but two out of every hundred cases, and in all the States taken
together, out of nearly 5,000 cases decided a dissent is stated
in 284 only. This made the proportion of unanimous decisions of
State courts, in the country at large, to those in which there
was dissent nineteen to one.[Footnote: _Law Notes_ for June,
1904, p. 285.]

A dissenting judge sometimes files an opinion which is then
printed in full in the reports. More often the fact of his
dissent is simply noted. In cases involving constitutional
questions it is rare for a dissenting judge not to state his
reasons. The importance of the subject justifies if it does not
demand it. As Mr. Justice Story once observed, "Upon
constitutional questions the public have a right to know the
opinion of every judge who dissents from the opinion of the
court, and the reasons of his dissent."[Footnote: Briscoe
_v._ Bank of Kentucky, 11 Peters' Reports, 257, 349.]

The official reports of the courts have some of the faults of
officialism. They often do not appear until long after the
decisions which they chronicle have been made and their general
make-up is sometimes unworkmanlike and unscientific. It requires
rare gifts to make a good reporter of judicial opinions. He must
have the art of clear and concise statement; the power to select
what is material and drop the rest; and the faculty of close
analysis of abstract reasoning.[Footnote: Four of the reporters
of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts have been
appointed justices of that court, largely in consequence of their
good work in reporting. A good reporter always has the making of
a good judge.] Many of our reporters also are practicing lawyers