Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-05-07
LAW REFORMS.

LAW RETURNS.
The State Bar Association is showing
some real energy in the matter of legal re-
forms This is commemorate. The lawyers
owe 1t to the people of the State to devote
their best energies to the correction of the
ills Of practice and statutes that now make
it next 10 impossible to clear the docket of
the Sapreme Court, and that make appeals
taken to that tribunal very often heritages
for coming generations. The Court is not
to blame; it has cleared off in the last
year over eight hundred cases, and has
been as diligent worker as any one could
demand, in reason.
Several remedies were proposed at the
recent meeting of the Bar Association
and a prominent one is the amendment of
the Constitution so as to permit of the
creation of Court of Appeals, to have
appellate jurisdiction in ali cases where
not more than 81 600 value of property is
involved. Another, is to increase the num-
Der of Justices of the Supreme Bench, and
divide them into three Courts, with districts,
of which Sacramento, Los Angeles and San
Francisco shall be the seats. 1t is not vet
sufficiently disclosed what the operation
and results of these plans would be in the
opinion of the lawyers to justify lay ex-
preston concerning the wisdom of either
We are convinced of one thing that the
practice can be SO modified that much use
less litigation will be kept away from the
Appellate Court.
One member of the Bar Association has
said that in the revision of the laws there
should be emphatic declaration that no
woman shall be recognized as widow who
was never married, and no woman deemed
wife who has not at the altar, either
civil or religious, been solemnly married,
and the fact duly authenticated and pub
licly declared. This expression is the
keynote for a great reform at the start.
The methods in vogue in this State at
present, by which so-called marriage rela.
tions are assumed, are nothing less than
scandalous, and shame and disgrace to
the people of the State No person should
be allowed to assume the marital relation
who does not do so with the initiative of
ceremony of marriage in the presence of
official witnesses, and after due authorize
ton, declaration, and a record made of
the proceeding. All this business of un-
written contract marriages is wrong.
There is need also for radical reformation
In the divorce laws, not perhaps to narrow
the range of causes, but to so provide that
collision will be next to impossible, and
when discovered punishable as felony.
The looseness of our present system is
scarcely less scandalous than the ease and
nonchalance with which the marriage rela-
ton is assumed-we might say prostituted.
There is a broad field for reform in the
matter Of pleadings, and also in the adj
mission of applicants to the bar. The
great number of characterless men who
a noble profession, one that ought to be
esteemed as in the forefront of civiliza.
ton. The entertainment and doing of
justice should engage the abilities of men
only who have been admitted to practice
because of native ability, high character,
learning and studious habit II, under our
present system, disbarment we're practicable
and it would be If not so unfortunately
tangled with ceremonial and false ideas of
legal ethics-a surprising number of men
now practicing at the bar would be set
adrift to earn their living by their wits, or
in useful labor.
The President of the Association referred
to had the frankness to say that some of
the most important rights of the people
are now dependent upon State laws about
which there is so much uncertainty that
the ablest lawyers in the State cannot give
a positive opinion. He was not checked
by any Of the eminent counsel present, and
we must assume, therefore, that his charge
is true. 1t is therefore shameful that it is
true, and it is chargesble to the members
of the bar in largest part that reform of
the evil has not earlier been put on foot
The President said to the meeting Of the
Association that the layman could not
suggest remedies for the defects IN our sys-
TEN of laws. In sense this may be true,
but the layman, even sooner than the law
yer, realizes the ills the defects produce,
and earlier than the lawyer demands,
and very frequently, too, he has suggested
the true remedy.
The Association is to meet again in Au-
gust, to again consider this matter of
reform of the legal system. Let us hope
that in the meantime the members of the
bar will be bold to point out through the
press what they conceive are the chief ills
under which the system labors, that the
people at large may become intelligent
upon the subject. When the Association
again assemblies it should lay out its work
system atically, and get it in such shape
that plans can be presented to the next
Legislature that will be accepted by law
yers and laymen generally as feasible and
wise, looking to the changes that will dis
courage litigation, hasten decisions, put an
end TO delays in appealed cases, reform the