unprejudiced judgment. The appeal is asked on account of
mistakes of his, and he will not be apt to think that he has made
any. The judge of the appellate court will be impartial and
unprejudiced, but he will have a very imperfect knowledge of the
case. He could only be asked to make a hasty examination of the
points involved, and it would be quite possible for him to reject
as frivolous grounds which, on a lengthy investigation after a
full argument, might have seemed to him substantial. In view of
these objections, and of the unequal attainments and experience
of the different judges of our courts, the bar are generally in
favor of making appeals a matter of right; and what the bar
favors in such a matter the legislature usually enacts.

* * * * *

The opinions and judgments of all American courts of last resort
are officially reported for publication. At first they were not
so reported. The earliest volume of American judicial decisions
(Kirby's) was published in 1789 as a private venture. A few
years later the States began to provide official reporters for
their highest courts and soon assumed the expense of publication.
There are now more than fifty current sets of federal and State
reports, the annual output being about four hundred volumes,
containing 25,000 cases. The mere indexing and digesting of
these reports for the use of the bench and bar has become a
science. While consulted by comparatively few who are not
connected with the legal profession, they constitute a set of
public records of the highest value to every student of history
and sociology.[Footnote: See "Two Centuries' Growth of American
Law," 6.]