I.

They have considered a Bill entitled "An Act to amend Article XV, title 'Miscellaneous,' of the Constitution of this State by repealing Section 5 of the said Article XV, and to provide for the submission of said amendment to the qualified voters of this State for adoption or rejection," which the last Annual Meeting of this Association, after considerable discussion, referred to the present Committee on Laws. The object of this bill is to repeal the section of the Constitution of this State providing that in criminal cases the jury shall be judges of the law as well as of the facts. The subject-matter of this bill was thoroughly debated at the last meeting of the Association, and the object of the recommittal of the bill was to afford time for sentiment in the profession to crystalize; and, therefore, your Committee do not feel called upon to do more than report the bill back to your body without recommendation, although it is but right to add that several members, at least, of the Committee strongly advocate the proposed constitutional change.

II.

Inasmuch as the General Assembly will hold no session. next winter, so that another Annual Meeting of the Association must intervene before any recommendations of this meeting as to changes in the statute law can be acted upon, your Committee have thought it best to suggest but few such changes. It has, however, seemed to them proper respectfully to suggest to the Court of Appeals an addition or amendment to the constitutional Rules prescribed by that Court regulating Appeals, and accordingly report the following additional Rule, with the recommendation that the Association approve it and respectfully request the Court of Appeals to adopt it:

RULE 22 A.

It shall be competent to the parties to any appeal or writ of error, or their counsel, to agree in writing upon a true copy or transcript of the record to be transmitted to the Court of Appeals; and in case of such an agreement, if the judge from whose decision the appeal is taken or writ of error prosecuted, shall certify therein in writing that there is no reason to suspect collusion for the purpose of presenting to the Court of Appeals a different case from that presented to the court below, then the clerk shall transmit such transcript under the seal of the Court to the Court of Appeals in like manner as if the same had been copied and certified by him; and in such case the said clerk shall not be entitled to any fees for copying or certifying the transcript of the record other than the actual cost of transmitting the same and the fees prescribed by law for affixing the seal of the court.

The object of this rule is to prevent unnecessary expense in appeals. In these days of typewriting and carbon copies it often happens that the counsel in a cause which is about to be taken to the Court of Appeals have very complete duplicate records of the proceedings in their own possession; but as the Rules of Court now stand, they must pay the Clerk for copying out a transcript, even though they themselves supply the entire material which is to compose it. There can be no propriety in such a procedure, as it amounts simply to a useless tax upon litigants. The necessary costs of printing the long records which are involved in important cases in these days, as well as the somewhat lengthy briefs which long and complicated records necessitate, especially in view of the limited time for oral argument now allowed by the courts, are surely great enough without adding any unnecessary expense.

III.

Your Committee also report the following proposed amendment to the Constitution of this State:

A BILL

ENTITLED

An Act to propose an Amendment to Article IV, part II, of the Constitution of this State, by adding a new section to follow Section 14 of said Article, and to be known as Section 14 A, providing for an additional judge of the Court of Appeals from the City of Baltimore, and to provide for submitting the same to the qualified voters of this State for adoption or rejection.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland, three-fifths of all the members elected to each House concurring, that the following new section be and the same is hereby proposed as an amendment to Article IV, part II, of the Constitution of this State to follow Section 14 of said article, and to be known as Section 14 A, to wit.:

Section 14 A. An additional judge of the Court of Appeals shall be elected by the qualified voters of Baltimore City at the General Election to be held in November in the year 1916. After the election of such additional judge the Court of Appeals shall consist of nine judges instead of eight judges, as heretofore; and five of said judges shall constitute a quorum, and no cause shall be decided without the concurrence of at least four. The additional judge to be elected under the provisions of this section shall, in addition to his duties as judge of the Court of Appeals, perform such other duties as the General Assembly shall prescribe. In respect to length of term of office, the time and manner of choosing a successor, the

manner of filling vacancies, and in all other respects, the office of additional judge provided for by this Section and the incumbent thereof shall be subject to all the provisions of this Constitution applicable to other judges.

Sec. 2. The foregoing amendment to the Constitution of this State shall be submitted to the qualified voters of the State at the General Election to be held in November, 1914; and the method of its submission shall be such as now prescribed by law.

The members of the Association from Baltimore City have felt for some time that the bar of this city should have additional representation upon our highest Court. In support of this suggested change, they do not urge so much the fact that the City of Baltimore possesses nearly one-half of the population of the State, and furnishes much more than one-half of the cases which go to the Court of Appeals, nor even the tendency of modern life to draw from the counties to the city many ambitious young men who would formerly have remained in their home towns, but, rather, the circumstance that the questions which a lawyer in a large city is called upon to handle are so often of a kind with which his professional brethren of the rural or semi-rural districts, however superior their ability may be, cannot in the nature of things be familiar in practice. For instance, a county lawyer is but seldon called upon to handle or consider the complicated questions which arise in connection with modern co-operative activity, and a Court of last resort in these days, in order that its decisions may certainly command the same attention and respect from the country at large which the Maryland decisions upon other branches of the law-for example, real estate, testamentary law, etc.-have heretofore commanded, should include in its membership several judges whose practice while at the bar has enabled them to know from experience how corporate transactions are conducted, and how corporate frauds are perpetrated and may be prevented or redressed.

IV.

Some members of the Committee are desirous of a bill to regulate the method of taking testimony in open Court in equity cases. In order to bring the matter before the Association, the Committee report for the consideration of the Association the following bill:

A BILL
ENTITLED

An Act to add an additional section to Article XVI, title "Chancery," of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland, to follow Section 261 of said Article in Bagby's Annotated Civil Code, and to be known as Section 261 A.

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Maryland that the following new section be and the same is hereby added to Article XVI, title "Chancery," of the Code of Public General Laws of Maryland, to follow Section 261 of said Article in Bagby's Annotated Civil Code, and to be known as Section 261 A.

Section 261 A. The method of taking testimony under the foregoing section shall be such as is now or may hereafter be practised in courts of law, and the judge shall have power to refuse to permit a witness to answer any question which he shall deem clearly inadmissible in law.

Those members of the Committee who advocate the passage of this measure do not think that the matter is sufficiently covered by the ruling of the Court of Appeals in Schnepfe v. Schnepfe, 108 Md. 146. They construe that decision as allowing the trial court to exclude testimony which it may deem inadmissible from the record on appeal unless the cost be paid by the party asking that it be inserted, but not as giving the court power to refuse to permit the witness to answer improper questions.