The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1889-02-21
LAWS DELAYS.

In its administration, the law has
an important part Of the worlds
work to do. Is it doing that work
on those business principles-direct-
ness, promptness, eflicicncy-which
men exact in the management Of
their private concerns, aud on which
they are insisting more and more in
public affairs? Is legal procedure
keeping pace in its improvement
with other branches OF The worlds
work? 1t is true these questions
were discussed at the bar of public
opinion. Hitherto they have been
left entirely to the lawyers who are
part of tue thing to be reformed"
and the only outsiders" who have
taken hold of the subject, are Jack
Cade and Judge Lynch, whose
remedy for inefficient law is lawless-
ness. The great reforms which
Brougham, Komilley, and Coleridge
have wrought in English jurispru-
dence encountered the steady oppo-
stion of the bench and bar. The
only evidence of sensibility to the
great evil of the laws delay evcreXhi-
bited in any representative gathering
Of lawyers $50 far as can recalD
was the motion of Mr.. David Dude
ley Field at the last meeting of the
mAerican Bar Association for a spe-
cial committee upon this subject. The
professional intellect becomes sub
dued to what it works in like the
dyer's hand. In the work of re-
form it needs stimulus and pres
sure from without. What are the
facts of the case? The most con-
spicuous fact which the people of
this country see in our judicial sys-
TEN from its miry toes in the courts
of pie P0w ire to its king crown in
the Supreme Courts not justice
but the Injustice of Delay. The
sutton who undertakes to enforce a
claim which is contested enters up
a pilgrims progress in which in
Vulnerable obstacles confront him,
and the Slough of Dcspond is in
evitable. Strait is the gate and
narrow (and long) is the way that
| leads to success, and few there be
that find it. The law of civil pro-
cedure seems to be framed and adj
ministered upon the maxim that it
is better for ninety-nine persons to
escape paying demand which
they owe, than that one person
should pay a demand which he
does not owe. Hence it has built
up system of dcfences and checks
which illustrate the strategy of OBJ
strlction in its perfection. The re-
suit is that, unless 4 plaintiff has
strong faith in his "eXpectation of
life or is in situation TO afford the
luxury of an extended litigation he
is driven, either to abandon his
claim altogether or to agree with his
adversary quietly. The case of a de,
PENDANT against whom an unrighteous
demand is asserted is no better. He
would fain have speedy riddancC
of its veXation; but we'll may he
stand aghast at the chronology by
which its slow length will drag along
and buy its peace. If the demand
be just the laws delay invites tn,
defendant to use its processes il
order to obtain an extension of time
In all the instances mentioned, tin
inducements to settle or TO ltigat
are wholly Independent of justice o
injustice of the matter The pro
test there made is not against tn
slow work of the law, but its lony
pauses Of no work, its arrears of un
done work, its insufficient equip
ments for work, its repetitions o
work imperfectly DONE The Cen