The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-11-07
THE GAME OFLAW
,EecfsnfcaIities Sometimes Delay Jus- tce Twenty Year resident Taft. :, Calls Condition 2 National Dis i grace-Issues. Concealed By
 Legal Etiuuetfe,
tMorris J. Vessel. Exclusive Service

(Morris J.. Vessel. Exclusive Service THE SURVEY Press Bureau.) The courts of the ancient Greeks met in utter darkness lest something In the accused,s appearance should preJudice the judges either for or against him. Twentieth century American courts are sometimes so negligent of the real merits of a case the American Bar Association, they occasionally place 'sthe definite article the in sanctity above the honor of our wives and daughters.''
 The lawyer who made this state ment had in mind the case of a man convicted in western state of das- tard1y crime to whom a new trial was granted because the indictment read against the peace and dignity of state. Instead of "against the peace and dignity of THE state.''
 Some of our courts it is true, do not allow the etiquette of the law to com ceal- the real issues in a case. The and those of California frequently, take a comEnon-sense9 point of View, and the Supreme court Of Oklaholna a least start it's career alright.
 But technicaIities bulk so large in the minds of many of our state jurists CT in a prominent law school that our legal system seems to be govern ed by the sporting theory of jus forgets fe1g; rule he is set o back SO ian many courts.
 What Is the Result?
 The old case of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co. vs. Hill Federal Supreme court son an appeal that enumerated 108t errors, was re- versed by the court .twenty-three years after the original trial, makes the fictitious story of .Jarndyce vs Jarndyce in Bleak House an Ameri- can reality The situation is so grave and widespread as to draw from Pres ident Taft the following statement:
 There is no object upon which I feel so deeply as upon the necessity for reform in the. administration of both civil and criminal law. It is not too much to Say that. the admin istration sof the criminal law in this country is "a disgrace to tour civiliza-
 Actual cases confirm, this opinion:
 l. The .Supremea:C Court of F1orida ceny Because the er. in dictment Charged the evidence showed that the anil
 ?. The South Carolina court set aside a similar conviction because the article actually stolen was not a piano, as the indictment specified. but
 3. The Ohio Supreme court made a significant contribution, too, to legal gave its decision in the case of Good love vs. State. Good1ove was charg- ed with killing a man in a drunken brawI and was convicted. The Su- preme court found when the case was appealed that the evidence did not make clear whether the victims real name was Peter Stucky or Frank Mo Cormick. There was no question of what the man known as Goodlove had done, nor that someone had lost life because of his drunken fury.
 A Federal judge of considerable ex- perience says: We have long since passed the time when it is possible to convict an innocent man; the prob lem which now confronts us is wheth- CT we can convict a guilty man.
 The English System.
 It is not strange that light on Amer fcan legal problems should come from England; for American Jurisprudence its defects as well as it's Virtues-is. essentially English. In fact not un- til 1875 was the English system even as efficient al our own. The adjust ments and changes made in adapting English Jurisprudence and court pro- cedure to the needs of the new coun-| try apparently giving our system an