Court are now collected and preserved by the clerks, and published in the early part of January each year.

In order that you may see how completely this work is also done in England, I enclose herein a reprint of the table of contents and certain illustrative diagrams taken from the official publication of the Judicial Statistics for England and Wales for 1910. It is the idea of our Committee that New York State should be in the forefront in the collection and publication of instructive Judicial Statistics. It has been suggested that if the matter were brought to your attention it is entirely probable that the efforts of our Committee would be supplemented by assistance from your Association. For this reason, as Chairman of our Committee, I take the liberty of addressing you on the subject.

I enclose also an explanatory letter prepared in behalf of our Committee, which is not to be generally circulated until the introduction of the bill into the Legislature.

Very truly yours,

CHARLES A. BOSTON,
Chairman.

NEW YORK, December 4. 1913.

J. Noble Hayes, of New York:

Mr. President, I would like to move as an amendment to the first part of the resolution, that in relation to collecting the data on judicial statistics, so as to give that committee power in its discretion to change the bill with respect to the officer who shall be the collector of these judicial statistics. That is a matter of very great importance, very great practical importance, as experience has shown. The prototype of this bill was originally introduced by the Law's Delays Commission, and was afterwards intro

duced by the County Lawyers' Association. Our bill would have gone through when Governor Hughes was Governor, but for another more favored bill that we encountered in the Legislature, which provided for the appointment or creation of a commission on judicial statistics creating officers to be known as commissioners of judicial statistics; but unfortunately it directed that three of those commissioners should be Justices of the Supreme Court, and when it was brought to our attention, we pointed out at once that the rival bill was unconstitutional; and that defeated that measure, and we lost ours. With respect to this commission on efficiency some of the Judges, as Mr. Boston. knows, are very much opposed to having this Efficiency Commission deal with judicial statistics; they are a little afraid that is not quite scientific enough and there may be some politics in it; and we may lose the support of a great many influential men, advocates of this bill, if we send it to that commission. Then, again, if that commission is to be abolished, as we are told, we shall be left in a peculiar position. Can this Association afford to give this large power to this commission? Would it not be better to give your committee discretion to alter that bill as necessity may require with respect to the commission or to the officer who shall collect these judicial statistics.

Frederic W. Hinrichs, of New York:

Mr. President, before the motion is put, there is a point I should like to emphasize. I have the honor of being a member of the committee of which Mr. Boston is chairman. After the report had been finished and submitted to the members of the committee and generally approved, a suggestion was made by myself that the bill should contain, in addition to the statistics provided for,- statistics of this nature, namely, that where there are long delays, unreason

able delays in the matter of decisions, in the handing down of decisions after trials or after hearings, there should be a return made by the Courts as to those delays. Say, for instance, intervals of thirty days have elapsed after a trial, it seems to me that the Judges should give a report of those cases where the delays have been greater than thirty days, whether in the Supreme Court or in the Surrogate's Court. I brought the matter to the attention of Mr. Boston. I do not like to mar the symmetry of his report, nor do I like to suggest what I do, as though it were a criticism. Mr. Boston thought that the matter had gone too far to permit of amendment, and that we had no time to amend. But the matter is very important. I remember a case I tried in the Surrogate's Court in New York, where I took the papers out of the files and put them before the Surrogate at least half a dozen times. Each time he promised to pass upon them. Three years elapsed, however, and the Surrogate died, without any decision. I know of a similar experience which I had in Brooklyn with one of the Supreme Court Justices. I know of a case reported in 140 Appellate Division reports where one Judge assumed to review the decision of another Judge after a trial granting a permanent injunction. He granted an order to show cause with a stay and delayed three whole months before any decision was rendered, virtually constituting himself the Appellate Court, and making the judgment, after trial, of no effect. It seems to me that this law as to statistics should provide that if there be an unreasonable delay in decisions, our Courts should return the statistics of those delays so that the members of the Bar and the community can inquire as to why the delays occurred. I have submitted my proposed amendments to Mr. Boston, and it is with his acquiescence that I present the matter now, so that we may receive

instructions from the Association that the committee be auhorized to amend the bill in the respect suggested by me, requiring the return from the Courts after an undue delay, say thirty days in case of a trial or the hearing of a motion, in the Supreme Court or Surrogate's Court,- and ten days in the case of the Municipal Court, sixty days in the case of an appeal, and the like. If there are delays as long as these, the returns should be made of those cases that have been delayed. I move that my suggestions be added to the report that has been made by Mr. Boston, and that the proposed bills be amended accordingly.

J. Noble Hayes, of New York:

Mr. President, I would like to call Mr. Hinrichs' attention to the fact, after debate or discussion of all these details, there is a provision in the bill that the Appellate Division may make rules in regard to all these matters.

Frederic W. Hinrichs, of New York:

This is too important and it ought not to be left to the Court. It is a matter for the Legislature.

The President:

Will you accept the amendment?

Charles A. Boston, of New York:
Yes.

The President:

Are you ready for the question?

J. Noble Hayes, of New York:
Was the amendment adopted?

The President:

Yes, it was accepted.

The motion was put and carried.

Mr. Boston:

I made a motion in respect to the appointment of a committee on criminal judicial statistics.

The President:

Mr. Boston now moves a separate committee on criminal statistics be appointed of the same number as the other committee, as recommended in his report.

The motion was duly seconded and carried.

The President:

We will now listen to a paper by Judge Clearwater on "The Deterioration of the Trial Jury."

A T. Clearwater, of Kingston, read his paper as follows:

THE DETERIORATION OF THE TRIAL JURY

THE ORIGIN OF THE TRIAL BY JURY

The origin of the trial by jury is enveloped in the mists of antiquity. Sir William Blackstone was of the opinion that it existed among the earliest Saxons.

It is error to believe that it was a creation of Magna Charta. It was embodied in the great charter and preserved by it, but was not a creation of it. It appears from Olaus Wormius that trial by a jury of twelve men was first introduced into Denmark by Regnerus, surnamed Lodbrog, whose reign began in the year 820, and from whom Ethelred is said to have borrowed the institution.

By the convention called at Clarendon by Henry I, which was composed of the Archbishop, Bishops, Chief Priests, Earls, Barons and nobles generally, sixteen articles were adopted with all the solemnity due to a regular Parliament, and had the effect of a law and statute. They are known