inflicted upon the poor by their inability to divorce an unfaithful partner. Whether the home that is shattered is a cottage or a mansion makes no difference so far as regards the bitterness of the cup which the innocent party has to drain -indeed, the moral ruin is, perhaps, more disastrous in the poor home, because the hardships it entails on the innocent party cannot be escaped from. There is a notion I have heard it myself -- that divorce is a luxury, and, like other luxuries, is necessarily lost to the working man, and that, moreover, he does not feel the same urgent necessity for getting rid of a faithless partner as he does for having a ready means of recovering his wages. But, in accordance with the best traditions of our law, we are bound to provide a remedy for every wrong. And here is the most grievous wrong of which human nature is capable a wrong productive of consequences more permanent and far-reaching than any other wrong with which I am acquainted a wrong that eats into the very vitals of the State, and paralyzes the energies of those who are the immediate sufferers; and yet to a large majority of English people it is a wrong practically without a remedy, because that remedy is so utterly inaccessible. It is idle to say that, if we cheapened divorce, we should be immediately inundated with such a flood of cases that the courts would be blocked. This very suggestion shows how fearful we are of learning the truth i. e., that there are hundreds of innocent persons patiently enduring this most iniquitous wrong, because they cannot afford the remedy. I am not one of those who would enlarge the grounds upon which રી divorce can be obtained; by no means enlarge the remedy, but by all means bring it within the reach of those who deserve it. How, then, can it be so brought within reach ? The answer is plain and irresistible through the instrumentality of the county court, that court which has acquitted itself with such signal success in every direction in which it has yet been tried, and which, as I have endeavored to show, has earned the confidence and respect of the whole country. Surely and steadily, year by year, have the merits of this tribunal become recognized, and Parliament has not been slow to observe the signs of the times-viz that it is the only tribunal which is really popular, because it is the only one whose justice fulfils the triple ideal set forth in Magna Charta of accessibility, economy and despatch. If the law is to be saved from the stigma of being inaccessible to the poor man a stigma than which there is none more dangerous to the State there must be placed within his reach all the remedies that are within reach of the rich man, and the State fails in its duty to its citizens if it gives any countenance to the belief that legal re dress is a luxury. The county court already has a limited jurisdiction in probate and admiralty which it has discharged with credit to the country. Let it be intrusted with a limited jurisdiction in divorce, say, upon affidavit of the injured party that his or (if it is the wife) her husband's income does not exceed £3 a week. The evil is undeniable, the necessity of relief even the Old Book itself concedes. What readier or more satisfactory solution of the difficulty could be desired than to confer upon county court judges the powers of the president of the divorce division within some such limits as I have suggested? In order to make the suggested remedy effectual there is, however, one feature of the high court divorce practice which would require modification. As matters stand a husband has to pay for the defence of his wife, whether she be innocent or guilty. I do not, of course, object to the law taking care an innocent wife should not be hampered in establishing her innocence by want of funds. But it is surely a monstrous shame that this law should enable a guilty woman to put forward an entirely vexatious defence for no other reason than the pleasure of adding to her unfortunate husband's misery an appalling bill of costs. This would never do in the County Court. It would be easy to compel the wife as a condition of being allowed to defend to declare her merits in a preliminary affidavit, though of course when such an affidavit was not forthcoming the court would have to be on the alert against connivance. It may be said that this is not one of those reforms' which are insisted upon by those who advocate the cause of the working man. My reply is, that the time of the professional reformer is so entirely absorbed in the pursuit of the illusory living wage,' and the various phases of the eternal warfare between capital and labour, that he overlooks domestic needs, including the fact that the working man has a heart as well as a stomach, and that his wretched home may sometimes be more due to an errant partner than to the want of a 'living wage.' History and experience have taught us that the worst enemy of the State is a system of unequal laws - laws which handicap the poor man in asserting and maintaining his right against another's might. Discontent is always smouldering, and, as the professional agitator well knows, very little stirring sets it ablaze. law fortunately learned long since that the finest safety-valve for discontent is the right of public meeting and free speech. There are many less profitable occupations for the young constitutionalist and such, I take it, every lawyer ought to be - than occasionally going out of his way to hear the views of his country's law expressed by the poor man under circumstances where he is able to address his fellows with perfect freedom. The oratory may be Our occasionally turgid, the orator unjust, but the result offers plenty of food for reflection to those who desire that the law should have the implicit confidence of the people. It is because on such occasions I have observed that the charge which is