REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON LIBRARY AND LEGAL LITERATURE. To the Virginia State Bar Association: The Committee on Library and Legal Literature submits the following report: At the last meeting of the Association a resolution was adopted instructing this committee to urge upon the Legislature the importance of having the three public law libraries of the State catalogued and the catalogues printed. The committee took the liberty of disobeying this instruction. Neither the law nor this Association can expect a vain thing; and in view of the fate which befell the various measures emanating from the Association when those measures came up for action before the last General Assembly, it is hardly deemed necessary to offer any apology for this disobedience of instructions. At the last meeting of the Association the committee was not in a position to make even an approximate estimate of the cost of printing the catalogues. It can now be stated that it will cost about $250 to print the catalogue of the Richmond library. This is the only one that it is worth while to print at present. The Wytheville and Staunton libraries are comparatively small; and it is easy for the lawyers who use them to familiarize themselves with their contents in a short time. On the other hand, the main object of printing the Richmond catalogue is not for the Richmond lawyers, but for the rest of the State Bar. Those of Richmond can easily find out by messenger, or possibly by telephone, whether books that they wish to consult are in the library. But those residing out of Richmond can only find out by a personal trip. In these days, when text-books have degenerated into mere ill-digested digests, the country lawyer who wishes to prepare a brief for one of his cases that he has taken to the Court of Appeals, and desires to go to the cases themselves as the first and best evidence of the law, will find such a catalogue of great service. From it he can at once ascertain whether he can find in the library the cases which he intends to insert in his brief, and whether he can use those cases during his argument when his case is called in the Court of Appeals for trial. A new catalogue of the library is greatly needed, and it is very likely that the Court of Appeals would share the expense, if the Association feels that it is not expedient to print the catalogue at its sole cost. Such a catalogue in the offices of the members of the Association would be a valuable and useful addition to the working tools of our profession. Its cost to the Association might perhaps be reduced somewhat by selling them to lawyers not members of this body. The committee regrets to announce that the bill filed with its last report, providing a list of the Acts of Assembly, and simplifying the mode of citing them for the future by requiring the volumes to be numbered consecutively, in addition to having the year of the session placed upon them, did not meet the approval of the General Assembly. Though it passed the House of Delegates, it was defeated in the Senate. If it were not for the fact that so many of the other committees have had a similar experience with their bills, and that we, therefore, have large numbers to sympathize with our misfortunes, we might feel downcast. But we have the consolation of knowing that one of the main objects of our bill has been accomplished. Any member of the Association can now find by referring to the printed proceedings of our last meeting whether his set of Acts of Assembly is complete. We can not hope to carry out the other objects of the bill until a General Assembly is elected which will be more in sympathy with this body than the last one appeared to be. But the last Legislature did not content itself with merely voting the bill down and letting matters remain in statu quo. It showed its disregard of all considerations of convenience and simplicity in our statute laws by amending section 277 of the Code so as to read as follows: "All acts and joint resolutions of a general or public character shall be placed together in the front parts of the Acts of Assembly, with an index to the same, and then be placed charters or private acts, with an index to the same."-See Public Acts of Last Session, pp. 12-13. Without pausing to comment on the rhetorical and graceful style in which this statute is worded, but passing on to a consideration of its merits, we see that the Acts of the last session are divided into public acts and private acts, and that the paging of each is separate. Hence, hereafter in citing Acts of Assembly we must not only follow the old cumbrous way of citing by the year of the session, but we must add the words "Public or "Private to the citation on account of the fact that the paging is separate and not consecutive. This law, therefore, makes matters worse than ever. If the Legislature continues this policy the reference to the act in our briefs will soon be longer than the act itself. A glance at the separate acts will show that the compiler has displayed a commendable originality in his assortment of the statutes into "Public" and "Private." We have vainly endeavored to study out the distinction which existed in his mind between public and private acts, and on which he acted in arranging them. Tradition tells us that when the Council of Nice desired to settle which of the early religious writings were inspired and which were not, they placed them all under a table and besought the Lord that the inspired writings might get upon the table and the spurious ones remain underneath. Some equally philosophical method must have been adopted in the assortment of the statutes. Whether it was as successful in arranging the statutes as it was in making up the Bible the following illustration will show. On examining the public and private acts, we find an act refunding certain taxes to Mr. W. K. Ballow among the public acts (p. 27), and an act refunding certain taxes to Mr. Reuben Sommers among the private acts (p. 81). We can only account for this invidious distinction by supposing that Mr. Ballow was a more public man than Mr. Sommers. We find an act removing the political disabilities of Gen. T. L. Rosser and others for duelling, and an act removing the political disabilities of A. H. Christian, Jr., and others for the same offence, among the public acts (pp. 101 and 104), and an act removing the political disabilities of Mr. T. Spicer Curlett and others, incurred for duelling also, among the private acts (p. 131). Unless the former gentlemen went about their combat in a very public way, determined to make it pass off with special éclat, we can see no reason for thus cruelly separating these twin acts. We find an act throwing open Hog Island Flats for the planting of oysters among the public acts (p. 7), and an act in terms amending three sections of the Code in relation to fishing with pound nets on the eastern side of Chesapeake bay among the private acts (p. 390). We find an act allowing further time to Mr. W. Mayo to collect taxes among the public acts (p. 113), and an act allowing further time to Mr. Charles M. Shannon among the private acts (p. 233). We find an act authorizing the loan of arms to Glade Spring Military Academy among the public acts (p. 167), and an act authorizing the loan of arms to the Virginia Zouaves of Lynchburg among the private acts (p. 1). We find an act regulating the killing of partridges in Rockbridge and various other counties among the public acts (p. 95), and various other acts as to the killing of partridges in various other counties among the private acts (pp. 57, 156, &c.). These comparisons are selected at random, but will serve as an example of the effect of the new mode of arrangement. They are by no means exhaustive. Any one who has sufficient time and curiosity to count them up will find that out of the 244 chapters which compose the so-called public acts, sixty-two chapters were for the relief of private parties. He will find on the other hand among the private acts several which in terms purport to be amendments of the Code. In the light of this examination it is evident that the distinction between public and private acts in the future volumes of the Acts of Assembly is to be a mere matter of taste with the compiler, and that it will hereafter be necessary for the Bar to search through two indexes, thus doubling our labors. As there is no general index to the Acts, and as there probably will be none for a long time, for such a work would not pay the cost of printing, much less anything for the immense labor involved, this is quite a serious addition to the labors of the profession. Comment on the policy which resists all efforts to simplify and modernize our State legal publications, and encourages such slovenly arrangement of our statutes is needless before an assembly like this. It is to be regretted that the chairman is the only representative of the committee at this meeting, and that the absence of the other members has shorn this report of promised features which would have made it interesting and valuable. Various circumstances have combined to reduce our representation at this gathering. The hand of death has been among us and taken from us our senior member, Colonel Guy, so endeared to us by his noble qualities of mind and heart. Another of us-Mr. Page-has been called to Europe, and the Association by his absence has lost the memorial address which we had hoped to make a prominent feature of our report. Another-Mr. Barton--is now in more pleasant company than even an assemblage of his brother lawyers. Like his scriptural prototype, he did not merely pray to be excused, but he writes that he has married a wife, and therefore he cannot come. Mr. Gordon, the remaining member, has also been unavoidably detained. While the chairman regrets that these absences have deprived the Association of sketches to which he had looked forward with great eagerness, he can only hope that they are a pleasure in store for a future meeting. Respectfully submitted, ROBERT M. HUGHES, Chairman. |