The Abolition of the Jury System. 9 



* 

 system on the continent, by tbe commerce there located, then we 

 may judge that the system, in such cases, is not even of apparent 

 social convenience. But the argument against the system is only 

 partially made when you look at continental commerce. In En- 

 gland itself the tendency has been, in the growth of legal practice 

 to wrest department after depar-tment from under the incubus ol 

 the jury system. Just think how much business is covered by 

 equity, probate, and admiralty. Yet they are exempted from the 

 jury system. 



Lord Mansfield said that equity grew up in England to rectify 

 abuses resulting from the jury system, Tbis statement at once 

 explains why it is that England and her colonies are the only 

 countries where law and equity have been divided and assigned to 

 separate courts. The jury system was only adapted to coarse, 

 crude business. Anything requiring care or nice discrimination 

 had to be sent to another court, which, significantly enough, was 

 called a court of equity, as though something like even justice 

 might be there expected. How important the equity side of law 

 is, lawyers understand. The stretch of equity over legal business 

 must increase more and more with the growing complexity of civ- 

 ilization. 



Take probate business; as a rule, that is exempt from the jury 

 system. The statutes sometimes commit special matters to juries, 

 or they are found by way of appeals to other courts. But what 

 a reach there is to probate business. All the property of a coun- 

 try passes through probate, generation by generation. Yet the 

 difficulties of this huge business are normally met without the 

 intervention of a jury. The value at stake in matters passed upon 

 in common law actions cannot compare with the values that are 

 adjusted in probate, nor do such common law actions present 

 problems of greater interest or intricacy. 



To admiralty in England, and usually in this country, the jury 

 system is not applied, "Britannia rules the waves." The jury 

 system is peculiarly a British institution, yet Britain has taken 

 good care that the right arm of her power and prosperity should 

 not be fettered by the jury system. She has followed the adage, 

 "iVe entor ultra o-ejndam.''^ 



