special injunction, and stay the defendant's haud until the right has been tried at law." Even in cases confessedly within the jurisdiction, as partition, equity will not interfere if the complainant's title be denied until he has vindicated it at law; the court may retain the bill however until that has been done. 2 Aik. 280; Coxe v. Smith, 4 Johns. Ch. 271; North Penn. Coal Co. v. Snowden, supra. Washburn's Appeal. Opinion by Clark, J. [Decided April 7, 1884.]

IOWA SUPREME COURT ABSTRACT.

LIMITATION-ADVERSE POSSESSION-TAX DEED BY GOVERNMENT.-In 1858 and 1862, lands, the title to which was still in the United States, were taxed to unknown owners, sold, and tax deeds issued therefor to A., who went into possession of a part of the tract, and subsequently quitclaimed the land to B., who has continued in possession, cultivating a part of the land, and resting his claim to the whole upon his tax deed. In 1871 the United States certified this tract and others to the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company, who more than ten years after it had acquired title brought an action against B. to quiet title. Held, that B.'s possession was adverse as to the whole tract, and that the action was barred by the statute of limitations. The defendant and his grantor claim title under the tax deeds. They were invalid, void, on the ground that the officers of the county had no authority to convey the land, for the reason that it was not taxable. But their invalidity for this reason does not prevent them being regarded as the foundation for a pretense, show, appearance, color of title. Whatever may be the source of the invalidity of a deed, if it purports to convey land, and "in form possess what purported to be the title, it gives color of title." Hall v. Law, 102 U. S. 461; Rigor v. Frye, 62 Ill. 507; Hinkley v. Greene, 52 id. 223; Molton v. Henderson, 62 Ala. 426; Edgerton v. Bird, 6 Wis. 527. This court has held that a tax deed void upon its face constitutes color of title, upon which the statute of limitations may be invoked. Colvin v. McCune, 39 Iowa, 502. It is insisted that as the statute does not run against the government it cannot run against plaintiff. It may be observed that there is no provision of law declaring that a citizen cannot hold adversely to the government, or hold a color of title against it. It is true that a citizen cannot invoke the statute of limitations against the government. But this does not authorize us to presume against facts that defendant did not hold the land adversely and under claim or color of title before the government certified the land to plaintiff. The truth is he did so hold, but as against the government it would not avail as a defense. But there is no law which forbids a citizen to hold land in that way against the grantees of the government. When the certification of the land was made the statute began to run. The fact that defendant's prior possession could not have aided him to plead the statute against the government is no reason why he cannot plead his possession held after plaintiff acquired title. If defendant's possession began after plaintiff acquired title, it cannot be doubted he could do so. As against plaintiffs, defendant's possession did begin afterward. As the statute has seen its full time since that event, the action is barred. See upon this point La Frombois v. Jackson, 8 Cow. 589. The evidence clearly shows that defendant in good faith entered upon the land and held it under claim of right, and as we have seen, color of title. His possession was hostile and adverse to plaintiff's title. He cultivated a part of the land as his own, in good faith, resting his claim to the whole upon the tax deeds. The law will presume him to be

in possession of all the land within the boundaries, as prescribed by his title. The rule would not apply did the plaintiff have possession of the part defendant did not cultivate; in that case the presumption would not exist as to the land held by plaintiff. But no such state of facts is in the case; plaintiff at no time held possession of any part of the land. Upon this point see Langworthy v. Myers, 4 Iowa, 18; Hunnicutt v. Peyton, 102 U. S. 333; Teabout v. Daniels, 38 Iowa, 158; Anderson v. Darby, 1 Nott & McC. 369; Eifert v. Read, id. 374; Bailey v. Carleton, 12 N. H. 9; Little v. Megquier,2 Me. 176: Cluggage v. Duncan, 1 Serg. & R.111; Lynde v. Williams, 68 Mo. 360; Norfleet v.Hutchins,id. 597; Scott v. Delany, 87 Ill.,146; Coleman v. Billings, 89 id. 183; Tritt v. Roberts, 64 Ga. 156; Humphries v. Huffman, 33 Ohio St. 395. Chicago, etc., R. Co. v. Allfree. Opinion by Beck, J. [Decided Oct. 9, 1884.]

