This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1853 edition. Excerpt: ...for painting the picture of a little child; the defence was that the picture bore no resemblance to the original: after hearing conflicting evidence on this point, I asked the defendant if he could produce the child and the picture. I was then sitting at the Marylebone Court in the New Road; the defendant answered that he lived in Devonshire Place, and could bring, as he did bring, the child and picture into court in twenty minutes. Thus scarcely a day passes in a county court, wherein it is not found expedient to hear and dismiss the witnesses in attendance in one or more cases, but to reserve the decision until the judge is better informed upon such point or points as he may indicate. And it is a convenience peculiarly incident to the proximity of the county courts, that the sending for a witness, or a document, or other piece of evidence for the judge's better satisfaction, is frequently only the work of a few minutes, or an hour, and that it seldom occasions the delay of a day. Indeed a judge upon particular occasions, may without much delay to a cause, visit himself localities in the immediate neighbourhood of his court, concerning which there has been contradictory testimony, as very often happens in cases of collisions of carriages, nuisances, and local trespasses. It is to be observed that the expediency of such temporary postponements of a cause is very much increased in proportion to the simplicity of the special pleadings, which, as they become short and economical, are the less explicit with regard to the points to be advanced at a trial. Thus it seems to deserve deep consideration, whether the projected reforms in the special pleadings of the superior courts, or at least those to which the public avidity for cheap law...