Court week has not only lost its sting, but has almost lost its common place of interest that it once held in the minds of the people. In the old days when the big lawyers and honorable gentlemen from afar assembled around the leading hotel or boarding house of the courthouse town, and the people from the whole county, even to the remote backwoods district, began to assemble Sunday evening or early Monday morning, the county capitals would look like show day on Broadway. Things are indeed different these days. The judge and solicitor come to town on an automobile unnoticed by many and attracting about the same attention as any other citizen.
The fellow who happens to be caught in the coils of the law, has more hopes of escape than he did in the days gone by. Even the old bench-warming professional talisman has disappeared, and the neighborhood county free lawyer has quit the court.
All these things seem to have made the court cold and dull so far as the interest of the public goes. It must be that the flood of riches and great opportunities that we enjoy today have drawn our minds from such small things as courts. It is quite possible that the great privileges we are enjoying have created a state of mind that might possibly be called a centerup for courts and law. We, at least, do not seem to reference the rights of others. The courts of justice are not looked upon with the same attitude as they once were. Take these changes, though slow they may have come about, and you see an entirely new court.
From the editorial page of the Enterprise, Williamston, N.C., Sept. 21, 1926, W. C. Manning, Editor
newspapers.digitalnc.org/lccn/sn92073995/1926-09-21/ed-1/seq-2/
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