“ It is the opinion of persons of experience that the result has undoubtedly been to drive to London much of the civil business which properly belongs to the provinces, and ought to be tried there, and thus at once to increase the burden on the judges and jurymen in London, and to increase the costs of the trial of the actions sent there. Some persons advocate the continuous sittings of the high court in certain centres, such as Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Newcastle, Birmingham and Bristol, or (in fact) a decentralization of the judicial system. ”

“ In the United States the English circuit system still exists in some states, as in Massachusetts, where the judges sit in succession in the various counties of the state. The term circuit courts applies distinctively in America to a certain class of inferior federal courts of the United States, exercising jurisdiction, concurrently with the state courts, in certain matters where the United States is a party to the litigation, or in cases of crime against the United States. ”

“ The facility of railway communication renders this reform comparatively easy, and reforms in this direction have been approved by the judges, but ancient custom and local patriotism, interests, or susceptibility bar the way. The Assizes and Quarter Sessions Act 1908 contributed something to reform by dispensing with the obligation to hold assizes at a fixed date if there is no business to be transacted. Nor can it be said that the single-judge system has been altogether a success. When there is only one judge for both civil and criminal work, he properly takes the criminal business first. ”