_Equity Courts._--In a few states the distinction between law and equity is still maintained, and equity jurisdiction is intrusted to a distinct class of courts. Equity had its origin in the practice of the King of England in early times in granting relief to suitors who, owing to the deficiencies of the common law, could not obtain relief through the courts of law. In time all such petitions came to be addressed to an officer who stood very close to the king and who was called the chancellor. Out of this office there were ultimately evolved the chancery courts which administered justice, not according to the law, but according to a less technical body of rules called equity. Thus there came to be two bodies of rules according to which justice was administered, and two classes of courts through which it was done. The jurisdiction of equity courts included such matters as trusts, accounts, fraud, mistake or accident, and the like. Equity could also prevent wrongs, while law could only punish them.[16] Thus a court of equity could command a person to do something for the benefit of an injured person, or restrain him from committing an injury, while a court of law could only award him damages after the injury had been done--a remedy often worthless or inadequate. The English system of equity, like the common law, was transplanted to America, and both are still in force here except in so far as they have been modified by legislative acts. England, however, abolished the separate system of equity courts in 1873, and left the law courts to administer equity wherever it was applicable. Likewise, in the United States, separate equity courts have been done away with in all except five states, leaving the same courts to administer both law and equity. [16] Baldwin, The American Judiciary, p. 133. =The Judges of Courts.=--_Qualifications._--Generally no qualifications for the judicial office are prescribed by law, except in a few states where it is required that judges shall be lawyers or be "learned in the law." As a matter of fact, however, judges are nearly always lawyers, except in the case of justices of the peace and police magistrates, where extensive knowledge of the law is not essential.