during the first year of the act the attention of the court was largely occupied with this branch of business, but the number of new cases is decreasing. The judge holds a motion day each week for hearing of bankruptcy matters at Utica, which is almost the geographical center of the district, and disposes of every matter as it arises. There has never been the least delay in any bankruptcy matter attributable to the judge, and there is not to-day a single undecided case upon his desk. This is also true of every branch of the business of the District Court; there has never been the least congestion during the last eighteen years; every case has been tried when ready for trial, and decided as a rule within two weeks thereafter. There is not a case pending in the District Court which was commenced over six months ago, that could not have been tried had the parties desired a trial, and there is no case begun within the last six months that cannot be tried at the next term of the court. In accordance with the request of the Department of Justice, it was the custom of this office to report the number of causes pending in this court. The number is exceedingly misleading, because it includes between five thousand and six thousand cases under the Bankruptcy Law of 1867, which are practically dead, but in which no formal order of discontinuance has been entered. No step has been taken in any of these cases for ten years, and they have no more to do with the question of the present pending business of the court than if they were in the Court of Queen's Bench in Canada. In short, the entire business of the District Court is up to date in all its branches. Were five additional terms of court created there would be practically no business at all at many of them." In addition to that, Mr. President, there is the fact that should the district be divided it would require an expense each year to the Government from $25,000 to $100,000; and, although I have been of a different opinion until I found the facts, I have been in exactly the same position, we all frequently are, when we prepare our case for trial, but, when the court heard the other side and heard the verdict of the jury, we changed our minds. The President: The question is now upon Mr. Cookinham's motion for the appointment of a committee of three. Mr. Cookinham did not suggest how the committee was to be appointed. H. J. Cookinham, of Utica: Tracy C. Becker, of Buffalo: Mr. President, I offer a substitute for that resolution and move its adoption: "Resolved, That the New York State Bar Association approve the general scope and purposes of the bill now pending in Congress, to divide the Northern District of New York on the lines laid down in said bill, and request that said bill or one of similar character be adopted." Ansley Wilcox, of Buffalo: Mr. President, I second the motion. Mr. Becker: Mr. President, my graceful and ingenious friend, Mr. Cookinham, for whom I entertain the highest feelings of respect, seems to have experienced a very sudden change of heart. He has been a practising lawyer in this district for upwards of twenty-five years; he has been thoroughly familiar with the conditions that exist; he has resided in the city of Utica, where, since 1882, the district judge has resided. He came down here to a meeting of the Association and of the Committee on Law Reform and said, after all this experience of nearly a quarter of a century, he was in favor of this bill, and now he stands before the Association with a paper, containing what I am going to call decidedly padded statistics, furnished by the paid and salaried official of the court that is in question, and he says, upon reading that, he has experienced a change of heart. I do not know how he will explain his position, but I will leave it to him to do so. Our position in Buffalo and the western part of this district is very much like an old friend of mine, by the name of William J. Kearney. Mr. Kearney was an Irishman, as his name implies. He was a great wit; one of those sly foxes that has a fund of simple humor. Mr. Kearney was, most of his life, engaged in the somewhat disreputable business known as gambling, but he was what was quite common in the old days, in our part of the country- I don't know whether in Utica a square gambler. Mr. Cookinham: We don't have any. Mr. Becker: Probably not of that sort. One day Mr. Kearney had the misfortune to be approached by a gentleman who buncoed him; that is, he was persuaded to make a loan on a worthless check. About that same time Mr. Kearney's business was stopped by a ukase, issued by the chief of police, and put in force by the myrmidons of his office. Mr. Kearney, therefore, felt very badly and very blue, but he didn't lose his Irish wit. He came up before the grand jury, which I had charge of at the time, being in the district attorney's office. Probably nineteen men out of the twenty were well acquainted with him; knew all about him, and knew his business, and he was brought in there and sworn on the Holy Gospel to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth; and I asked Mr. Kearney, “What is your name?" He had a long, red beard, and he stroked his beard and looked out of the corner of his eyes and said, "My name is William J. Kearney." I said, "Where do you live?" He answered, “I live so and so Niagara street." I said, "Mr. Kearney, what is your business?" He looked around all over the grand jury and saw his old friends seated there, and the twinkle came in the corner of his eyes; he replied, "Well, sir, my present business is looking for business." (Laughter.) We are not at all misled by the statistics furnished by the salaried clerks of the United States Court for the Northern District of New York. We admit there has been a very slight increase, if they want it that way, or a very marked decrease, if they want to call it that, which is equally dissatisfying to them. We want to see the business increased, and we want a court, to do it in. We maintain the reason why there isn't more business is because the district is situated as it is, and because the court sits where it does, and because the business is run as it is run, and in the face of the deliberate judgment and signed judgment, which will be read to you in the form of a memorial, carefully prepared by the members of our Bar, with knowledge of the facts, we think the statistics furnished here will be shown to be, to put it mildly, entirely misleading. I do not intend to take up the time of the Association with an elaborate discussion, or attempt to refute what has been put forward here; I simply say of this motion of Mr. Cookinham's- I do not mean to say it is not in good faith, but it will not operate in good faith. The effect will be to table it until next year. If we cannot convince the Association on the papers and the facts then the bill should be defeated, and we should be beaten here, and the fiat of the Association should go out against it; but to pigeon-hole it and to send it to a committee another year, which may or may not report it, is something we are opposed to. We want this question disposed of, and we think there are facts enough now, to the knowledge of every lawyer in this room, to warrant us in making the request that we make. In this matter it ought to be stated, and stated with the utmost consideration, that there is nothing at all that reflects in the slightest degree on the learned and able District judge of this district. There is nothing that reflects on my friend Doolittle, sitting behind Mr. Cookinham, the clerk of the United States Circuit Court. There is nothing that reflects on my very good friend Charles Germain, whom I have seen around this place the last few days; but it is the result of a condition; as the venerable Grover Cleveland once said, it is "a condition and not a theory that confronts us." This district, as it is now constituted, has probably three and a half millions of people. Buffalo is at the head of the Great Lakes. Our commerce is constantly increasing, and our admiralty business, and our patent business, and trade-mark business ought to be increased. Unfortunately the only business that seems to have increased in our part of the country is the bankruptcy business. We come here as brother members of the Bar in good faith. We have examined this question. The talk of dividing this district has been up for the last ten or fifteen years, and discussed every year, and political considerations alone have prevented it. That I am perfectly willing to stand by. Possibly the silent influence of some |