the several defendants for defective wires, and as to the amount of damages, were erroneous in law. Heard in the Appellate Court May, 1909; opinion filed October 18, 1910.

Second trial (Pressley v. KinlockBloomington Telephone Co., 164 Ill. App. 167). Judgment for $9,000. Reversed on the ground that there was no evidence that the Telephone Co. owned or controlled the telephone wire, and that although the verdict as against the Railway Co. was "not unwarranted," yet since the judgment was against both defendants, the reversal must be as to both. Heard in the Appellate Court May, 1911; opinion filed October 20, 1911; rehearing denied Dec. 8, 1911.

Third trial (Pressley v. K. B. Telephone Co. and B. & N. R. & Light Co., 184 Ill. App. 113). Verdict and judgment for $4,500 against both defendants. Reversed on the grounds (1) as before, that there was no proof of the Telephone Co.'s ownership of the wire that fell, and (2) therefore, as before, the judgment being joint, it must be reversed as to both defendants. Heard in the Appellate Court October, 1912; opinion filed Oct. 16, 1913; rehearing denied Nov. 5, 1913.

Fourth trial. Case dismissed, before trial, as to the Telephone Company. Judgment against the B. & N. R. & Light Co., $4,187. Judgment affirmed on May 26, 1915, by the Appellate Court. (Digest of Appellate opinions, Ill. L. Rev. X, 28.) Judgment reversed and cause remanded (opinion on Feb. 16, 1916) by the Supreme Court. Grounds: (1) Mistake of pleading, because the plaintiff's replication to the defendant's second additional plea committed a departure from the declaration, in alleging a duty to shut off the current, instead of a duty to inspect and repair the wire; (2) error of ruling on proof by the trial court, on the issue of defective insulation, in refusing a peremptory direction of a verdict for lack of evidence of defect.

Now, we do not pretend to assert that justice plainly points here to either party as deserving a judgment on the merits of fact and law. There is ground for arguing that, in the matters of substantive law and procedure involved, as well as in the handling of the case, defects are apparent. But we do assert this: That justice requires that a case of this kind be tried out and settled without taking five trials, four or five appeals, and nine years of time. We assert that such a product as this, judged by the reasonable standards of efficiency, is simply a botch. Whether the standard of efficiency be the industrial one of a modern department store, or the ideal one of Plato's Republic, such a result measures in to the culls class by any standard, and should cause us to reflect seriously on our system.

Nor do we assert that the fault lay in any particular quarter, whether in the law, or the lawyers, or the witnesses, or the clerks, and sheriffs, or the juries, or the judges. Very likely it was the fault of nobody in particular. We don't know. Probably nobody knows.

No One is Responsible

But our only point is that it is nobody's duty and power to find out.

What we preach is a Chief Judicial Superintendent, who shall have the power and the duty to inquire into each and every sort of botch-product of our justicesystem, and to take measures to improve it. against the recurrence of such failures. When the people of Illinois bring themselves to permitting and demanding such an innovation, they will be in a fair way of getting substantial improvements in their justice, but not before then.*

*The author of this convincing plea had in mind a "Chief Judicial Superintendent" of the kind provided by the State-wide Judicature Act (Bulletin VII-A, A. J. S.) who would be the executive and responsible head of the Judicial Council of the unified State Court. It is interesting to note that in California recently, in an attempt to remedy defects of the kind above set forth, the idea has been acted upon literally. The proposed Commissioner of Justice mentioned under "News From the Field" would be a judicial superintendent but without machinery for the direct enforcement of his recommendations..

It was only a few years ago that city government throughout the country was a confessed failure. We were both ashamed and alarmed. Alarmed, because it looked as though popular government would go to the scrap-heap unless city government were mastered, and because many of us sincerely believed that genuine and lasting reform in that field was hopeless.

Since that period of pessimism we have had one of constructive experiment. We no longer fear the future. Galveston's radical departure from the usual scheme and its success came at the right time. Soon other cities were copying the Galvestor plan. Then students of government stepped in to improve what had been, or seemed to have been, a lucky accident.

Surely Galveston's success was not purely fortuitous. It was inevitable that some day successful organization in the world of industry, concerning which we Americans have had special reason for pride, should influence political organization. Business men had learned in fields in which competition was keen and evolution. swift, to delegate authority and conserve responsibility, and that is after all the real problem of successful popular government.

The Des Moines charter, drafted by Senator Albert J. Cummins, then governor of Iowa, grafted onto the simple scheme of the Galveston plan the elements needed to relate a good business organization of government to democratic control.

This resulted in a greater measure of success and a wider spread of the plan. Friends of good city government declared that the final solution had been attained. Reform in city government entered upon. its second stage, a triumphant march carrying it in a few years to over three hundred municipalities.

Constitutions were amended to permit of this revolution and legislatures yielded to the demand for better charters.

But the Des Moines plan did not fit the large cities or the smallest ones. A few years' experience showed that it left. something to be desired in the cities of moderate size where it had accomplished great good. It was realized in time that the analogy between the city commission of four or five, and the directorate of the private corporation, was in part fictitious. The business world had not yet contributed its full measure of experience to the problem of city government.

Then came the commission-manager plan, an inevitable step, and the analogy was realized. The commission-manager plan permits of a council of any convenient size and is adaptable to the needs of the largest as well as the smallest municipalities. It brought us to the third and final stage of reform in city government. Another decade will see it universally adopted. Pessimism is beaten. Popular government conquers in the field supposed to be most hopeless.

This history is entirely relevant to the problem of city courts. City courts have most conspicuously failed. And city courts have been most despaired of. Until a few years ago city courts were comparable with city government generally before an efficient and responsible machinery of government had been devised.

