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learning, diligence, and caution cannot secure judges from occasionally laying down propositions in too broad terms. The attention of the court,' says Mr Justice Jackson, 'is naturally drawn particularly to the case before them; and though all that is said by them may be correct as applied to that case, yet when applied to another not then under consideration, it may, if adopted literally and in its whole extent, lead to results which the court did not anticipate, and would not have approved.' Whatever, therefore, puts the court on its guard against uttering propositions that lead to such results, is of great importance, and the practice of giving written opinions, to be published as a sort of testimony in perpetuam memoriam, is the most effectual guard for this purpose. And a reported opinion of a court ought to be written, or at least approved, by the judge to whom it is attributed, for the purpose of giving to it its just authority. And all the reasons in favor of opinions prepared in writing, by the court, and indeed, in favor of reporting opinions at all, may also be urged in favor of giving the name of the judge by whom the opinion is drawn up. Except in matters of practice, and the most distinct and insulated cases, in which the point decided, and the grounds and extent of the decision, cannot possibly be mistaken, we always regret to see per curiam prefixed to the opinion of the court.

Though the practice of giving written opinions upon all important questions abridges the labor, and still more the responsibility of the reporter, yet there is quite enough left for him to do and to be responsible for. He must, in the first place, select the cases to be deemed of sufficient interest and importance to publish, and those in which the facts, and grounds of the decision can be definitely and satisfactorily stated; and as he cannot make this selection beforehand, he is under the necessity of taking full and minute notes of all the cases argued. In many cases brought before a court for decision, the law of the case is so blended and confounded with the facts, that it is not possible for the reporter to extract from the whole case any precise definite point decided, or ground of decision. If the court assigns many distinct grounds of decision, without saying how far their opinion is determined by each, or whether any one ground is conclusive, there is nothing to report. Very often a decision turns wholly upon VOL. XX.-No. 46.

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a construction of facts, that are not likely ever to recur again in the same combination. It is in many instances worth while for the parties to present a question to the court, which yet is not so important and of such general interest, as to be a proper subject of a report. A reporter must of course depend upon the counsel and the court for his materials, but it can hardly be expected that the cases brought before a State tribunal are so stated and argued by the counsel, and so fully investigated by the court, and at the same time of such importance and interest, as to make it expedient to report them all. Provided the reporter exercises his own discretion, without too great influence of the court, in selecting cases to report, a publication of a third, or half, or at most two thirds of the cases argued and determined, is quite as useful as to publish the whole number. To select this third or half of the cases requires a very attentive examination of them all. To make a good selection of cases, in which not any of importance are omitted, and not any that would be superfluous, are reported, and to present perspicuous and satisfactory statements of the facts and the arguments of counsel, requires not a little talent, discrimination, labor, legal science and skill; and in all these respects Mr Pickering's volume is, as far as our information extends, entirely satisfactory to the profession, and gives him a just title to the reputation of an able reporter. We have not noticed any case in the volume which is not worth reporting. The cases are Stated with great precision and perspicuity, and we have not met with an instance in which it was necessary to read the case a second time to be possessed of the facts. When one reads or hears a story well told, or a statement of facts well made, nothing seems more easy than to tell the story or make the statement, and yet it is a thing in which few people succeed. A lawyer has frequent occasion to regret the rareness, of this talent, when he finds himself obliged to grope his way to a knowledge of a case in an obscure wilderness of facts, spread over some three or four pages, without any arrangement, full of circumlocutions and repetitions, and presenting all together, not a case, but only the rude, undigested materials of one. The profession owes its thanks to a reporter who gives his cases in a succinct, lucid manner, and, at the same time, without omitting what is material; for he saves

them from the loss of money in purchasing a mass of surplussage, and from the loss of time in bringing together and arranging the disjuncta membra of the cases.

We have not found, in this volume, any instance of another fault sometimes to be met with in books of reports, where the reporter gives all the facts with sufficient minuteness, and hands over the subject to the judge, to begin where he began, and go over the whole story again; or at least as much of it as was necessary to have been told at all. We do not mean to imply that the excellence of a report is inversely as its length; wherever a material circumstance is omitted the report is useless, because it is impossible to know what was decided, and it is worse than useless, because it may lead to mistakes of the law, and will be perpetually cited in all cases of any affinity to it, for it will fit one almost as well as another. Not a few cases of this description, more especially of those at nisi prius, have been bandied at the bar, through all the successive generations of lawsuits, and may always continue to be brought into service to increase the array of authorities, and lend support to lame cases; for they cannot be confuted or overruled. In all cases of doubt, as to the materiality of facts, it is safer to err, if at all, by stating, rather than by omitting them. But there is no excuse for mere repetitions, and we have not observed any instance in which Mr Pickering needs any such excuse.

