be threshed out. We are directed to make a report. After giving notice, giving the meetings as much publicity as was practicable, we held sessions in Birmingham, Jasper, Tuscumbia, Decatur, Huntsville, Anniston, Selma, Dothan, Mobile, Montgomery, Tuscaloosa and Bessemer. Most of those meetings were completed in a day, some lasted much longer. Those meetings, in the main, were well attended, not only by the local district bar, but by delegations from adjoining counties. We had at the beginning-I was given carte blanche in the name of the committee to secure information, that is, such as could be secured by letter. I had circulars sent out, also personal letters asking for suggestions. About the time we completed this itinerary, after we discussed the questions with the lawyers until we had gotten some idea of the general propositions that they were interested in, a circular letter was framed containing 23 propositions, as concretely as I could write them, and that letter was intended to reach every member of the bar of Alabama-if there is a lawyer here, or any other part of the State that did not receive that, and with a personal letter to consider it and give us the benefit of any suggestions that he could make, the failure. was not on the part of the chairman or of any member of the committee. I am glad to say that a great many attorneys not only gave attention to the questions that were definitely pointed out, but entered into a discussion in a general way and made many practical and helpful suggestions to the committee. We did not stop there. We sent that list of questions, with a personal letter, to every newspaper in the State, and received some material suggestions from members of the press. Then some special letters were sent to some men in the State who, because of their long service at the bar, their connection with the judiciary, were supposed to have special equip

case

ment. I want to say, on behalf of the committee, every communication addressed to us was read and considered by the committee. In that filing they are resting now, and we expect after we have completed our work they will pass into the archives of history-Dr. Owen says that he wants them; there may be a time, gentlemen, when they will be interesting. I do not think that they could be improved upon, so far so far as the number of suggestions and the uniqueness of some of them; I cannot conceive of anything else that could be suggested with reference to the judiciary of this or any other State. Now Now we have sufficient data to base some kind of action upon, and I wish to say some of them are still coming in, occasionally we get a letter in reply to letters sent out on the 15th of April. Of course, it is now too late to consider those. Well, the information that we in this way secured showed us that we had about 50 trial judges in the State, probably 51, Circuit Judges, Law & Equity Court Judges, City Court Judges and Chancellors, 41 Solicitors, and about as many different kinds of procedure about as much variety as in the number of courts. We would find in one court it was necessary to plead at a certain time; in another court if you wanted a jury you must demand it; and in another something else. So we found that there was great variety. The committee then got down to work after reading the suggestions that had been furnished us and considering the information that we had secured, and we reached this conclusion: That one of the great needs of the State was a uniform system of trial courts, and a uniform system of procedure. Hence it followed, and will follow, that we will recommend the abolishment of all the City and Law & Equity and Local courts in this State, such to become effective in January, 1917, at the time the terms of the present Cir

cuit Judges aand Chancellors expire. That is one feature that I am quite certain we will not recede from.

We find that quite a number of these local courts, and in fact some of the Circuit Courts, Solicitors and Judges were receiving full salaries, that their allotted time amounted to less than one-third of a year, and, strange to say, in some of those circuits we found the most crowded jails and congested dockets. That was not generally true. The committee has reached the conclusion that about 35 Circuit Judges will be sufficient to transact the business of the Circuit Courts of this State, even after that court has been given equity jurisdiction. We find that about 23 Solicitors will be sufficient—and to illustrate, I do not think we are putting the number too small,—I am not a believer in that kind of economy that reduces efficiency-I think you will find when you consider what we have done, that one of the chief objections will be that we have not reduced enough, I believe we will still have most too many, but we have tried to give some elasticity to the system. Now to illustrate the number of courts: This county will have two judges; Jefferson County will have eight judges

I have reference now not to Inferior Judges but Judges of courts of record-Mobile will have three; the tentative arrangement is for Tuscaloosa to have one, Calhoun one, and along in that way. I do not think there will be a circuit in the State, possibly one circuit in the State, that will have over four counties.

We have drawn, and will probably recommend to the Legislature for passage, nearly 70 bills. Some of them might have been consolidated, we might consolidate them even now if we had the time, but their number could not be materially reduced without coming in conflict with our Constitution. We have considered a great many more bills, at least it was that number we threshed out before the whole com

mittee. We referred them to sub-committees, then came back and referred them to the other committees, have had two sub-committees, they would come back and be referred to the other and it would act upon it, and after all that we had a critic in the person of Judge Blackwell who went over everything, and after that we met and we all are going over it, that is what we are engaged in mostly at this time.

The system we are going to recommend will not be perfect, it will not be the best that could be made, but I believe that it is the best that this committee could do in the time that we have had to work. We have tried to write these laws with reference to the entire State, with reference to the needs of the profession and the people of the State, and to ignore, and ignore entirely every man that is in office every man that wants to get an office.

or

If our recommendations are accepted by the legislature and become the laws of this State, many of us will see some of our best friends, in January, 1917, pass out of office because of our acts, but that is necessary, gentlemen, in order to have a general system or a uniform system for this State. On one question we have acted in a manner that will be disappointing to a great many of the lawyers of this State, and was a disappointment to a minority of the committee that for a long time thought they had won but finally lost, if this system is adopted our Chancery courts are to be a matter of memory, and the circuit courts of this State, like the circuit courts of the United States, will be tribunals in which equity as well as law will be administered. We may have made a mistake, but in the judgment of the majority of the committee it was the proper thing to do, and such action has been taken and such will be be the unanimous report of the committee notwithstanding some did not think that it was wise.

There will be left, gentlemen, if this report becomes effective, at the time I have stated, in all the counties of the State-Justices of the Peace shorn of their power to try any kind of a criminal case, or to try or issue writs of garnishment. In every county except three there will be provision for trying all misdemeanors where the prosecution is commenced by affidavit before a county court the probate judge without a jury, the right to demand a jury being taken away, and be fully preserved by an appeal to the circuit court, and the county courts interest in the fees of the case also be taken away, he and the solicitor being put upon a salary.

We are undertaking, as far as possible to do under the Constitution to destroy the fee system in this State so far as connected with the courts of Alabama. It is the belief of the committee that the old county court as it exists in some of the counties of the State, and as it once existed in practically all the counties of Alabama, if the right to demand juries is taken away, and the incentive that the fee system sometimes brings is eliminated, we believe that misdemeanors can be tried there more expeditiously and more economically than any other tribunal, leaving of course to defendants the right to appeal to the circuit court. The municipal courts have not been interfered with, except we are doing this: A great deal of complaint has gone up from the cities that the docket is clogged by municipal appeals, and they have clamored for some court in which to try those appeals. We are trying to initiate some system to remedy this; we do not think it advisable to give them a special court, but we have done this, we make those appeals preferred cases, and in that way we think that they will be expeditiously tried. We make all appeals preferred.

One other question you will doubtless be interested