230 ment or protection of private rights and the redress of private wrongs," denominated a "civil action." The only pleading allowed was the complaint by the plaintiff, the de murrer and answer by the defendant, and the demurrer and reply by the plaintiff. The court found upon its docket a great number of cases that must be disposed of in accordance with the common law and chancery practice that had prevailed, and many cases thereafter appealed had to be treated in the same way; but all cases begun after the new Code took effect were governed by its provisions, and this en tailed upon the judges a vast amount of ori ginal work. No doubt a prejudice against the new Code and a predilection for the old system prevailed both with the bench and the bar, although often unsuspected by those entertaining them. The New York Code had been in force five years, and the decisions of the courts of that State had not been free from a distrust of the new code. Indeed, it may be said that the early deci sions of the courts of that State were less in harmony with the new method of pleading and practice than that of any other State adopting a code; and their decisions did not fail to have an effect upon the Indiana courts. But notwithstanding all this, the decisions of the Indiana Supreme Court are singularly in harmony with the spirit and letter of both the civil and criminal codes of the State. The provisions of the Con stitution requiring all decisions to be re duced to writing and to be reported, soon swelled the number of reports far beyond their former number, and filled them with in numerable questions of practice, which, ow ing to these provisions, are repeated over and over. No State in the Union, unless it is the State of New York, has a set of re ports containing as many decided questions of practice as Indiana; and herein the court has been placed at a decided disadvantage, because of the frivolous questions that en cumber the pages of our reports, and the unavoidable conflicting decisions on minor
and obscure points of practice. Since the new court was formed, its opinions fill one hundred and twenty-five volumes, averaging over six hundred pages per volume. To the profession the burden is intolerable, not only in the purchase of the volumes, but in wad ing through a vast amount of rubbish for kernels of new grain. Not only did the court have two new codes to interpret, but it also had the whole body of the statute law of the State and the new Constitution. The first General As sembly after the new Constitution went into force reconstructed the entire body of the statute law of the State, so as to conform with the provisions of that instrument. Constitutional questions came thick and fast. The first question arose in Jones v. Cavins (4 Ind. 305), Nov. 28, 1853, con cerning the office of county auditor; and Judge Perkins wrote the opinion. In the temperance legislation of that day the court found its most serious and difficult questions. The first case on this legislation was Maize v. The State (4 Ind. 342), upon the Local Option Law of 1853. The court held that so much of that act as required a submission to the voters of the township, to determine whether intoxicating liquors could be therein sold, was unconstitutional, but that the remainder of the act could stand. Judge Stuart wrote the opinion. The prin ciple governing this case was adhered to in Greencastle Township v. Black (5 Ind. 557V with respect to a township voting a tax for school purposes. The result of these decisions was that the legislature passed in 1855 a prohibitory liquor law; but it too fell before the court. On the 30th of October, 1855, Judge Perkins, as a single judge of the court, delivered an opinion on the petition of one Herman for a writ of habeas corpus, holding the Temperance Act of 1855 unconstitutional (8 Ind. 545); and on the 20th of the following December a divided bench sustained his opinion.1 In Beebe's case it was in effect held that the 1 Beebe v. Slate, 6 Ind. 501.
