APPENDIX T.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON JURISPRUDENCE AND LAW REFORM.

The Committee on Jurisprudence and Law Reform respectfully reports that no subjects have been referred for its consideration. The committee recommends that members of the Association having suggestions to offer upon the subject of Law Reform should submit them to the committee in due time, to be considered and reported upon to this body.

It should be a source of great congratulation to the Georgia Bar Association, that the several reports and discussions upon the subject of legal education have resulted not only in appropriate legislation, but have induced the trustees of the University of Georgia to extend the course of legal instruction in that institution from one to two years.

Without discussing the relative merits of the education obtained in the law offices of active practitioners, and that received from the law schools, it may be safely said, that, in either event, admission to the bar should be so guarded that only those applicants should be admitted who are fairly well qualified to enter upon the practice of the profession.

Your committee has no reason to doubt that the Board of Law Examiners, as now constituted, will require applicants to stand such examinations as will demonstrate their fitness for admission to the bar; but the advantages which the student has in attending a well-conducted law school, connected with an academic institution of high grade, will prove of inestimable benefit to him. The very fact that the student is thrown into intimate personal association with several hundred young men enables him to form acquaintanceships and friendships that are not

only pleasant to him, but which will be of lasting practical service to him.

Your committee therefore approves, in the strongest terms, the recent action of the trustees of the University of Georgia, in not only requiring that the course of study shall be two full academic years, but particularly in requiring that the matriculants must be eighteen years old, and must pass satisfactorily an entrance examination covering the elements of an English education.

It has occurred to your committee that legislation is demanded in the case of nuncupative wills. It is well settled that a subscribing witness, who is also a legatee or a devisee under a written will, is competent to testify, but the legacy or devise is void, and yet it has been recently adjudicated that although one of the three necessary witnesses to a nuncupative will may be the sole legatee or devisee, yet that such devise or legacy is not void. In a word, in the case of a nuncupative will, which is not a favorite of the law, but which is only tolerated from necessity, a legacy or a devise to one of the witnesses to such nuncupative will is good, while a legacy or devise to one of the subscribing witness to a written will, which is a favorite of the law, is void. Your committee recommends that the law applicable in this particular to written wills shall, by appropriate legislation, be made to apply to nuncupative wills.

Respectfully submitted,

P. W. MELDRIM,
Chairman.

APPENDIX U.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON INTERSTATE LAW.

To the Georgia Bar Association:

Your Committee on Interstate Law beg leave to submit the following report:

Since the last meeting of our Association little progress seems to have been made toward the accomplishment of uniformity of laws in the United States except that the subject continues to be a matter of general interest and comment, as well as of resolutions by the Bar Associations of the various States of the Union and of the American Bar Association.

By reason of the recent decisions rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States, the subject of the Divorce Laws in the Union is at present exciting the most discussion, and undoubtedly uniformity of laws on this subject in the different States is exceedingly desirable. Indeed, those vital questions, the validity of marriages and the legitimacy of children, may now be said to be largely regulated by geography.

At the last meeting of the American Bar Association, the Committee on Uniformity of State Laws devoted their report almost entirely to the subject of a uniform divorce law, and recommended for general adoption an act upon the subject; which act your committee here appends.

Perhaps the only criticism to be made upon this act is that it should go further and prescribe uniform causes for divorce; for though the matter of the causes for divorce might well differ in the various States without bringing about the serious results which a want of uniformity in other respects has already produced, uniformity in this particular also is much to be commended.

Many a would-be divorcee might be tempted to resort to an evasion of the law in order to place himself in a jurisdiction where he might more easily rid himself of a disagreeable partner than if he remained in his own State, and who would seek the new jurisdiction without any real intention of becoming a permanent resident there. However, your committee most urgently recommend that the action of the American Bar Association be concurred in, and that the act proposed by it be laid before the General Assembly of this State, with the recommendation of this Association that it be made a law.

Your committee desire further to call attention to the fact that the Negotiable Instruments Act recommended by the American Bar Association and referred to in the report of the Committee on Interstate Law at the meeting of this Association, held in 1898, has never become the law of Georgia. This act has been adopted by fifteen States in the Union, besides the District of Columbia, and from each of these jurisdictions the workings of the law are highly commended. This act is the work of a most able member of the New York bar and was carefully reviewed by the commissioners appointed by the various States for the promotion of uniformity of legislation, and is a most admirable conpilation of the law on this subject, providing no radical change in the law of the State of Georgia as it now stands and as it has been construed.

Your committee, therefore, recommend that this Association take some definite action to the end that this act may certainly be laid before the General Assembly at its next session, with the request by this Association that it be adopted.

Respectfully submitted,

CLIFFORD L. ANDERSON, Chairman.
JOHN I. HALL,

W. A. WIMBISH,

W. M. HENRY,

E. D. GRAHAM,

Committee.

PROPOSED UNIFORM DIVORCE LAW.

(Referred to in the foregoing report.)

Section 1. No divorce shall be granted for any cause arising prior to the residence of the complainant or defendant in this State, which was not a ground for divorce in the State where the

cause arose.

Sec. 2. No person shall be entitled to a divorce for any cause arising in this State, who has not had actual residence in this State for at least one year next before bringing suit for divorce, with a bona fide intention of making this State his or her permanent home.

Sec. 3. No person shall be entitled to a divorce for any cause arising out of this State unless the complainant or defendant shall have resided within this State for at least two years next before bringing suit for divorce, with a bona fide intention of making this State his or her permanent home.

Sec. 4. No person shall be entitled to a divorce unless the defendant shall have been personally served with process, if within this State, or if without this State, shall have had personal notice duly proved and appearing of record, or shall have entered an appearance in the case; but if it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court that the complainant does not know the address nor the residence of the defendant, and has not been able to ascertain either after reasonable and due inquiry and search continued for six months after suit brought, the court or judge in vacation may authorize notice by publication of the pendency of the suit for divorce, to be given in manner provided by law.

Sec. 5. No divorce shall be granted solely upon default nor solely upon admissions by the pleadings, nor except upon hearing before the court in open session.

Sec. 6. After divorce, either party may marry again, but in case where notice has been given by publication only, and the defendant has not appeared, no decree or judgment for divorce