I had a very busy day. I rushed from the Court, shattered from the fun, and notorious for insalubrity; and in that Court, His Lordship sits to hear matters cognizable in Chambers, where close. Matters too not cognizable in Chambers are being brought thither now, to the convenience no doubt of the Judge, to the inconvenience and discontent of the profession and the suitors.
I had a Motion for a Receiver (in Equity) - The Motion had been opened by me in Court. At the Chief Justice's direction, it stood over until a certain day to be resumed in Court. I attended. The Judge was not there. There was a rumor among the officers of the Supreme Court that he was not going to sit that day, there being "no case". I enquired of the Acting Clerk, at length, and Mr. Bean then informed me "that the Chief Justice, having to sit in Chambers at 2 P.M. that day, in that Court, would take that case out of Court and hear it in Chambers, at his own house".
I was compelled to make a hurried selection of some of the books which I had to cite in that case, and in the other (where I was also retained, and which was properly cognizable in his Chambers, but not at his house), and to despatch them by the only conveyance at my disposal, abandoning my non-attendance in order to make room for them. The first was not being heard, and the second was again postponed. I represented the great inconvenience of His Lordship's practice.