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There are probably no more inconsistencies in the law than there are differences of opinion as to what is right between man and man, in complicated transactions. It would hardly be a safe rule that permitted courts to decide all controversies before them according to the court's idea of right, and without any regard for established precedents.

It is related of Lord Chancellor Bacon that when about to swear in a magistrate on a certain occasion, he gave to the magistrate this advice: "Look to your books for the law, and not to your brain."

Lord Bacon departed this life nearly three hundred years ago; law books have multiplied most wonderfully with each succeeding generation; it is the boast of the age that the world has reached the highest state of civilization, of wisdom, and of learning to which it has ever attained; and yet were the great Lord Chancellor to return to earth there would be no good reason why he should retract or amend that admirable advice.

Is it not true that those most learned in the principles of law are most conservative and most cautious in suggesting innovations, and that none are so ready to favor radical changes as those who are least capable of advising wisely and well?

Whatever may be its imperfections, law as laid down in the authorities represents the accumulated wisdom of the ages, and yet precedents, while recognized in the courts, are not followed indiscriminately, promiscuously or incautiously.

According to Lord Talbot, it is much better to stick to the known general rules, than to follow any one particular precedent, which may be founded on reason unknown to us. Cas. Temp. Talbot, 26.

Blackstone, 1st Com., page 70, says: That a former decision is in general to be followed "unless manifestly absurd or unjust."

"To render precedents valid they must be founded in reason and justice." Hobart's Reports, 270.

Under the word "precedent," in Bouvier's law dictionary, we find that "precedents can only be useful when they show that

the case has been decided upon a certain principle, and ought not to be binding when contrary to such principle. If a precedent is to be followed because it is a precedent, even when decided against an established rule of law, there can be no possible correction of abuses."

So we see that the law of precedent by no means deprives courts of the power or the right to exercise reason and common

sense.

Again, as to the value of precedents: "It is an established rule to abide by former precedents, which are not evidently against reason or the divine law, where the same points come again in litigation; and this is in order to keep the law steady, and not liable to waver with every new judge's opinion. For where the law is uncertain, the people are slaves to the judges, depending for everything they are permitted to enjoy upon their whims and caprices, their enmities or good liking." Clayton's Jus. 246, 247.

There are so many kinds of lawyers and they are so constantly and promiscuously discussed by the public, that I will not undertake to give you my idea of public opinion concerning them.

Our loquacious Mr. Layman says, that the estimation placed upon the profession in each community is more than apt to be such an estimate as the conduct of the bar of that particular community warrants. He says that lawyers differ as much in their ideas of professional ethics as they do in their knowledge of law and strength at the bar.

There are some people who regard a lawyer as only a means to an end; one engaged in the business of helping schemers and rascals to enforce their schemes through the courts. Well, we know that men are very much inclined to measure other people by their own yardsticks.

Passing many who occupy the middle ground, and who regard lawyers as being no worse and no better than they ought to be, there are those who think lawyers useful men in their respective communities-men who stand for what is good and noble, and true sentinels, standing upon the watch-tower, helping to guard the rights, the interests and the liberties of the people.

men.

In a certain sense of the word lawyers, as a class, are good I verily believe that there is less jealousy, less envy and less picayunish rivalry among them than among the members of any other craft, guild, profession or league.

(One advantage in having a Bar Association is that we can get together and boost ourselves when others fail to do it for us.)

But whatever the public may think of the law and the lawyers-whatever it may think of the technicalities, the uncertainties, the delays or the mysteries of the law, it is delightful, aye, it is beautiful, to behold the almost unanimous verdict with which it declares its confidence in the integrity of the judiciary.

There is never a suggestion, nor an intimation-it seems not even a suspicion that there is the least dishonesty among the men who preside over our courts. There are those who will proclaim on the streets that the courts commit error; there are those who assert that the courts are inconsistent, and of course there is occasionally a disgruntled fellow who will curse the presiding judge (behind his back), and declare that the judge was partial and unfair, but never in my life did I hear a judge of any court in Georgia charged with having sold justice.

I have referred previously to Lord Chancellor Bacon, and in this connection I would say, that when we consider that one so great and so learned-one so "able on the woolsack and at the council board"--one of such "minuteness of observation and amplitude of comprehension"-one whose mind is described by Macaulay as resembling the wonderful tent which Paribanou, the fairy in "Arabian Nights," gave to prince Ahmed-"fold it and it seemed a toy for the hand of a lady; spread it and the armies of powerful sultans might repose beneath its shade"-Bacon, the Moses and almost the Joshua of philosophy-when we consider, I say, that a man so great and in many respects so noble and so good, could have sold justice in England, and when we consider the power, the prestige, the importance and the convenience of money in this day of luxury and display, of financial combinations and plutocratic power-when we consider all of this and then see the high plane of honor and integrity occupied

by our judiciary so unanimously and so long, it becomes remarkable, even marvelous, to contemplate.

That is only as it should be. A gentleman regards it no special compliment to say of him that he is honest. That fact should be so well established as to require no comment either pro or con. But can so much be said of any other one class of men in all this great country? Paper after paper before this Association has reiterated this thought, but so exceedingly beautiful is it, that it should be continuously and conspicuously proclaimed to encourage all men to emulation.

Lawyers good lawyers-do not desire to play fast and loose with the law; they would not have litigation a game of chance; they would not have judgments and decrees favorable only to the cunning, the artful and the wily; they believe it best for justice to triumph and for law to prevail, and there be none who more gladly than they would paraphrase the song of the Lord Chancellor in the opera, so that it might truthfully read:

The law is the true embodiment

Of everything that's excellent,
You'll find it without fault or flaw,

And the courts of the land embody the law.

APPENDIX S.

Symposium on "Justice Courts, their Jurisdiction, Practice and the Review and Enforcement of their JudgmentsWherein Defective?"

(A) DEFECTS IN JUSTICE COURT PRACTICE.

PAPER BY ALBERT H. RUSSELL, OF BAINBridge.

When requested to prepare a short paper on the subject of defects in justice court practice, I felt that the defects were so numerous and so grievous, that I would have more difficulty in determining what to leave out than what to put in such a paper. But more careful investigation of the subject has caused me to change my opinion. While I think the law in regard to reviewing the judgments of these courts should be changed in some respects, to which I will later call attention, yet so far as the practice in the justice court is concerned, I have found no defect that I could remedy, no change that I would make. That practice was well called by Judge Bleckley (62 Ga. 683) "the ne plus ultra of judicial simplicity," and I would do nothing to change this judicial simplicity to judicial complexity, or judicial confusion. In my judgment the remedy for all defects, real or fancied, is to have these courts presided over by honest and intelligent men, men with brain enough to know that "J. P.” does not always mean "judgment for the plaintiff," and who will decide cases without regard to the question of costs.

It has been my observation that as a rule the notaries public and ex-officio justices of the peace are better and more intelligent men than the justices of the peace, and the only reason I can

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