principle of simple and cheap justice, and annoys and harrasses the community. The experience of our author will be responded to by every candid lawyer. "During fifteen years that I practised law," says Judge Wells, "I can say with safety, that not one-half of the suits, with which I was familiar was decided upon their merits, or upon principles of substantial justice."*

But recent years a change has been adopted in some of the States of the Union; though none of them have gone into the great and necessary work of codification, yet the practice under the common law has, in some cases, been disembarrassed of much of its technicality and dilatory process. The New-York code of practice in civil cases, prepared by a board of able jurists, and with some few amendments adopted by the legislature of that State, has been in operation for more than twelve months, and if we may judge by the public press, it has so far been received with favor by the people and the profession. This code abolishes the old distinctions in the forms of actions; also the chancery system, and makes a radical and thorough change in the practice and procedure of courts of justice. To the young yet giant State of Missouri, much credit is due for her bold and wise legislation. Unshackled by a dependence on English precedents and glosses, much of her early legislation is distinguished by truth, simplicity and utility. Her land laws-distribution-pre-emption system-public education, and her code regulating administration, have attracted general attention. Years ago an attempt was made in her legislature to abolish the common law practice, and some of her first statutes are aimed at the suppression of the quibbles, falsities and chicanery of pleadings. Bail, with its shadowy distinctions and com

* At this time, the following paragraph is taking the rounds of the newspaper press:

Debt vs. Law. The Committee of the Michigan Senate, in their report on the general revision of the Constitution of that State, give as an illustration of the uncertainty of justice in the State courts, that an action of debt to recover one thousand dollars was staved off by the defendant insisting that it should have been covenant instead of debt. The circuit judge sustained the action, but an appeal was taken. Three years afterwards the first court of appeals sustained the judgment, but three years after that, the second court of appeals reversed it, and decided that the action should have been one of covenant. The plaintiff, finding that seven years' litigation had been spent in vain, relinquished the suit, and had to pay a larger amount of costs than the debt sued for. This, it will be remembered, was merely on account of a technical difficulty.

plicated rules, was abolished, and in 1842 imprisonment for debt was expunged from the code. At the session of her legislature in that year, partial enactments were made, correcting the most palpable abuses of the existing system of practice. The press of the State zealously engaged in the discussion, and in the summer of 1847, a pamphlet from the pen of Judge Wells, (embraced in the appendix to the work now before us) was published and extensively circulated. In that pamphlet, after discussing with much ability the absurdity of many of the rules of pleading, relating to the institution, conduct and defence of a suit-the dif ficulty and uncertainty attending it, and the delay and expense, the author says:

"The matter, however, which I would more particularly press upon the consideration of the public and the legal profession is, the effect in practice of having several kinds of actions. When a person applies to a lawyer to bring a suit, the first matter of inquiry is, whether he has cause of action, either in law or equity. That is, generally, easily determined. If the inquiry be answered in the affirmative, then the question is, whether he must bring the suit in law or in equity. Any mistake in this is fatal to the client. If the lawyer decides that the suit must be brought at law, then the next matter of inquiry is, what kind of action must be brought? Must it be assumpsit, debt, or other action? Any mistake in the action is also fatal to the client. In some cases there is only one action by which the plaintiff could succeed, or, as it is called, "recover." There is one right action, and eight or nine wrong ones. In other cases there are two or more actions, either of which would enable him to recover; but generally some one is more appropriate than any other. But if the wrong action be brought, the error can neither be remedied by amendment, or repaired in any other way: the plaintiff must go out of court; and of course pay all costs. If he chooses, he may begin again. But this is not all the trouble: the plaintiff may have several causes of action, each perhaps small in amount; one in debt, another in assumpsit, and another in trover. He cannot unite them in one suit, but is compelled to bring several suits. It is to the great advantage of the plaintiff to bring only one suit, instead of several suits, because the costs and expenses are generally according to the number of suits. His lawyer could not afford to bring several suits for the same fee he would be willing to take for one suit. Many of the expenses he must pay, whether he succeeds or does not succeed-such as the costs of continuances on his own application, and the like. If he fails in any of the suits, he has all the costs generally to pay in that suit. It is also greatly to the advantage of the defendant to have one, rather than several suits

brought against him, and for the same reasons. The court would also be benefitted in the saving of time and trouble. But yet it cannot be done. Now these absurdities exist; the plaintiff may unite as many causes of action as he pleases, if they all be in assumpsit-or all be in debt-or all be in trespass. And this he can do although each cause of action be entirely separate and distinct. Thus he may unite in assumpsit, a demand due by promisory noteanother due by bill of exchange-another due for goods sold and delivered another due for work done-another on a promise to pay the debt of a third person, &c. If there were one hundred different and distinct causes of action, they may all be joined. But if he have only three causes of action-one on a note under seal-one a common promissory note-and a demand for timber cut on his land, he must bring two separate suits; because the first is in debt-the second may be debt or assumpsit, and the third must be trespass. If he chooses to harrass the defendant, he may bring three suits.