PASSENGER ATTEMPTING то

LEAVE MOVING TRAIN CONTRIBUTORY. - A passenger on a train that reached his destination about midnight failed get off because

to

he was asleep, and after the train had started a brakeman asked him if he did not intend to get off at that station, and that if he did he "had better be getting off quick," upon which he went out on the platform of the car, and stepped down on the second or third step to look out for the depot, as he claimed, when the train gave a sudden jerk, and he was thrown to the ground and injured. Held, that he was guilty of contributory negligence, and not entitled to recover damages. It seems to us that when the jury found that the plaintiff was in a dangerous position when on the steps, it must logically follow that he cannot recover, and the jury should have so found. This is a stronger case against the plaintiff, in our judgment, than Bon v. Railway Pass. Assur. Co., 56 Iowa, 669; S. C., 41 Am. Rep. 127. There are cases where a passenger is justified in taking risks, where by the negligence of the company he is in danger of being carried beyond his destination, and we are not prepared to say a passenger would not be justified in making the attempt to step from the train if it was moving slowly; that is, it would be a question for the jury. Lindsey v. Chicago, etc., R. Co. Opinion by Seever, J. [See 71 N. Y. 489; 19 Eng. Rep. 231; 8 Am. Rep. 508; Secor v. Toledo, -ED.] etc., R. Co., 10 Fed. Rep. [Decided Oct. 7, 1884.]

PARTNERSHIP

ASSIGNMENT TO ONE PARTNER CONSIDERATION-RELEASE.-Where the property of a partnership is transferred to one of the partners for his benefit for a valuable consideration, he may hold it. free from partnership debts. City of Maquoketa v. Willey, 35 Iowa, 323. See also as bearing upon this point Scudder v. Delashmut, 7 id. 39; Hawkeye Woolen Mills v. Conklin, 26 id. 422. An agreement between the members of a partnership and one of their number, that if he will remain in the firm they will pay his private indebtedness, shows a valuable consideration; and the payment to a bank of this indebtedness held not fraudulent as to creditors. Where a debt is paid its securities are released. George v. Wamsley. Opinion by Beck, J. [See 15 Neb. 476.] [Decided June 12, 1884.]

dogs, then he was not the owner; and that in determining how this was at the time of the alleged attack, they would consider defendant's former treatment of of the dog, his declarations concerning him, and the habit of the dog as to staying at defendant's place. O'Hara v. Miller. Opinion by Beck, J. [See 1 Denio, 495; 15 Gray, 193.]

[Decided Oct. 9, 1884.]

RECENT ENGLISH DECISIONS.

MORTGAGE POWER OF SALE- ATTORNEY AND CLIENT.-A solicitor took a mortgage from his client containing a power of sale without the usual proviso that the power of sale should not be exercised unless there was default in payment of the principal after six mouths' notice, or some interest should be in arrear for three mouths. This omission was not brought to the mortgagor's notice. The mortgagee (without notice) sold part of the property at a time when interest was in fact three months in arrear, and other part when some interest was in arrear less than three months. The mortgagor brought an action against the mortgagee, claiming damages for wrongful sales. Held, that both the sales were wrongful as between the mortgagor and mortgagee, but the first sale not being at an undervalue, the court gave the mortgagor no damages in respect of it. The second sale, though not improperly conducted, was shown to have been in fact at an undervalue, and the court gave damages in respect of it. Ch. Dir., July 8, 1884. Cradock v. Rogers. Opinion by North, J. [51 L. T. Rep. (N. S.) 191.]

REMOVAL

MISCONDUCT.

TRUSTEE It is the duty of a court of equity to see that trusts are properly executed, and therefore, even though no charge of misconduot is made out against a trustee, the court will remove him if satisfied that his continuance in office would be detrimental to the proper execution of the trusts. Friction or hostility between the trustee and the immediate possessor of the trust estate is not of itself a reason for the removal of the trustee, but it will not be disregarded by the court when grounded on the mode in which the trust has been administered. Judgment of the court below affirmed with a variation. Jud. Com. Priv. Com., March 22, 1884. Letterstedt v. Broers. Opinion per Curiam. [51 L. T. Rep. (N. S.) 169.]

FINANCIAL LAW.

NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENT-PROTEST — WAIVED BY PAROL.-Protest of a note may be waived either by a writing or by parol. A waiver of "protest" of a note by an indorser before maturity releases the holder from the necessity of making demand and of sending notice of non-payment. Huckenstein v. Herman, 34 Leg. Int. 232; Scott v. Greer, 10 Peun. St. 103; Brittain v. Doylestown Bank, 5 W. & S. 87. Sup. Ct. Penn., May 19, 1884. Annville National Bank v. Kettering. Opinion by Sterrett, J. (15 W. Notes, 65.)

NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENT-INDORSEMENT.-A. executed a promissory note in the following form: "Dorrance, February 23. 1880. Six months after date, I promise to pay to the order of myself $192 at First National Bank at Hazleton, Penn., value received with use. Renatus Heller; " and indorsed, "I hereby certify that I own and am worth in personal and real estate in the county of Luzerne, State of Penn., $4,000, over and above all indebtedness, and that the within obligation is given for goods bought by me of the Queen City Fertilizing Company, and the same is in full settlement of all claims and demands of every

name and nature between said company and myself up to date of this obligation. Renatus Heller. Queen City Fertilizing Company, H. Moran." B. took said note before maturity for value without notice of any defeuse. Upon a suit on the same by B. against A., held, that the court could not say as matter of law that the note was not properly indorsed, and was not negotiable. It was held in Ege v. Kyle, 2 Watts, 222, that an indorsement on a negotiable note of a receipt on account of a quantity of iron, the net proceeds of which are to be credited on the within," and which were afterward credited on it by indorsement, did not destroy its negotiable character. The usual form of indorsement is by writing the name of the indorser across the back of the note. Where the note is payable to order, any order in writing is sufficient, which shows an intent to pass the title. Thus "I give this note to A. George Chaworth was held to be a sufficient indorsement. Chaworth v. Beech, 4 Ves. 555. And where the indorsement is in the form of a guaranty, it has been held sufficient. Partridge v. Davis, 20 Vt. 499; Upham v. Prince, 12 Mass. 14; Myrick v. Hasey, 27 Me. 9; Childs v. Davidson, 38 Ill. 438; Watson v. McLaren, 19 Wend. 557. Sup. Ct. Penu., April, 1883. Dunning v. Heller. Opinion by Paxson, J.

CRIMINAL LAW.

LARCENY DESCRIPTION OF OWNER. In an indictment for larceny, a description of the person from whom the property is alleged to have been stolen, is sufficient, if a name is given by which he is well known, even though his real name is different. Sup. Ct. Cal., March, 1884. People v. Woods. Opinion by Ross, J. (3 Pac. Rep. 466.)

ACCOUNT

RECEIVING STOLEN GOODS-EVIDENCE GIVEN BY THE PRISONER-EVIDENCE TO NEGATIVE.—

On an indictment for receiving goods, knowing them to have been stolen, the prisoner's account being that he had purchased them of a tradesman in the same town, other circumstances in the case tending to negative it, though the tradesman was not called for the prosecution, held, that it was not necessary to call him on the part of the prosecution, there being other circumstances in the case from which the jury might fairly infer the falsehood of the prisoner's story. Crown Cas. Res., June 28, 1884. Reg. v. Ritson. Opinions by Grove, Hawkins, Stephen, Watkin Williams, and Mathew, JJ. (50 L. T. Rep. [N. S.] 727.)

FALSE PRETENSES-OBTAINING GOODS BY-PROOF THAT THE GOODS WERE DELIVERED ON THE FAITH OF.

-On an indictment for obtaining goods by false pretenses, the false pretense charged and proved being that the prisoner was daughter of a lady of the same name, residing at a certain place, there being no evidence that the goods were not delivered to the prisoner before her name and address were asked for, held, that there was no sufficient evidence to sustain the indictment, it being essential on a prosecution for obtaining goods by false pretenses to prove that the goods were delivered on the faith of the false pretense charged. Crown Cas. Res., June 28, 1884. Reg. v. Catherine Jones. Opinions by Grove, Hawkins, Stephen, Watkin Williams, and Mathew, JJ. (50 L. T. Rep. [N. S.] 726.)