The parallel to Galveston in the judicial field is the Municipal Court of Chicago. This court was in every respect a radical departure from tradition. Its structure recognized the fact that a great deal of judicial work, especially in cities, is administrative. It is judicial business. For this work business management is necessary. No amount of judicial wisdom, honesty or conscience and no practice acts, be they ever so comprehensive and detailed, can take the place of just plain ordinary business management.

The Chicago court was given a chief justice who became personally responsible

for the management of the business of the court because he was directed to classify this business on special calendars and to direct the activities of the twenty-seven associate judges. This did not give him the right to influence any associate judge with respect to his decision in a particular cause. The essential judicial function was in no way disturbed.

Rule-Making Power Restored

The court, as a whole, was given power to establish rational procedure through rules of court. In this way the legislature delegated this difficult work to experts who were on the job every day and who could be held by the public and the bar to a higher degree of responsibility than legislators. Making for responsibil ity of all judges also was the provision for monthly and annual reports. Finally the requirement that judges should meet monthly to consider complaints, and generally to provide for taking care of administrative needs as they might arise made it a democratic body and helped to develop an esprit de corps.

Here for the first time existed a great city court conscious of the work it had to do and possessing power to do it well. It was not long before the solution of the great problem of specialization was solved through the power to segregate various classes of causes upon separate calendars. Up to that time the need for specialization had been met mainly by creating by statute independent specialized tribunals. These separate courts introduced new complexities and difficulties of administration. In most instances, they represented no real advance. They were specialized tribunals, but what was wanted was specialist judges.

Assignment of judges to branch courts, created at will from time to time to meet the obvious needs of administration, permitted of the selection of judges best fitted by temperament and training for highly specialized work. Judges were enabled to become as expert in the substan

tive law as the lawyers practicing in their courts. For the first time the problem of dissociating the round hole and the square peg was solved.

Development of specialized courts under central management soon brought judicial administration in the large city to the second stage, comparable with the Des Moines plan. Soon other cities were copying Chicago's conspicuous success just as other cities copied Des Moines' charter. Cleveland, Milwaukee, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, New York, Atlanta and Philadelphia established courts embodying more or less closely the essentials of the Chicago plan.

The analogy with charter reform goes further, for many persons declared that the problem of city courts had been solved for all time. But Chicago never claimed that the last word had been reached

through its relatively successful experiment. Its municipal court is only one of five courts. Its field is neither exclusive nor complete and much still remains before Chicago can be satisfied with its courts, as a whole.

There is no limit to the jurisdiction of the Chicago Municipal Court in the trial of contract causes and this has made it a great commercial court. But in tort actions its limit of jurisdiction is $1,000. There is no chancery jurisdiction so its Domestic Relations Court is deprived of the power to deal directly with the divorce problem. In the criminal field the court is seriously handicapped because it can deal finally with only the lesser offenses of the grade of misdemeanors.

The court is, after all, only one of a congeries of courts in a field of overlapping and competing jurisdictions. It has but thirty-one judges out of a total of seventy-one judges sitting in Chicago exclusive of federal court judges. It does not control wholly its own chief clerk and chief bailiff whose offices were made political as the price for its establishment. Its judges have brief and very uncertain tenure. They are removed or re-elected ac

full expression of the talents of the individual judges. It dignifies the judicial position by increasing its powers, and especially by permitting of real success. It backs up every individual judge, just so far as he is doing his work faithfully, with the inertia of a powerful but responsible machine, inestimably increasing his independence so far as resisting evil influences is concerned.

The meetings and the reports and the common responsibility result in esprit de .corps. Why should there be an esprit de corps between the chancellor and the police judge? The answer is that their work together constitutes a social and juristic entity. It is all involved in the administration of justice. If any part is bad the whole cannot ever be really good. The ultimate responsibility, organization or no organization, rests finally upon all the judges. But the nature of the organization which has grown up in our cities tends to negative any unity of responsibility. It is admirably adapted to make the work of the courts as a whole unsuccessful.

We have little complaint concerning the work of the more dignified branches. What is most needed is such organization that the most conscientious and skilled judges shall be able to exert their influence over

the meaner branches. Their responsibility is easily invoked by giving them power to control the administration of justice throughout the territory they serve. Closely knit organization and responsibility will raise the standards of all to the standards of the most faithful, and nothing else will.

The way to solve the problem of the inferior court is to have no inferior courts, but only one court. Nobody can say absolutely that any part of the administration of justice is less important in the largest political and social sense, than any other part. The inferior court and the inferior judge, so far as large cities are concerned, are mere relics of pioneer conditions. They were once justified on grounds of economy, but there can no longer be any real economy purchased at

the price of faulty service. There is no city that can afford to pay less than what real justice may cost.

The only possible economy lies in right decisions in the courts of first instance. This calls for judicial ability of a high order. Any system which does not afford substantial justice and a large measure of finality in the trial branches is extravagant.

Further discussion of the practical operation of specialized courts is reserved for later issues of this JOURNAL.

A Fundamental Principle
Violated

There is nothing more common, especially among lawyers, than to consider the separation of powers the very essence of our governmental system. Every good is attributed to this principle and every evil, is attributed to some real or fancied departure from it. And yet many of the most ardent champions of the separation of powers appear quite oblivious of the fact that in many States we have departed widely from this fundamental principle.

The first great departure was when legislatures took from the courts the exercise of their historic rule-making power. This was done in the name of reform, because the courts did not possess enough unity to react to the popular demand for modernized procedure. Until 1848 there was no disposition on the part of legislatures to lay down numerous minute and mandatory rules for the regulation of the conduct of courts. The legislative power to interfere was doubtless residual, as was the court's power to declare laws void because they were in conflict with the constitution.

But the fact is that neither power was exercised except in rare instances before 1848. Then came the codification of procedure, which in time resulted in rigid and minute procedural statutes in twenty