was a saying of Aaron Burr, which was not wholly untrue in his
day, that "every legislature in their treatment of the judiciary
is a damned Jacobin club."[Footnote: "Memoir of Jeremiah Mason,"
186.] Only the influence of the bar has carried through the
successive increases which have been everywhere made.

The first pension to a retired judge ever granted in the United
States was one of $300 voted in Kentucky in 1803. It was offered
to one of the members of the Court of Appeals to induce him to
resign, but the year after his resignation the statute was
repealed on the ground that it was unconstitutional.[Footnote:
Sumner, "Life of Andrew Jackson," 120.] Since 1869, the United
States have allowed their judges who have reached the age of
seventy, after not less than ten years' service, to retire, at
their option, receiving the full official salary during the
remainder of their lives. Rhode Island gives hers the same
privilege after twenty-five years' service, and Massachusetts and
Maryland have somewhat similar provisions, except that the judges
on retirement receive but part of what they formerly did. The
Connecticut legislature is in the habit of appointing her judges,
both of the Supreme and Superior Court, when retired at the age
of seventy, State referees for life, with an allowance of $2,500
for salary and expenses, their duties being to try such questions
of fact as the courts may refer to them and to report their
conclusions.

Our State Constitutions now generally provide that judges shall
hold no other public office. Some also provide that all votes
for any of them for any other than a judicial office shall be
void.