One of the most difficult parts of a reporter's labor is that of reporting the arguments of counsel. Some have doubted the expediency of giving much space to this part of a report, saying that the case and the opinion of the court present all that is decided, together with the authorities, and the grounds of the decision. In many cases, in some reports, as the. Modern Reports and those of Dallas, on the contrary, the arguments of counsel are given, and the opinion of the court omitted; the reporter tells us that such and such were the arguments of counsel on each side, and such was the decree of the court, and leaves the reader to conjecture the grounds of the decision. The opinion is certainly to be preferred to the arguments, if one only is to be given; but it is better to report both where the question is difficult or important, and where there are both to be reported; for cases are sometimes submitted without argument, and sometimes decided by a

naked decree, the grounds of which are not stated. The practice of reporting the arguments is of great importance in its influence upon the character of the profession, and so upon the administration of the laws in general. When all the reasons and authorities presented by the counsel, on each side of a question, are made a part of the report, it puts the court under a necessity of fortifying their decision against the reasons and authorities adduced to the contrary, and thus guaranties a diligent examination of the subject. And then it is but just that counsel, while they are responsible for the presentment of the case, should have whatever credit they may be entitled to, on account of their research, and whatever of talent and ingenuity they display. In consulting an authority it is often of importance, in order to estimate its weight and bearing, to know how the question was presented to the court; and the arguments of the counsel not unfrequently throw great light upon the judicial opinion, and serve as a key to the meaning, application, and force of the expressions used by the judges.

The reason for reporting the arguments of counsel at all, also point out the proper mode of reporting them. There are not wanting instances of American cases in which the reporter favors his readers with a great deal of the declamation of the counsel, including rhetorical flourishes, flights of fancy, and appeals from the understanding to the imagination, al literally recorded with as great fidelity, as if the reporter were a sworn stenographer. This is to reduce the business of reporting to a sort of clerkship, in which the labor of the hand takes precedence of that of the mind. Arguments reported in this fashion are a double loss to the profession, who Jose the money they pay for them, and also, in general, the argument itself, for they rarely read these interminable discourses, the contents of which remain, forever, a secret known only to the reporter himself. It is enough if he gives concisely and distinctly, all the positions taken by the counsel, with all the reasons and authorities by which he supports them; and to sift these out, and present them distinctly, concisely, and fully, is a work of great labor and difficulty, in which it requires much diligence and skill in the reporter, to be short, and at the same time satisfactory. In this part we think Mr Pickering's reports are exceedingly well made; no

lawyer can have consulted them without remarking the condensed, perspicuous, full, and elaborate manner, in which he has given abstracts of the arguments, throughout this volume. And we more particularly notice this part of his reports, for the purpose of confirming and increasing the public expectation and claims, in respect to subsequent volumes, since this is the part of a report over which a reporter is most likely to begin to drowse, unless his vigilance is excited.

Dean Swift's remarks on the importance of indexes, which he illustrates by a string of ludicrous comparisons of a book and its index, to a ship and the rudder, &c. are gravely applicable to the case of law books, of which the index is by no means the least important part. A book of reports, especially, if it be any treasure at all, is to most purposes a hidden treasure, except so far as its contents are disclosed by the index. It is not surprising, that persons conversant with this sort of publications should sometimes be disappointed in finding some things in the reports that are not in the index, and some things in the index, that are not in the reports; for to make a complete index, requires a clear perception of the points and bearings of the cases, great vigilance and patience in noting them all, and conciseness, precision, and perspicuity in expressing them; and as the reporter may suppose his case to be finished, before the abstract of it is made, he is very likely to make it in too great haste. We have not examined Mr Pickering's abstracts of his cases sufficiently to attest to the accuracy and completeness of all of them, but in a great number which we have examined, we have not met with instances of any that are slovenly, or obscure, or that do not satisfactorily express the points in the case; and we observe in some instances that he is particularly careful not to indicate a broader decision than the court makes. A few of the abstracts include a perhaps, and the cases fully bear it out; but we doubt whether it is not more secure both to courts and to those, who must adopt their decisions as authority, that the judges should limit themselves to the expression of their opinions and doubts.

In regard to the subjects of decision in these reports, we do not propose to go into any particular examination of any of them. Many interesting questions are presented to the court for adjudication; and the evidences of patient deliberation and laborious research discoverable in the opinions of

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