Further steps have been taken with a view to simplification of procedure. By Order xxx. rule 1 (as amended in 1897), a summons, called a summons for directions, has to be taken out by a plaintiff immediately after the appearance of the defendant, and upon such summons an order is to be made respecting pleadings, and a number of interlocutory proceedings. To make such an order at that early stage would seem to demand a prescience and intelligent anticipation of future events which can hardly be expected of a master, or even a judge in chambers, except in simple cases, involving a single issue of law or fact which the parties are agreed in presenting to the court. The effect of the rule is that the plaintiff cannot deliver his statement of claim, or take any step in the action without the leave of the judge. In chancery cases the order usually made is that the plaintiff deliver his statement of claim, and the rest of the summons stand over, and the practical effect is merely to add a few pounds to the costs. It may be doubted whether, as applied to the majority of actions, the rule does not proceed on wrong lines, and whether it would not be better to leave the parties, who know the exigencies of their case better even than a judge in chambers, to proceed in their own way, subject to stringent provisions for immediate payment of the costs occasioned by unnecessary, vexatious, or dilatory proceedings. The order does not apply to admiralty cases or to proceedings under the order next mentioned. The Supreme Court of Judicature Act (Ireland) 1877 follows the same lines as the English acts. The pre-existing courts were consolidated into a supreme court of judicature, consisting of a high court of justice and a court of appeal. The judicature acts did not affect Scottish judicature, but the Appellate Jurisdiction Act included the court of session among the courts from which an appeal lies to the House of Lords. FOOTNOTE: [1] The comte de Franqueville in his interesting work, _Le Système judiciaire de la Grande Bretagne_, criticizes the use of the word "supreme" as a designation of this court, inasmuch as its judgments are subject to appeal to the House of Lords, but in the act of 1873 the appeal to the House of Lords was abolished. He is also severe on the illogical use of the words "division" and "court" in many different senses (i. 180-181). JUDITH, THE BOOK OF, one of the apocryphal books of the Old Testament. It takes its name from the heroine Judith ([Greek: Ioudith, Ioudêth], i.e. [Hebrew: yehudit], Jewess), to whom the last nine of its sixteen chapters relate. In the Septuagint and Vulgate it immediately precedes Esther, and along with Tobit comes after Nehemiah; in the English Apocrypha it is placed between Tobit and the apocryphal additions to Esther.