most frequently made and most bitterly resented is that which heads my paper-because I think it is a charge that is misapprehended, and is to-day undeserved -and because I think the part silently played by the County Court in its refutation and in the evolution of the working classes generally has not received the merit it deserves, that I determined to offer these few remarks. Finally, my thoughts revert once more to those ever-memorable words of the great Sir Edward Coke, in which he so eloquently reminds us that the aim of our law is to, secure to every subject "justice and right for the injury done him freely without sale, fully without denial, speedily without delay." Although it is 300 years since these words were uttered, can anyone improve upon them as an ideal conception of what law ought to secure? What we as lawyers have to do is to take this conception of Coke's, and breathe into it the breath of life, so that it may cease to be merely the dry bones of a stillborn ideal, and become the living substance of an accomplished end. Finis coronat opus! NATIONS AS CLIENTS. THE with foreign nations, lasting altogether only four years and a half. We have been literally the peace nation of the world. Great Britain has settled about a dozen in the same period, and all the nations of Europe have had from one to seven cases. Japan and China have, in this way, settled difficulties; all the South American republics except two, and two of the Central American republics, have done the same. What it is proposed to do is to crystallize into law what is the general practice of this nation to-day, and, to a considerable extent, the practice of our nations. "We shall find another interesting subject of discussion in the proposed establishment of a great international tribunal of arbitration, which shall be to the nations of the world what the United States Supreme Court is to the States of this republic." HABITUAL CRIMINALS. NOME little interest has been aroused this week So by newspaper accounts of the arrest of a man, alleged to be well known to the police," who was merely loafing along the street" at a point below Liberty street, in this city. The prisoner was discharged when taken before a magistrate, and the episode has served to call attention to a custom, said to have formerly obtained among the police, of arbitrarily arresting, without a warrant, and although tional arbitration was recently given by Dr. no suspicious acts had been observed, ex-convicts Benj. F. Trueblood: "The first real cases of inter- found in the neighborhood of Wall street. The national arbitration were between this country and custom, if it ever existed, was, of course, illegal. Great Britain less than a century ago. These were Even in order to have the status of habitual crimiprovided for by the Jay treaty of 1794. From 1816 nal imposed upon a person, he must have been exto the present time there has been an average, pressly adjudged one upon at least a second conthrough the whole seventy-nine years, of one im-viction of a penal offense, and in addition to or inportant case of arbitration per year. Only four or five of these are known to most people, for one war makes more noise than a hundred arbitrations, and costs more than a thousand. Only recently the President of the United States, as arbitrator, settled a difficulty between Brazil and the Argentine republic involving a territory of thirty thousand square miles, and the papers of this country had, perhaps, two inches notice of it! In the last twenty years these cases have occurred at the rate of two or three a year. They have covered questions of boundary, of insult to the flag, of property, of personal injury-every question, in fact, with which nations have to do except the one question of the actual existence of the national life. In every case the difficulty has been settled for all time, and no war has grown out of any of them. Our country has settled more than forty of these difficulties. During this period of eighty years we have had three wars stead of other punishment. (Code of Criminal Procedure, § 510.) Certain arbitrary powers of arrest without warrant are conferred as to habitual criminals, but they apply only to formally adjudicated habitual criminals, and not to persons who merely, as matter of fact, are ex-convicts or the constant associates of criminals. It would, however, be exceedingly difficult for a man of bad record, and who could not decisively show that he had reformed, to gain any substantial redress for such an infringement of his constitutional rights. And the incident serves to call attention afresh to the advisability of further developing the "habitual criminal" remedy, and of making use of it in its present form more frequently than has heretofore been done. A person was adjudged an habitual criminal in this city by Recorder Goff a few weeks ago, and such action attracted considerable comment because of its rarity. A statute is in force in Ohio providing that every person convicted a third time of felony shall be sentenced to imprisonment for life. The enforcement of such law has been held constitutional by the Supreme Court of Ohio, where the first of the two previous convictions of the defendant occurred before the passage of the act. (Blackburn v. State, 36 N. E. R. 18.) We strongly approve of the policy of this statute. It gives more than a fair chance for reform. But, when a person has committed three felonies, it may properly be said that his criminal disposition is permanently fixed, and it is simple folly to go on turning him loose to prey anew on the community, and to waste public money in fresh trials and convictions. Somewhat the same result as that contemplated by the Ohio statute may be accomplished in our State under section 688 of the Penal Code, providing for sentences for increased terms upon convictions for second offenses. Under this section, Judge