"The other method of bringing suits, which I propose to examine, is by bill in equity. As before remarked, when your lawyer determines that you have a cause of action or claim for legal redress, he has next to determine whether it must be in law, that is to say, by some one of the actions before enumerated, or by a bill in equity. This is frequently a matter of great difficulty, yet the lawyer must determine it at the peril of his client. Lawyers will differ in opinion; Judges are but lawyers; and if upon the greatest reflection and examination, and after consultation with other lawyers, your lawyer should bring your suit at law and the judge should afterwards think it ought to have been brought in equity; or brings it in equity, and the judge should think it ought to have been brought at law there is neither amendment or other remedy which can avail to save the cause. The cause must go out of court. But it not unfrequently happens that the court of jurisdiction (circuit court) thinks one way, and the appellate court (supreme) thinks the other way. Thus I have known a suit brought at law after great advisement, and prosecuted for some two years; the circuit court then held that the plaintiff had a just and undoubted cause of action; but that he had, as it is termed, misconceived his remedy :-he should have sued in equity. The plaintiff thereupon dismissed his suit, had judgment against him for all the costs, and commenced again by bill in equity. After prosecuting his suit in equity some two or three years, the circuit court decided in his favor and gave him a decree. Thereupon the defendant took an appeal to the supreme court, and after the suit had been there some two years more, lo! that court held that he was right at first and wrong then-that his remedy was at law and not in equity, and reversed the decree. The plaintiff, called in equity the complainant, had all the costs of both courts to pay. By this time the defendant ran away or became

insolvent (I have forgotten which) and there ended the matter. A difference of opinion between the circuit and supreme courts, as to the remedy, is not very uncommon. It is a principal cause of the writs of error and appeals, and consequent expenses and delays attending the prosecution of our most inconsiderable suits. There is yet another, and in my opinion, a serious inconvenience arising from the same cause. It frequently happens that a person wishing to sue has two or more causes of action-one or more at law and one or more in equity. They cannot be joined in one suit, any more than two or more causes of action at law can be brought in one suit, where different actions are required. The effect of this is to multiply small suits, and of course to multiply costs and expenses.

"To remedy these glaring defects in the manner of bringing suits, various remedies have been tried; but inasmuch as they all left the system untouched, the remedies have effected but little good." "I propose to abolish the whole system of special pleading; all actions at law and all bills in equity; to have only one way of bringing a suit, whether it be for redress at law or in equity, or both. The plaintiff should file a petition to the court in plain English, without any particular form: without making any statements immaterial to the merits of the cause; and without any of that extreme nicety and particularity now used. This petition would embrace any cause of action either in law or equity, or both in law and equity; nor would it matter what kind of action, if at law would now be required-debt-covenant-assumpsit-trespasses, &c., &c., would all be joined, if necessary to the plaintiff's case or rather, we would no longer know or hear any thing about those actions."

At the meeting of the last general assembly of Missouri, Judge Wells was urged by many friends of the measure, to prepare a bill, which should effect a radical reform in the pleadings and practice of the courts. A bill was accordingly submitted by him. It underwent a close and searching examination before the judiciary committee of the senate, and was debated at length in both houses. With one or two amendments, of mere matters of detail, it passed both houses by respectable majorities, and became a law.

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In the preface of the work, the author frankly states, that most of the details of the bill were by no means original; some of them are borrowed from our own statutes: some from late English statutes, and many them from the statutes of sister States." He also acknowledges his indebtedness to the reports on a similar subject made by the board of commissioners of the State of New-York.

The code is admirably arranged under proper articles and chapters; and to many of the sections are appended explanatory notes. By the first article of the act, the distinction between the different actions at law, and suits in equity, and the forms of all such actions and suits heretofore existing are abolished, and it is declared that hereafter there shall be but one form of action for the enforcement or protection of private rights, and the redress or prevention of private wrongs. In the comment on this article, the author says

"This may be considered the foundation of the proposed reform; and most of the provisions are, therefore, intended to carry into effect this section. At one period of the Roman Civil Law there were an incredible number of actions, or legal forms of judicial proceeding, called legis actiones. They were at first a secret and a mystery, and were intended to give, and did give the patricians, or aristocracy, to the entire exclusion of the great body of the people, the entire administration of justice. See these actions explained in Cooper's Justinian. The whole matter was a subject of ridicule by Cicero, as being a cunning and captious verbal science; and the forms were expressly abolished by the Emperor Constantine, as insidious. 1 Kent's Com. 528. They were evidently the origin of the English system of actions at law. These actions were, at one time in England, far more numerous than of late years. The foundation of the action was the original writ, and the declaration had to conform to the writ. I have now before me a book containing the forms of one hundred and ninety-eight different original writs. We are told by Bentham that, in early times, when this system took its rise, the judges were paid, (somewhat as our justices of the are now paid) according to the number of suits; and the lawyers were then, and are yet, paid for the pleadings according to the number of words. Hence they, the judges and lawyers, found it convenient to work into each other's hands. The judges multiplied the actions, so as frequently to make several actions necessary to try one matter in dispute, and prevented the joinder of several claims in one action, and the lawyers spun out the pleadings, to make the more words; they, at the same time, by no means objecting to multiplying the number of actions; and when they could no longer keep a suit going at law, then they sent it into chancery. It was hard to tell whether the common law courts, or the chancery courts, were the most cunningly contrived to make business for the lawyers, and ruin the suitors; but both together certainly worked to a miracle in bringing about these desired results. Lord Brougham, in his great speech in the British Parliament on the reform of the law, related a case at law in which he participated, for only $75, on a plain bond, and wherein the trial was at once put an end to by the

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