Balance of cash on hand.............

Dues of members, as per the foregoing statement.........

Respectfully submitted by the Treasurer, with the vouchers, this 15th day of May, 1890.

Examined and approved this 15th May, 1890. For Committee,

APPENDIX No. 3.

REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

To the Georgia Bar Association:

AUGUSTA, GA., May 15th, 1890.

The Executive Committee respectfully report:

That no duties were assigned to them by the President during the year.

That various meetings were held and much correspondence had to present business for the Association. Early in the year they were promised an address from the Honorable J. G. Carlisle, who as late as the 22d of April notified the Secretary that he expected to be with us on the 15th of May. Subsequently May 5th, 1890, he was compelled by events beyond his control to recall his consent, and the Association is again. without an annual address, it being too late for the committee to obtain a substitute in the place of Mr. Carlisle.

The programme as prepared by the committee has been published in the Augusta Chronicle and placed in the hands of the members of the Association.

The committee felt themselves controlled by the action of the Association at its last meeting, and under date of the 25th of April gave notice that a banquet would be given by the Association out of its own funds. This will take place on the evening of the second day at the Arlington Hotel in this city.

After a review of the work before the Association for its consideration, at its present meeting the committee determined that everything could be accomplished in two days, having one session on the first day, commencing at ten o'clock and ending at two, with two sessions on the second day, morning and afternoon.

If, however, the programme should not meet the approval of the Association, the hours of meeting and adjournment can be

changed, the object in not having any session on the first day being to give to the Augusta bar an opportunity to extend such personal courtesies as they, collectively or individually, may see fit to extend to the Association or its members.

We have examined the vouchers of the following applicants for admission to the Association, and, pursuant to the authority vested in us under Article 4th of the Constitution, have admitted as members Samuel Lumpkin, Esq., of Oglethorpe; John J. Strickland and Wiley. B. Burnett, Esqs., of Clarke; William T. Gary, C. H. Cohen and Bryan Cumming, Esqs., of Augusta; and Edgeworth Eve, Esq., of Columbia.

The committee have also examined the vouchers of the Treasurer according to the report to be submitted to the Association at this meeting, and they have been found correct. Respectfully submitted in behalf of Committee.

FRANK H. MILLER, Chairman.

Mr. Miller In addition to this, Mr. President, we have received a communication from the Honorable N. J. Hammond. We had a conditional promise from him to read a paper on this occasion, and he sends this as his excuse. I take pleasure in reading it:

ATLANTA, GA., May 14th, 1890.

Hon. F. H. Miller, Chairman Georgia Bar Association, Augusta, Ga.:

DEAR SIR-You were advised on 17th February last of my anxiety to meet the Georgia Bar Association, and yet that I feared it would be out of my power.

The situation of affairs compels my presence elsewhere. The loss falls on me and not on the Association. My contribution to it would have been unimportant; while from it I would have had much pleasure and edifica

tion.

Please present my excuse and apology to the Association and say that I pray that each member of the Association may be " Justitia cultor rigidi servator honesti, in commune bonus," and thus deserve the compliment of Sir Roger L'Estrange none the worse for being over two centuries old, viz.: "He (the true lawyer) is the delight of the court, the ornament of the bar, the glory of his profession, the patron of innocency, the upholder of right, the scourge of oppression, the terror of deceit, and the oracle of his country; and when death calls him to the bar of heaven, by a habeas cum causis, he finds his judge his advocate, nonsuits the devil, obtains a liberate from all his infirmities, and continues still one of the long robe in Glory.' With highest esteem of you personally, I am yours, etc.

N. J. HAMMOND.

APPENDIX NO. 4.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON JURISPRUDENCE AND LAW REFORM.

MR. PRESIDENT- The Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform make no suggestions upon its important general legislation of the last session of the General Assembly. Sufficient time has not elapsed to afford a practical test of the new laws. This -course seems proper for another reason. The Association has now pending an elaborate and valuable report submitted by our predecessors at the last annual meeting, which was specially printed and distributed amongst the members in order to be intelligently considered at this meeting. That report recommends radical changes in the matter of local and special legis lation, and other important modifications of existing laws. The consideration of these matters will occupy all the time the Association can devote to the report of one standing committee. Inasmuch as the report, with the dissenting views of individual members of the committee, has been in the possession of members of the Association long enough for every one to investigate the subjects discussed and the views submitted. We merely call your attention to it for such action as may be deemed expedient, without a formal expression of our opinion.

HENRY D. MCDANIEL,

JOHN L. HOPKINS,

JOEL A. BILLUPS,

N. H. DABNEY,

B. B. BOMER.

APPENDIX No. 5.

EXCESSIVE LEGISLATION A CAUSE OF JUDICIAL INEFFICIENCY AND AN ELEMENT OF

POLITICAL WEAKNESS.

A PAPER READ BEFORE THE GEORGIA BAR ASSOCIATION,

BY HON. CLAUD ESTES,

AT ITS ANNUAL MEETING AT AUGUSTA, MAY 15th, 1890.

Even the casual observer of the times in which we live, to say nothing of the student of history, must have been led oftentimes to the contemplation of the fact that we are the most industrious and extensive law-makers in Christendom.

It is doubtful if there ever has existed a people amongst whom there was a greater desire for more laws The public mind seems all the while to be harassed with the thought that we need legislation. Nearly all the common and State law which we derived from the Mother Country has been superseded by our own enactments. But few of our own statutes have escaped the despoiler's art. Veneration for age and respect for the wisdom of the past have not been sufficient to secure exemption from repeal or modification. Nothing has so far interposed to stay the onward march of law-making. It has invaded every branch of the law, criminal as well as civil. Pleading, practice, evidence, have all alike been subjected to the experiment of the reformer. Precedents, sanctified by the lapse of time and made honorable by the wisdom of ages, have been swept away in a twinkling. If constitutional barriers seem to confront the movement, then Constitutions must be changed or abrogated and new ones adopted-thus the work goes bravely on.

Really it would seem that it has become a disease, that an