Fitzgerald wisely exercised his discretion last week to impose practically a life sentence on the fire-bug Shoenholse. We do not see why the law of New York should not be retained practically as it is to cover cases of second offenses, and the Ohio statute also borrowed in order to make a life sentence inevitably follow a third conviction of felony, no matter what the grade of the different offenses. The criminal classes are apt to be quite prolific reproducers of their kind, and observation and statistics show that the criminal disposition is almost invariably transmitted to offspring. Of course environment has much to do with hardening the inherited nature, but the specific criminal heredity is often so potent that educational influences and moral surroundings during childhood are incapable of neutralizing it. The perpetual imprisonment of habitual criminals, besides protecting the present generation from their practically certain depredations, would quite materially diminish the quota of heredity criminals of the next generation. It is altogether possible that the indefatigable efforts of modern Charity Organization, by making it more difficult to pick up a living by mendacity and begging, will drive considerable numbers of shiftless persons into positive crime. But we cannot say that the policy of Charity Organization is to be deprecated because of this incidental result. If the status of habitual criminal, with its penalties as above outlined, certainly await a convict, an additional deterrent from crime and an additional incentive to honest work will be offered. And, in the long run, society can probably deal with the hopelessly vicious as habitual criminals to better advantage than if they were permitted to go on unmolested in their impositions upon the benevolent. -N. Y. Law Journal. | Abstracts of Recent Decisions. ASSIGNMENT FOR CREDITORS PREFERENCES. Where an assignee was the cashier of a creditor bank, the insolvent's preference of an usurious claim to the bank will invalidate the deed of assignment. (Hiller v. Ellis [Miss.], 18 South. Rep. 95.) ATTACHMENT DAMAGES. In an action for the wrongful attachment of property which the owner had sold, the value of the property, in estimating the measure of damages, is the price contracted for, though it is in excess of its market value. (Curry v. Catlin [Wash.], 41 Pac. Rep. 55.) CONFLICT OF LAWS -INSOLVENT CORPORATIONSPREFERENCES.-The fact that the laws of New York forbid preferences by insolvent corporations does not render void authority conferred in that State, by the board of directors of an insolvent corporation, organized under the laws of New York, but holding its entire property in Pennsylvania, on the corporation's president, to execute in Pennsylvania, a judgment note in favor of a creditor of the corporation. (Appeal of Chautauqua County Nat. Bank [Penn.], 32 Atl. Rep. 539.) COUNTY WARRANTS LIMITATION MISSOURI STATUTE. Rev. St. Mo. 1889, § 3195, providing that county warrants not presented for payment within five years of their date, or, being presented within that time, and protested for want of funds, and not presented again within five years after funds are set apart for payment thereof, shall be barred, prescribes a special limitation for actions on such warrants, within section 6791, providing that the limitation of ten years prescribed by section 6774 for action on any writing for the payment of money shall not extend to any action which shall be otherwise limited by any statute. (Knox County v. Morton [U. S. C. C. of App.], 68 Fed. Rep. 787.) DEED--TITLE TO VEST AFTER GRANTOR'S DEATH. An instrument from a father to his children, which is in form an absolute deed, and executed as such, but not attested as a will is required to be, which contains the clause "provided always, and it is expressly understood and agreed, that this conveyance is not to take effect till after my death, and that, at my death the title to the foregoing lands are to vest immediately in my said children," will be construed as a deed reserving a life estate to the grantor, where it was delivered when executed, and the grantor lived on the land with the grantees till his death, without attempting to make any other disposition of the land. (Abney v. Moore [Ala.], 18 South. Rep. 60.) of the verdict is in the usual form that if, upon the above findings, the law is with the plaintiff, then we find for the plaintiff and assess his damages at dollars; and if the law is for the defendant, we find for the defendant. So vital a change in the form of special verdicts cannot but attract the attention of the profession at large, and if it should prove satisfactory, other States may be inclined to profit by the example. JOHN A. FINCH. INDIANAPOLIS, Oct. 2, 1895. New Books and New Editions. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES AT THE END OF THE FIRST CENTURY. By George S. Boutwell. "That in all cases tried by the jury, the court shall, at the request of either party, in writing, made before the introduction of any evidence, direct such jury to return a special verdict upon any or all of the issues of such case. Such special verdict shall be prepared by the counsel on either side of such cause and submitted to the court, and be subject to change and modifications by the court. The same shall be in the form of interrogatories so framed that the jury will be required to find one single fact in answering each of such interrogatories; the jury, on retiring, shall take all the plead-legal profession, and may be considered not only a ings in the case, including the instructions of the court, if in writing, and the interrogatories as approved by the court, and shall answer each of the interrogatories submitted to them." A long experience as legislator and as a legal practitioner has given the author of this work a familiarity with the Constitution of the United States which