The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1927-12-29
BY
MARK S. WATSON
In
The Baltimore Sun


robes of Office and get to the race
track before the first race was called.
In these days when the bench is re-
garded as the eventual reward for
merit at the bar, it is entertaining to
recall that no such relationship exist
ed in the old days. The jurists We're
not the leaders of the legal profes-
sion. Indeed they rarely were law
years at all. The lawyer existed to do
the work, the judge as sensible lay
man to see whether the work meant
anything, and, if so, what.
And in this Maryland was not at all
unique. Vide New York States high
Court of Appeals as late as 1840-the
State Senate. And, this day, appeals
in England are taken to the House of
Lords. And keep in mind the judges
of our own Orphans Court. 1t was
special statutes of the Assembly which
made membership in the bar require
ment for the General Court and the
Court of Appeals.
What sort of cases did the old courts
handle? Well, very much the same
as were handled in the days of Ham
murabi and by the courts of 1927.
There were not so many violations of
law, of course, partly because there
were not so many people to sin and
partly because there were not so many
laws to be sinned against, the Colonial
General Assembly being mere novice
in those days. But people were very
much the same, with like grievances
and like ambitions and like passions,
and if lawyers were not then so ingen-
ious at the devising of lawsuits for
themselves to prosecute they made
rapid progress.
And so the ancient docket of judg-
ments of the Provincial Court of 1868
contains notations which might pretty
we'll be set down at a 1927 hearing.
The opinions are not found so early,
the first recorded being of General
Court case in 1881. Were earlier opin-
ions lost? Probably not. Probably
these were the first written at Annap-
oils, for, the old courts being made up
of horse-racing landowners no one
seems to have thought the actual Ian
guage of their opinions worth record
ing. AS civilization grew more COM
pick and cases more numerous it be-
came apparent that position estab-
lished in one case ought to be main
tanned in another case of like nature.
And as memories or an oral statement
vary sadly, the written statement was
naturally evolved.
A few years ago the Appeals Courts
classification of these ancient papers
was nil. A retired Baltimore lawyer
(who modestly remained anonymous)
saw chance to make an intended gift
to Johns Hopkins University and do
the State of Maryland a needed favor
and perform valuable act for histor-
ians generally, all with the same
stroke. He gave to the history de-
partment of Hopkins a fund sufficient
to have the heterogeneous pile of man.
uscripts in the cellars at Annapolis
put insomething resembling order. The
work was done by serious student
cooperating with Chief Judge Bond,
who probably to this day knows more
of what is in this rich treasure house
than any other person and appreciates
it more.
Not all the manuscripts were open
ed, for this, as has been explained,
would mean the destruction of many
of them. But so far as possible they
were assorted and placed in categories,
and these reassorted and placed in
chronological order. When the time
comes for detailed examination by a
corps of competent scholars this vital
work will have been done.
Thus we have in separate lots, and
every parcel of each of these lots clas-
sifed and put in proper sequence these
categories:
Provincial Court-Alphabet to judg-
ments, dockets for court of both East
ern and Western Shores. Minute
books (dates from 1868 to 1778, thus
including the transformation to the
General Court.)
General Court-Fee books. Judg-
ments and DEGREES and other proceed
ing. Arguments and opinions. Cost
books. Dockets, minute books, day
books. "Judicials." Jurors attend
ance records.
Court of Acknowledgements and
DEGREES for 1906 on. Transcripts of rec
ords dating back ito 1903. Record of
oral arguments and opinions back to
1903, judgments, minute books, etc.
This same cataloguer isolated some
miscellaneous exhibits of perhaps a
livelier interest to students, such as
notes on the old Chancery Court which
was extinguished in 1852, a compila-
ton of laws and rules governing the
Maryland court system, collection of