As it is now inconceivable that we
should throw into unsanitary jails men and women who are mentally or
socially diseased, so is it hard to realize that during the
unintelligent period of which we are speaking, nay for many centuries,
there existed people who lived upon their misfortunes.
Naturally with the disappearance of litigation and lawyers the public
no longer tolerated the existence of the judges or courts. For a few
years they retained a hold upon the imagination of a small portion of
citizens who entertained a sentimental regard for the State
institutions of a civilization founded upon the unsound teachings of
eighteenth-century doctrinaires.
The period of the abandonment of the old courts corresponded with the
extraordinary development for what was called "moving pictures";
those pale, lifeless presentations without color, speech, or
substance, at which the people of a benighted age gathered for
amusement or entertainment! It requires imagination to conceive that
people were unfamiliar with the ease of communicating with any place
on the globe and reproducing exactly in form, color, and speech by
turning on a switch. The observer of that age must have been shocked
and surprised to find the solemn courthouses turned into what was
known as moving-picture palaces or as community centers for dancing
and social entertainments.
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