CONNECTICUT. 



215 



providing that hereafter all acts and resolutions, not 

 engrossed during the session, may be signed and 

 approved without engrossment, and be examined 

 and engrossed after adjournment. Under this act 

 no less than 175 bills of the last session were enact- 

 ed into laws without being engrossed, and without 

 having been examined at all by the Engrossing 

 Committee. I recommend the total repeal of this 

 act. I also advise the passage of a statute provid- 

 ing that the Legislature shall, at each session, after 

 having disposed of the business of the session, ex- 

 cept as hereafter mentioned, provisionally adjourn 

 for not less than three nor more than twelve days ; 

 and that after said provisional adjournment, no 

 business whatever be entertained except the recon- 

 sideration of such bills as the Governor may return 

 without approval, or such other matter as he shall, 

 by special communication, lay before the Assembly. 

 I press these recommendations with urgency in the 

 interest of better methods of legislation, and because 

 I bad, in more than one instance, serious cause to 

 regret the hasty and inconsiderate approval of bills 

 which were huddled upon me in the last hours of 

 the session. 



With reference to the judicial department 

 the Governor says : 



The delays in the administration of justice in this 

 State are crying and scandalous. It is safe to say 

 that in our larger counties trials in the Superior 

 Court are not reached in leas than two years. Our 

 Bill of Rights provides that justice shall be admin- 

 istered without " denial or delay." The people of 

 t'ais State are to-day denied their plain constitutional 

 right, not only in the delays of justice, but in delays 

 which often amount to a denial. The judicial force 

 of the State is abundantly sufficient to clear the 

 d >ckets of the courts with dispatch, and, if business 

 wore only furnished by parties and counsel, more 

 than sufficient. Of this I have no manner of doubt. 

 The number of judges in England and Wales (petty 

 courts not included), exercising law, chancery, pro- 

 bate, admiralty, divorce, and bankruptcy jurisdic- 

 tion, is thirty-one, with a population of over 22,- 

 000,000 ; while Connecticut, with less than a fortieth 

 of the population, has twenty judges of the Supreme, 

 Superior Courts, and Common Pleas, and one hun- 

 dred and twelve judges of probate. The difficulty 

 is this : The judges find it an ungracious task to 

 goad counsel up to their work ; perhaps they are 

 without the power to do it ; and so causes on the 

 docket come forward and fall back for want of prep- 

 aration, for private convenience, and for the most 

 frivolous reasons. There were pending in the Supe- 

 rior Court, Common Pleas, and District Court, at 

 the opening of the last fall terms, 4,248 civil causes, 

 on which the entry and continuance fees alone 

 amounted to $4,310 for each term, and the attend- 

 ance fees to upward of $1,000 for every single court 

 day in the year. How shall this evil be corrected ? 

 The answer is not so easy. As the best remedy 

 which under the present system I can suggest, 

 though a very imperfect one, I advise the passage 

 of an act requiring (1) that counsel shall, before the 

 close of each term, or within three days thereafter, 

 enter in a trial docket for the succeeding term all 

 their then pending causes intended to be tried at 

 such term, with the privilege of entering thereafter 

 any causes subsequently brought ; (2) that the 

 judges at each term make from such trial docket 

 such trial lists for days as will furnish business to 

 the court ; (3) that all causes assigned for days be 

 disposed of in their order and without delay, unless 

 continued or postponed for strict cause shown, or 

 taken out of the trial docket, or daily list by agree- 

 ment, and that any cause so taken out by agreement 

 be transposed to the foot of the general court docket. 

 Perhaps the judges already possess this power. If 

 so, it will be useful to ingraft a mandatory duty on 

 tlie power. There is not one case in fifty that can 



have just cause for surviving its second term. The 

 present delays are discouraging to clients, discredit- 

 able to the profession, and hurtful to justice by 

 needless expense, often by the death of parties and 

 witnesses, and always by their failing recollection 

 of facts. 



He points also at the manifold evils of the 

 system of legal procedure and plan of reme- 

 dies, on account of its intricacy and artificial- 

 ness, forming a fruitful source of impediments 

 to the proper administration of justice. As a 

 step toward curing these evils he makes the 

 following recommendation : 



I recommend that a commission be raised to take 

 this matter into consideration, and, if they shall think 

 it expedient, to report to the next Assembly a bill 

 for the simplification of our system of legal pro- 

 cedure, and for the more speedy administration of 

 justice. 



He calls the system of probate courts in 

 Connecticut radically defective, and urges the 

 Legislature to correct it, saying : 



Our probate districts, originally limited to coun- 

 ties, have been one after another divided and sub- 

 divided, until they are now 112 in number, and a 

 large part of the towns some of them with little 

 more than one hundred voters have become sepa- 

 rate districts. The result is, that probate adminis- 

 tration has fallen, to a large extent, into the hands 

 of judges uneducated in the law and inexperienced ; 

 the files and records are not only badly kept, but 

 kept on wheelSj shifting from house to house and 

 store to store with each election of judges ; exposed 

 to loss, mutilation, and fire, and, in the necessary 

 absence of the judge at his daily business, to fraudu- 

 lent alteration. How senseless and hurtful this sys- 

 tem is must be evident, when one considers that all 

 the property of the State passes and repasses every 

 twenty-five or thirty years under the administration 

 of these courts; that the estates of miLors, widows, 

 and orphans, and large and complicated trusts, are 

 under their jurisdiction ; that some of the most 

 subtile and difficult legal questions are involved in 

 their adjudications ; and that an error necessitates 

 for its correction long and expensive proceedings in 

 appeal, a retrial in the Superior Court, and often re- 

 visory proceedings in the Supreme Court. In my 

 judgment, there should be but one Probate Court in 

 a county, with circuits if required. It should have 

 power to finally determine (with a jury when neces- 

 sary) all questions of fact, subject only on errors 

 of law to the revisory jurisdiction of the Supreme 

 Court. This would, in the first place, secure judges 

 of known ability and experience ; next, vastly expe- 

 dite the settlement of estates ; and, lastly, relieve 

 the superior courts of a multitude of probate appeals 

 which now encumber their dockets. . . . Then, in 

 addition to this, a single repository of probate titles 

 at the county seats would be more accessible to the 

 general public, and the records be better guarded, 

 systematized, and kept, than under our present sys- 

 tem, which exposes the files and records of 112 courts 

 to biennial migration, 112 judicial apprentices to bi- 

 ennial removal to make way for novices, and leaves 

 the greater part of their offices deserted for the great- 

 er part of the year, with judges in their fields or at 

 their merchandise. I recommend that the Legisla- 

 ture make the changes above indicated, or, if the 

 subject require more consideration, that it be re- 

 ferred to the commission before named for examina- 

 tion and report. 



I regard all these reforms in our judicial system as 

 very needful and urgent. I know they will, if car- 

 ried out, greatly simplify, expedite, and cheapen the 

 administration of justice, and be productive of the 

 very best results. 



