Note return — Chapter V

But where the questions involved are many in number, intricate and complicated in character, and enveloped in a mass of conflicting testimony requiring many days to hear it, is it not manifest that a jury,—not one of whom has taken a note during the trial, some of whose members have heard as though hearing not, and seen as though seeing not, the testimony and the witnesses,—deals with such a case at a great disadvantage, as compared with a judge whose notes contain all the material testimony, and who has all the opportunity for rest and relaxation that he may require before filing the finding which is his verdict? With respect to such cases, it is clear that, as a learned English judge has said, "the securities which can be taken for justice in the case of a trial by a judge without a jury, are infinitely greater than those which can be taken for trial by a judge and jury."11 A judge may be required to state what facts he finds, as well as the general conclusion at which he has arrived, and to state upon what views of the legal questions he has acted.