“Last year we had in this city about 3,000 marriage licenses, and about 1,500 applications for divorce, with perhaps not over 1,000 of them granted. We have a city of excellent homes and exceptional laws for the protection of children, and the morality of our people is equal to that of the very best.
“I am sorry that we have not as yet completed the contemplated report of this Court, which we expect to have printed. I am hoping to have it ready in about six or eight months, and I think it will be a volume that will greatly interest your readers.
“This Court has jurisdiction over all children’s cases, and all youths under twenty-one, all cases of non-support or desertion of wives or children, and of controversies of parents over their children, and practically all criminal cases where the accused has committed an offense against a child. Thus, it is a special tribunal for the correction and protection of children and some cases of domestic relations. We do not now have the divorce cases proper, although I tried them for seven or eight years exclusively. The reason for this is that happily most of those cases are between couples who have no children, and the divorce cases take up too much time from the more important work dealing with children’s cases. However, in a divorce case where there is a controversy between husband and wife over the custody of a child, it may be heard, and frequently is heard, in this Court. A Bill is now before the Legislature which will practically require the hearing of most of these cases in this Court.
“We have visitation and probation officers, medical clinics, physical and psychological, which aid and assist us. The work of this Court, in a word, is more that of a place of human adjustment—adjustment of human difficulties growing out of the relation of the sexes, married or unmarried. To my mind this is the most important kind of a tribunal and ought to exist in, say, ten or fifteen districts in London instead of the system you have of dividing the work into many courts where none of them are equipped as experts. An address which I delivered nearly ten years ago still covers a great deal of my ideas on the ideal tribunal of this kind.
“The budget of this Court for all its work in its various divisions, last year, was about $30,000. I believe with you that would be about £5,000 or £6,000. This includes the salaries of the judge, the clerks, probation officers, stenographers, visitation agents, specialists, etc. We heard and disposed of about 3,000 cases last year at an expense of about $10.00 per case (about £2). Perhaps in half of the cases of domestic difficulties we were able to bring about an amicable settlement and restore the relations in the home. In perhaps twenty-five per cent. of them we were quite agreed that no effort should be made to restore such relations unless we wished to contribute to crime and immorality. Of course, in most of such cases the old church view would be to persuade the people to live together in a state of what to us is sin and crime, but with the church is considered perfectly proper.
“When we have to send a youth to the State prison, jail or reformatory, we send him by himself on trust and honour, without an officer and without official restraint. Out of some eight hundred thus committed in the last twenty years, we have never lost a prisoner.
“We very seldom swear a witness in the Court, and seldom take testimony. The cases are tried by what we call the administrative method. For example, the wife will consult with me one day, the husband the next, and then both together. I could see a witness for either side at any time. We listen to anyone who wants to talk, so long as they do not all talk at once. We have no rules of evidence and no Court costs, and, as a rule, no lawyers’ or counsel or solicitors’ fees. The judge of this Court is a human adjuster of human difficulties without cost or expense to the parties involved.
“Most of the people involved in sex cases come here voluntarily, even though the cases may involve criminal offences. People never lie to us, although it is very rare that they are ever sworn to tell the truth. In most cases their own papers are prepared by the clerks of the Court for both sides, without the need or aid of lawyers or solicitors. I should say that in not over one case in fifty does any lawyer ever appear. Of course, if they wish to appear they have a right to, but, as a rule, litigants do not want them because they do not need them. In the saving of counsel, solicitors’, and Court fees for litigants, many thousands of dollars have been saved, and other financial savings during my administration have amounted to millions of dollars, as can be shown by the records. There is, perhaps, not an “exception” or an appeal—though that right is allowed—in one case out of five thousand in this Court. In other words, it is a Court of justice without any of the hampering hobbles that make for perjury and crime in other courts, as we have found from actual experience.”
Judge Hoffman writes as follows:—