volume (Vol. 178) of the New York Reports, the percentage is but
thirty, and in the last of the Massachusetts Reports (Vol. 185)
it is only twenty-five.[Footnote: _Law Notes_ for April,
1905, 8.]

* * * * *

In the Supreme Court of the United States and in several of the
appellate courts of the larger States each judge is provided with
a clerk at public expense. While this is a means of relief from
much which is in the nature of drudgery, it sometimes leads to a
deterioration in the quality of the judicial opinions. A
dictated opinion is apt to be unnecessarily long, and when a
clerk is set to looking up authorities, although he can hardly be
expected always to select the most apposite, it is easier to
accept his work and use what he has gathered than to institute an
independent search.

Some of the appellate courts which are most fully employed, both
State and federal, are provided with special libraries of
considerable extent, and each of the individual judges is also
often furnished with an official library, sometimes containing
several thousand volumes, for his personal use, to be handed over
to his successor when he retires from office.[Footnote: In New
York, the private library of the Court of Appeals contains over
6,000 volumes, comprehending all the reports of all the States,
and the personal libraries provided for each judge have come to
comprise 3,500 volumes.]

In some States counsel have the right to demand to be heard