Price.] 212 tAP"l- 



Judge Thompson possessed the requisite personal qualities demanded 

 by his high position, and these never failed him until his health and 

 body sank beneath the weight of his burdens. 



He took his seat subject to the disadvantage of following a prede- 

 cessor of eminent ability, groat learning, and laborious study, whose 

 decisions fill several volumes belonging to the profession, and are 

 characterized by great research and power. Judge Thompson was 

 subject to the further disadvantage of having to transact an increased 

 amount of judicial business, a very large proportion of which neces- 

 sarily consumed much time without requiring the application of much 

 learning, and, therefore, affording little opportunity to exhibit, or 

 incentive to extend, legal research and learning; while the time for 

 elaborating opinions in important cases was curtailed by its consump- 

 tion in the despatch of the inferior business of the Quarter Sessions 

 and Common Pleas. 



The jurisdictions administered by the Judges elected to the Com- 

 mon Pleas of the County of Philadelphia are of the most varied 

 character, and in the aggregate surpass in their diversity and also in 

 their minuteness and magnitude, those of any other court in our State, 

 and probably those of any in the United States. Those Judges try and 

 decide every variety of civil causes, and every grade of criminal offences. 

 They hear the appeals from the Magistrates, involving sums from 

 a few dollars up to a hundred, and have an original jurisdiction 

 up to five hundred dollars. They decide landlord and tenant cases 

 of all amounts; they decide upon all cases of insolvency and assign- 

 ments, honest or fraudulent, of the poorest insolvent, and the largest 

 corporation of millions of capital as well; and upon the forfeiture of 

 bank charters, and upon the validity of other charters and corporate 

 proceedings. They decide upon the estates of all decedents and 

 minors, real and personal, from the smallest to the largest counted 

 by millions, upon the validity of wills, and their interpretation ; 

 decide when and what estates shall be sold for the payment of debts, 

 or to meet the wants of families; hold all executors, administrators, 

 guardians and trustees to account, and upon all differences between 

 them and those interested, and who are entitled by will or statute, as 

 legatees, devisees, distributees and heirs. They are to judge when 

 estates fettered by settlements and trusts, or belonging to persons 

 under disability, may be sold and converted into money, or may be 

 improved for the advantage of those interested and their greater .pro- 

 ductiveness. By the writ of haheas corpus they relieve those unlaw- 

 fully restrained of their liberty; they protect infants, and decide 



