II
THE CIVIL COURT
In a twenty-four-story office building, on a smooth gliding elevator,
up seventeen stories, down a low-ceilinged corridor, past fireproof
doors labeled: "Clerk's Office," "Judge's Chambers," "Witness Room,"
we find the typical modern court. The old idea of a very
pseudo-classic courthouse on a placid village green to which the
neighboring county squires have ridden, and where the jail is in the
cellar and the town recorder in the attic, is fast disappearing. The
old courthouse in the city, of red sandstone with battlements and
turrets, minarets, and a clock tower, seems out of date.
The white marble palaces of the higher courts wherein broad stairways,
paneled mahogany, stained glass, and soft noiseless carpets giving an
air of repose and refined culture, are not altogether consistent with
the modern spirit. The man on the street does not understand whether
the marble statues on the roof are symbols of justice or late
presidents of the United States. The usual courthouse of twenty years
ago was a mixture of armory and Gothic church.
In the larger courthouses where there are many terms or parts in one
building, there is an air of confusion.
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