What Is Trial?
The decision of fact, which constitutes in every civilized country the chief business of courts of justice; for experience will abundantly show that above a hundred of our lawsuits arise from disputed facts, for one where the law is doubted.
About twenty days in the year, says Blackstone, are sufficient in Westminster Hall to settle, upon solemn argument, every demurrer or point of law that arises throughout the nation; but two months are annually spent in deciding the truth of facts before six distinct tribunals, exclusive of Middlesex and London, which afford a supply of causes much more than equivalent to any two of the largest circuits. (3 Bl. Com. 320.) The state of things in our own days is substantially the same.—Stephen’s Commentaries.