Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-05-01
TOO MUCH VERB0SITY
The Bar Association Proposes to See
fit Cannot be Curtailed.
USELESS WORDS ARE PILING UP.
Lawyers Say There is No End and Storage
Room Getting Scarce.
SUPREME COURT MAY TEST A CASE

A very important movement has been pro-
jected by the Bar Association, but the a1
torneys are keeping quiet about 1t. Line
scheme is an effort to slough off that great
mass of stupidity found in deeds, mortgages,
etc.. such as "all the right, title. interest and
claim of, in and to of John Smith to GER
tain," etc, and get down to nineteenth
century solid business sense. A report is to
be made by a committee at the meeting OF
the association on Saturday.
An idea of the importance of the work
will be had by considering that the county
records are now encountered by carload of
useless paper covered by verbiage.
CUMBERSOME VOLUMES IN THE WAY.
The paper cannot even be sent to the mill
to be ground over, as the records are of i'm
portance, and a vast amount Of room is
necessary to store them. They cannot be
dumped into vault, for they are necessary
to consult daily, and the number OF racks
necessary to contain them suggests that
owing to the number of financial operations
nowadays, and the probability that they
will continue to grow, the entire Court
House will be necessary to hold them be-
fore the end of another half century. This
verbiage is also an expensive relic of the
olden time. as an army OF transcribers
is necessary to keep the records
in shape. It is also necessary
to retranscribe them at least
once in a century, unless better paper and
indelible ink be used. A considerable num-
Der of copyists have been at work for months
rewriting the records made previous to A.
d. 1900. When it is understood that the
records of several years after the borough OF
Pittsburg was incorporated were contained
in a single book, and that at present the
record of a single days transfers and mort
cages might fill a volume, the importance Of
brevity will be understood at glance.
THE GREED OF CoNvEYANCERs.
1t is not the work of writing deed of
which lawyers complain, for that is small
matter-merelv the filling out of blanks
but nearly all of the members OF the profess
sion are getting tired of perpetuating Gus
tom that grew originally out of the greed of
conveyancers. At one time in England
conveyancing was a separate department of
law, and the scriveners were paid
by the word or line for their work.
Nowadays, however, lawyers charge fixed
fee, and get as much for filling out ten
line instrument as they do for one Of 1, 900
lines. In some of the Western States an en-
tire deed is scarcely as long as the granting
clause in one of the Pennsylvania variety.
While good lawyers generally may ad-
init that there should be reform in this
matter, there are some who would make the
change very carefully and for good reason.
This view is set forth by Judge Fetterman
and j. L. Black. It is that there has been
so much litigation during centuries, that
NOT on1u avarv MIRAGE hut word and even
syllable has been settled by judicial ruling.
and if the form be followed and the grantor
be competent to grant, even the gates of
perdition cannot prevail against the convey
ance. Judge Fetterman suggests that II
the change is to be made, that test case
should be gotten UP and have the Supreme
Court pass on it,