Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1884-03-29
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sAruRpAY rvnNrno, MAR, ae, 1884.
A Divided Canrt.


It is not likely that the judges Of our
court, as at present constituted, will
ever arraIgn anybody before them for
contempt for 1t Is questionable If any
one will ever make such an exhibition of
contempt Of them and their jurisdiction
as they seem tn take delight In publicly
and privately avowing that they feel for
each other. Within the present week
Judge Livingston has taken occasion to
publicly charge his associate with falsi-
Tying the record and to threaten him
with disclosures which presumably he
means to intimate would scandalize
him while Judge Patterson bas filed an
opinion In which he charges that the
effect Of Judge Livingston's prescription
OF an affidavit to the liquor sellers Is to
promote perjury, unless the oath Is 80
extra judicial that to take IL falsely
would not be perjury. This recent out
break of hostilities, or rather culmina.
tion OF them in public exhibition Of
judicial in6rmitics, is only the expression
OF a condition of things that has prevail
cd between them for years and which
has been the scandal Of the profession
and a source Of deep modification to the
members Of the bar who would prefer
for everything that makes for the honor
Of the law that the differences of the
judges should not be paraded in full
view Of the public.
BY reason Of these unhappy differences
the bar here is practically deprived of the
benefit of court in bdnc, the judges
seldom conferring and the lawyers and
their clients never getting anything
more than the opinion of the one or the
other of the Judges who happens TO write
1t and the one who don't is never hap
pier, it seems, than when his brother
scores another reversal by the supreme
court. When there is a dispute as to
which one is entitled to decide the case
and write the opinion, as in the Ephrata
church case, and the assent of both is
requisite to decree and neither will
yield, the processes OF the law are ex-
hausted, the objects for which courts are
created are defeated and litigauts are
cheated out of their rights by the stub
bornness Of the men. In the particular
case, which has made 50 much bad blood
between our judges, II is idle any longer
to indulge in Iecrimination as to their
proportionate share Of responsibility.
Judge Patterson may or may not be
right in his claim that, having been first
given the case TO decide, he should have
oil 70 ma 10 In ~ 70
Judge Livingston may or may not be
right in Lis charge that Judge Patterson
changed the decision Of the case agreed
upon in their conference ut the instance
of outsiders {; Judge Patterson may o
may not be reasonable In his offer to cal
in ueighboring Judge to decide tn,
issue; Judge Livingston may or ma!
not be arbitrary In insisting that Judg,
Patterson should yield. Both are meas
urably wrong in maintaining the dead,
lock, which either can with entire dignit,
break, by allowing decree to be entered
for the sake of final judgment, ever
against his own judgment--as create
judges have done before them and re-
Cained the entire respect of the bar anC
the community, who always admire rsa
judicial qualities.
II is said thai when two goats meet
on pathway 700 narrow for more than
one to travel over, the polite and mag
unanimous goat lies down and lets the
other walk over him. When neither
goat Is polite nor msgnanimDus they
stand there and look at each other until
they have become objects of ridcule,
aud then both have to take the back
track.