By these remarks we desire to show that the procedure of the Roman congregations, without sacrificing any of the essential safeguards of justice, is generally simple, brief, economical, informal to a degree beyond that of any civil procedure; and, far from needing to learn any thing from them, it is able in many points to become their instructor. There is, however, one great difference upon which we especially insist, because it has formed the pretext for unjust attacks from narrow minds, who are unable to comprehend that any thing can be well done that is done in a way different from their own, or that any difference between their customs and those of others is not a signal mark of the inferiority of the latter. The Roman congregations admit of no oral pleadings.[36] All discussion is in writing, though it is necessarily completed by the verbal explanations which the advocates give to the judges; but there is no public and passionate debate, such as is common in all civil jurisdictions. We do not believe that the absence of this is any evil. The Roman legislative body has always endeavored to shun surprises in its hearings. Pleading, as it is practised among us, is nothing but the conflict of two opposing debaters, often unequally matched, and of whom the more powerful is seldom on the side of the oppressed. We believe, indeed, that the doors of the influential advocate, whose name and authority are themselves a powerful argument, are rarely closed against the poor who seek to enter them; but the poor do not always dare to stop and knock, and so content themselves with men of more ordinary abilities. If, then, one of these contesting advocates is more skilful than the other; if he knows how to win favor for his client by an insinuating speech and to cast ridicule upon his adversary; if he has the faculty of grouping figures, of coloring facts, of flattering his auditors during the progress of the controversy; if he is passionate and violent, his emotion will affect the judge, whose heart beats under his robe and is not, perhaps, to any extraordinary degree unimpressible; all these circumstances, extrinsic to the real merits of the cause, will exercise great influence upon its determination, and may be able to wring from the tribunal a decision which, in moments of reflection and coolness, it would never render.