It is the custom to prefix to the report of each case a head-note
stating briefly the points decided. Ordinarily this is the work
of the reporter. In a few States the judges are required to
prepare it; and to do so then naturally falls to the lot of that
one of them who wrote the opinion. Occasionally the head-note
contains statements not supported by the opinion. In such case
the opinion controls unless it is otherwise provided by statute.

It has not been the usual custom of English judges of courts of
last resort to write out their opinions. They have commonly
pronounced them orally and left it to the reporters to put them
in shape. The consequence has been that English reports have a
conversational tone, and are not free from useless repetition.
This has been not only a matter of tradition but of necessity.
The English judges have always been few in number. Their time
has been largely occupied in the trial of cases on the facts. It
is only in recent years that certain judges have been set apart
especially for appellate work.

American judges, on the other hand, are numerous. There is the
waste of energy in our judicial system which is the necessary
concomitant of the independent sphere belonging to each separate
State. Combination of all of them into one empire would make it
easy to reduce the judiciary to a tithe of its present numbers.
Their salaries are part of the price we pay--and can well afford
to pay--for our peculiar system of political government, under
which every State is an _imperium in imperio_.

The ever-increasing number of our States, each with a body of law