The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1897-04-23


Georgia .......1 4, S37,3 53 26 $1,000
Tennessee. .....1, 767,5lS 46 123,0O0
Georgia, with larger population and
more wealth than Tennessee, pays
sos, 900 year less in the way of judicial
salaries, while North Carolina, with
little less population, pays SIC, $50 less.
Yea, If our figures and information are
correct, the unfortunate taxpayers of
Tennessee, under the separate law and
equity system, are forced every year to
pay judicial salaries exceeding the COM
bined amounts paid for the same pur-
pose by the people of both the States of
Georgia and North Carolina, by the neat
sum of $2l, $50, an amount nearly equal
the alleged expense of the constitutional
convention OF 1876.
A constitutional change abolishing
the separate courts of law and equity
would not only save about $4,000 per
annum in judicial salaries under proper
legislation, but it would relieve the
people from the burden of supporting
one extra clerk in each of the ninety
six counties, az there would be no need
for both clerk and master and Circuit
Court clerk, for the court which would
combine the jurisdiction now separately
exercised by the Circuit and Chancery
Courts.
In fact the clerk of the Superior Court
in each county in Georgia, being ex-
ofiicio register of deeds, performs and
combines in himself, under the re-
formed procedure, the functions of three
of the most expensive and important
county offices in Tennessee viz: chan
Gerry clerk, circuit clerk and county reg
lister.
There is difference of opinion as to
whether the new court of Chancery
Appeals, which has fastened an addi-
tional burden of $40, 500 per annum on
the shoulders OF the taxpayers, is q
necessity, even under the present re-
CINE, and certainly it would not be
necessary under a new constitu ton
which would fix the sittings of the Su-
preme Court at one place, and allow the
establishment of modern, improved
and simplifed system of courts and
court procedure. IL seems to be the
general opinion OF our best informed
lawyers:
1. That the Supreme Court should sit
at the capital only.
.. That the county court, which is
enormously expensive and cumbersome,
and which is fixed in the constitution,
should be abolished.
3. That separate courts of law and
chancery should be blended into one.
None OF these things can be done
without new or amended constitution,
and they are all of great and increasing
Importance. With judicial salary list
amounting to S12S,OOO yearly, which is
being biennially increased by nearly
every legislature, and which is more
than double the amount paid for the
same purpose by our adjacent state o.
greater wealth and population, it is Ger
tainly high time to take steps in the di
rection of constitutional and radical re-
form in our judicial system.
II the government of Tennessee is t.
be hereafter administered in the inter
est of the people who pay the taxes ant
bear the burdens of government, then {
new constitution is greatly needed. If
on the other hand the state govern
ment lie to be continued FOR the sole ant
peculiar benefit of those who consume
the taxes and thrive and fatten at tn,
public crib, then indeed may the situa
ton under the existing state charter
be considered highly and completely
satisfactory. JOHN Il. cANTRELL-