renders him unusually well fitted to prepare such a work as this. The book is prepared in a way which is almost novel to members of the treatise but also a text-book on this most important that which a text-book ordinarily possesses. Its subject. Its value, however, extends largely beyond preparation shows careful and conscientious work, aided by great experience and unusual ability. The work is divided into sixty-four chapters, which at first seem to be too many in a work of only 400 pages, but the convenience of the subdivisions is apparent after a careful examination. The work be Under our former practice the courts were required to order the jury to render a special or a general verdict at the request of either party. If a special verdict was required, the courts were required to order the jury to answer special interroga-gins with the Declaration of Independence, and tories on the request of either party. If the general verdict was not in harmony with the answers to the interrogatories, judgment might be rendered upon the answers to the interrogatories and against the party in whose favor the general verdict was rendered. This law repeals the law allowing special interrogatories to be propounded, and the only form we now have is the general verdict, or special verdict prepared according to the above statute. Each of the Superior Courts and the Circuit Court of this county has had special verdicts rendered under this statute, and the change from the old practice is thought to be very satisfactory, especially in cases where a jury might be more affected by sympathy than by the facts proved. The practice under this new statute is, after proper request by either party, for counsel on each side to prepare a special verdict in the form of interrogatories. The court takes these forms as prepared and has a new draft made embodying any thing pertinent in either form submitted, and adding any other interrogatory that seems to be necessary for a finding upon all of the facts. This is submitted to the jury as coming from the court, and they have no intimation as to which side prepared any particular interrogatory. The conclusion subsequently the Constitution of the United States haps, the most valuable part of this work to be the is published with annotations. We consider, peranalytical index of the Constitution of the United States, which occupies sixty pages of the volume. Few persons who have not carefully studied the Constitution appreciate the immense amount of material which is contained within the few pages, and the index to which we refer strengthens the opinion which we have had of the immensity of the Constitution. We consider that this index alone will give lawyers a more easy means of referring to the Constidecisions of the Supreme Court on constitutional tution than anything we have ever seen before. The questions are cited under the sections to which the decisions relate, and the leading decisions appear with a careful examination of their scope and meaning, while the lines between State sovereignty and the national government are distinctly marked. The development of the Constitution from the colonial charters is ably demonstrated; in short, the whole work is a most complete and comprehensive book on the subject. The arrangement of the work is most appropriate, and we are especially pleased with the way in which each section of the Constitution has a chapter devoted to its explanation, origin and development. It is bound in cloth and in a convenient form for use. Published by B. C. Heath & Co., Boston, Mass. 289 The Albany Law Journal. ALBANY, NOVEMBER 9, 1895. Current Topics. American Bar Association in 1890 at Saratoga, [All communications intended for the Editor should be ad- collateral security for pre-existing debt, with no dressed simply to the Editor of THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL. All letters relating to advertisements, subscriptions, or other business matters, should be addressed to THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL COMPANY.] AT new consideration, is not a bona fide purchaser for value; that is also the law in New York. In 1880, I think it was, a railroad company made a note, and all its directors endorsed it, and turned it over to an agent to negotiate that note for the purpose of raising money for the benefit of the railroad company; the agent took that note and carried it to his bank, and as he owed that bank an overdraft he deposited it with that bank as a collateral security for his overdraft. Subsequently the bill matured, it was not paid, the bank instituted suits in the courts for the money against the endorsers on that paper, the case went to the Court of Ap T the recent meeting of the Alabama State Bar Association, H. C. Tompkins, Esq., offered several interesting suggestions in regard to changes which might be made in the statute law of the State in order to make it conform more properly to the laws of the United States Mr. Tompkins and of the different States. showed that at present the law in Alabama was that a person who took negotiable paper as collateral security for a pre-existing debt without any new consideration is not a bona fide purchaser for value. The same principle is recog-peals of New York, and that court held that as nized in New York State, and Mr. Tompkins this bank was not a bona fide purchaser for showed how the law was practically over-ruled on account of the different holdings in the value, that, therefore, there could be no recov United States courts. A few remarks can demonstrate the necessity of uniformity of There is another matter that I would like to call to the attention of the Committee on Legislation, it is a matter that I have thought a great deal about, and read an article before the VOL. 52 No. 19. ery. At that time the laws of the United States can allowed a bank to bring a suit in the courts of -- |