DEPARTMENTS OF GOVERNMENT IN A STATE. 337
exist for their protection, and not for that of those only who
can employ an advocate. Such courts in different shapes are
now spreading abroad through Europe, and deserve to be
diffused over all parts of the world.*
The principal divisions of labor, however, in judiciary sys-
tems are first that between the magistrates who
' prepare the cases and the bodies which give the
final decision, and secondly that between the modern judge
and the jury. Other forms of dividing up the work, as when
one body of men take down the evidence in writing and re-
port upon it, and another with that evidence and the law
before them make the final decision, seem liable to great
objections. The first mentioned of these divisions of labor
is illustrated by Athenian and by Roman practice. The
Athenian system, as far as the point before us is concerned,
required that the parties should appear with their evidence
and witnesses, either before a public arbitrator or before a
magistrate, who had the right of presiding in a court, and to
whom the case according to law was committed. This officer
heard the testimony, saw that it was reduced to writing, had
it sealed up in a jar, appointed the day for trial according to
a regular system^ and when it came on simply took his place
as president of the court, kept order, called for the votes of
the dikasts, had them counted, and announced the result. As
for the rest, the system was extremely imperfect. There
were no prosecuting officers ; the dikasts were a body often
unwieldy, on account of numbers ; and, in fact, a detachment
of the people carrying political feeling into the dikastery;
suits for false witnbss were private, not public, so as to be at-
tended with no civil penalties until after three convictions,
except that the state and the injured party received equal
damages ; there was, for the most part, no appeal ; and the
appeals were only for special reasons from a decision of a
regular or heliastic court; and the party in whose favor a suit
was decided was thrown upon his own means for recovering
* Comp. Dr. Lieber's civ. lib., chap, xix., end.
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