mr.. Editor, Ishould not oh ject to the learn
ed counsellor picturing to himself these
"monsters of such frightful mien" had he
not made. in the second place, the unwar-
rantable assertion that | seem to admire
the creature of his own distorted fancy. If
he has actually read the article he sets out
to criticise, the obliquity of his mental
vision 'passeth all understanding. In