AMERICAN JUDGES.

Westport Times, Volume VI, Issue 978, 11 June 1872, Page 3

AMERICAN JUDGES.

The March number of ' Macmillan's Magazine ' has a remarkable article on the American Bench, by Mr James Bryce. The accusation made against the mighty swindler Fisk, of " keeping judges in his pay," is shown to be applicable to many notorious wealthy blackguards. The system which makes the judge a dependent on his party and his office a purely political one, combined with the meagrenoss of the salary (averaging £BOO a year) when compared with the incomes earned by practising barristers, has brought about this lamentable con dition of the American bench. A judge who is elected for a year is compelled to purchase re-election by constant subservience to tho particular " .Ring " which put him into office. " Men," says Bryce, " have been accordingly placed on the bench, whom one might rather have expected to see in the dock —bar-room loafers, broken down Tombs attorneys, needy adventturers whose want of character made them absolutely dependent on their patrons." Indeed, no better illustra tion of the depth of degradatien to which %he Bench has sunk in America can be given than the remark made by a " prominent politicau " of one of the judges of the Supreme Court of New York city, —" I don't think him so bad a fellow as they make out; ho has always been very friendly to me, and would give mo an injunction or do anything else for me at a moment's notice ; and he's not an iilnatured man. But of course he is the last person I should ever dream of asking to my house." I