respectively; New Jersey, 70; Delaware, 10; Rhode Island, 11. Among the States most recently organized California exhibits 51 volumes; Minnesota, 23; Kansas, 20; Nevada, 13; Nebraska, 8. Several of the Territories have commenced series of Reports.

These Reports are an extended official record of what the courts have decided in the various controversies brought before them. A distinguishing, fundamental principle of Anglo-Saxon jurisprudence has always been that each decision of a lawsuit shall form the rule for deciding any subsequent one involving the same questions and presenting the same aspects. The medical maxim Similia similibus curantur might well be translated, as an underlying rule of the common law, “Like cases are to be treated by similar decisions." This is not a necessary rule to jurisprudence, and has not prevailed in all systems. Other guid ing principles are known, but have not been preferred by communities of Anglo-Saxon origin. For example, the sense of right, the judgment of expediency, or the mere will of the magistrate for the time being, uncontrolled by past action of his predecessors, might be the rule of decision. The accounts we have of ancient administration of justice and of Asiatic systems show that this method has been widely employed, and how untrustworthy it is; yet the stories of Solomon's judgments and of decisions of Haroun al Raschid indicate that under an exceptionally wise and pure magistracy such an administration of justice might not be unsatisfactory to a people of simple affairs and habits. For another example, a permanent legislative rule might be applied anew, from day to day, each judge considering only the written rule and its proper application to the cause before him, without paying regard to how it had been previously applied. The Ten Commandments have been a governing rule of conduct among millions of persons for threescore centuries without any notable accumulation of "reports" of decisions, because the habit has been to apply the commandment to the

question or case in judgment as seemed to be right at the time, without inquiry for past cases of like kind. This is understood to be the genius of the Roman civil law, so far that in countries where that or modern modifications of it prevail there is less disposition to follow precedents, and consequently less accumulation of them than under the common law. Obedience to precedents has been the backbone of that system. It is the fixed habit and the nearly obligatory rule that past decisions shall be followed, unless special reason for departing from them can be shown; such as evident error, or an intervention of a subsequent statute. And in this country, where numerous independent jurisdictions exist, and the courts of one are not in strictness bound to follow the decisions of another, they yet do so, to a great extent, voluntarily, as matter of comity or from a sense of expediency.

Upon this plan of following precedents, a full and reliable record of whatever has been decided in past cases is of paramount importance. The lawyer's first inquiry is for a "a case in point," "an authority," "a precedent." To present the decisions of past controversies in such a manner that their doctrines may be applied to new ones is the function of the Reports. Happy is the counsellor, consulted upon a knotty case, who can find in the Reports of a court having authority a former decision which runs on all fours," as the court-room phrase is, with the cause he is employed to present.

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SPECIMEN OF A LAW REPORT."

The narratives which the reporters give are elaborate. A Report in the full form presents, 1. A title, or the distinguishing name of the case; 2. A syllabus, or brief enunciation of the rule decided; 3. A narrative of the facts; 4. A condensation of the arguments of the lawyers; and, 5. The opinions of the judges. One or more of these characteristic features may, however, be absent. The following specimen (selected at random!),

will serve to show how they appear, and also to confute those who say that the law and lawyers are destitute of humor in professional work.* The case, as a newspaper-man might relate it, was as follows: Lewis was arrested and put in jail on a charge of burglary; but before trial he broke out. He was then arrested and imprisoned on a charge of breaking jail. The trial for burglary resulted in an acquittal; but, instead of setting him at liberty, the authorities detained him for trial for his escape, and he was convicted of that and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. The court decided that this was right; even if innocent of the burglary, Lewis was bound, as a good citizen, to remain in jail and await a regular trial.

The form and order of a "law report" of this decision stand thus:

IN THE SUPREME COURT, STATE OF KANSAS.

GEORGE LEWIS, APPELLANT, ads. THE STATE OF Kansas, Appellee.

Appeal from Atchison County.

SYLLABUS:

Law-Paw; Guilt-Wilt. When upon thy frame the law-places its majestic paw-though in innocence or guilt-thou art then required to wilt.

Statement of Case by Reporter:

This defendant, while at large,
Was arrested on a charge

Of burglarious intent,

And direct to jail he went.

But he somehow felt misused,

And through prison walls he oozed,

And in some unheard-of shape

He effected his escape.

Mark you now: Again the law
On defendant placed its paw,

* State v. Lewis, 19 Kan. 266.

Like a hand of iron mail,
And resocked him into jail-
Which said jail, while so corralled,
He by sockage-tenure held.

Then the court met, and they tried
LEWIS up and down each side,
On the good old-fashioned plan;
But the jury cleared the man.

Now, you think that this strange case
Ends at just about this place.

Nay, not so. Again the law

On defendant placed its paw

This time takes him round the cape

For effecting an escape;

He, unable to give bail,

Goes reluctantly to jail.

LEWIS, tried for this last act,
Makes a special plea of fact:
"Wrongly did they me arrest,
As my trial did attest,
And while rightfully at large,
Taken on a wrongful charge,
I took back from them what they
From me wrongly took away."

When this special plea was heard,
Thereupon THE STATE demurred.

The defendant then was pained
When the court was heard to say,
In a cold impassive way,
"The demurrer is sustained."

Back to jail did LEWIS go,

But as liberty was dear,

He appeals, and now is here

To reverse the judge below.

The opinion will contain

All the statements that remain.

Argument, and Brief of Appellant:

As a matter, sir, of fact,

Who was injured by our act,

Any property or man?

Point it out, sir, if you can.

Can you seize us when at large
On a baseless, trumped-up charge;
And if we escape, then say

It is crime to get away,
When we rightfully regained

What was wrongfully obtained?

Please the court, sir, what is crime?
What is right, and what is wrong?

Is our freedom but a song,

Or the subject of a rhyme?

Argument, and Brief of Attorney for The State:

When THE STATE, that is to say,

We, take liberty away;

When the padlock and the hasp
Leaves one helpless in our grasp,

It's unlawful then that he
Even dreams of liberty-

Wicked dreams that may in time
Grow and ripen into crime-

Crime of dark and damning shape;
Then, if he perchance escape,
Evermore remorse will roll

O'er his shattered, sin-sick soul.

Please the court, sir, how can we
Manage people who get free?

Reply of Appellant:

Please the court, sir, if it's sin,
Where does turpitude begin?

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