INDECENT EXPOSURE-PUBLIC PLACE.-The crime of indecent exposure is committed if a person intentionally make such exposure in the view from the windows of two neighboring dwelling-houses. It is not necessary that any person should actually see such exposure if it was made in a public place with the intent that it should be seen, and persons were there who could have seen if they had looked. If it were the law

that a man could lewdly expose his naked person to inmates of two dwelling-houses, as was said in the case of Reg. v. Holmes, 6 Cox C. C. 216, "this would not be a country fit to live in if such an abominable outrage could go unpunished." According to the law of this offense the place is a public oue if the exposure is such that it is likely to be seen by a number of casual observers. In the case of Reg. v. Farrell, 9 Cox C. C. 446, which is an authority relied upon by the defense in the present instance, it was declared that by an indecent exposure in a place not far from a highway the commonlaw offense had not been committed, but the court was careful to supplement its decision with the remark "that it is not to be taken that we lay down that if the prisoner was seen by one person, but there was evidence that others might have witnessed the offense at the time, we would not uphold the conviction." Sup. Ct., N. J., February, 1884. Van Houten v. State. Opinion by Beasley, C. J. (46 N. J. L. 16.) (See 15 Eng. Rep. 151; 67 Barb. 226; 4 Hun, 636; 55 N. H. 242. -ED.)

GRAND JURY-CHALLENGE TO.-At common law the sheriff of every county was required to return to every session of the peace, and every commission of oyer and terminer, and of general jail delivery, twentyfour good and lawful men of the county, some out of every hundred, to inquire, present, do and execute all those things which the law required. 4 Bl. Comm. 302. The jurors returned were to be good and lawful; that is, men free from objections, such as bias, prejudice or other objection affecting their fairness or impartiality. In other words, grand jurors, like petit jurors, were required to be indifferent between the parties, and be guided solely by the evidence in determining whether or not an indictment should be found against the accused. People v. Jewett, 3 Wend. 314; United States v. White, 5 Cranch C. C. 457; Com. v. Clark, 2 Brown (Penn.) 325; State v. Gillick, 7 Iowa, 287: People v. Manahan, 32 Cal. 68; State v. Quimby, 51 Me. 395; Whart. Crim. Pl., § 346; Newman v. State, 14 Wis. 393. But personal objections to the fairness of jurors must be made before the jury is impanelled and sworn. People v. Jewett, 3 Wend. 321. The practice in this State has been for the court to examine the jurors as to their qualifications before the jury is impanelled. If the jurors are found to be legally qualified, and no personal objections as to bias or prejudice are made against any of them, the jury is impanelled and sworn. Objections on the ground of prejudice or bias, if made afterward, cannot be considered. In the case at bar the plaintiff did not ask leave to examine the jurors until after the jury had been impanelled and sworn. There was no error therefore in overruling the application. Patrick v. State. Sup. Ct. Neb., July 1, 1884. Opinion by Maxwell, J. (20 N. W. Rep. 121.)

EVIDENCE-ASSAULT AND ROBBERY-DECLARATIONS -RES GESTÆ.-In cases involving personal injury, evi. dence of declarations of the injured party, touching the cause or circumstances of the injury, made soon after and in close connection with the event, and appearing to grow out of and be dependent upon it, and under such circumstances that they could not reasonably have been contrived for the purposes of the declarant, is admissible as part of the res gesta. The complaining witness was waylaid, knocked down, and robbed in a public street at night. The assailants then fled, and the witness immediately gave the alarm, returned to his house near by, and a few minutes later, on the arrival of a police officer, described to him the appearance of the persons who made the assault. Upon the trial, after the details of the assault and robbing had appeared in evidence, held, that the trial court might properly receive proof of the statements

of the injured party made to the officer, under the circumstances, as being sufficiently connected with the principal event to be the natural outgrowth of it, and free from the suspicion of plan or after-thought. Upon this subject the authorities are not uniform. Some courts are inclined to hold the rule with much strictness as to the time and circumstances under which the statements proposed to be showu are made, while others allow a wider range for its application, leaving it to be applied largely in the sound discretion of the trial court. 15 Am. Law Rev. 85; Com. v. Densmore, 12 Allen, 537; People v. Davis, 56 N. Y. 102; Com. v. Mc Pike, 3 Cush. 184; Insurance Co. v. Mosley, 8 Wall. 397; O'Connor v. Railroad Co., 27 Minn. 171; S. C., 6 N. W. Rep. 481. Our examination leads us to conclude, that especially in cases of tort involving personal injury, the weight of authority in this country is in favor of allowing evidence of the declarations or statements of the injured party, touching the cause or circumstances of the injury, made so soon after the event, and under such circumstances as to warrant the trial court in presuming that they grew out of aud were dependent upon it, and could not have been devised or contrived by the declarant for his own purposes. Insurance Co. v. Mosley, 8 Wall. 397; Harriman v. Stowe, 57 Mo. 93; Driscoll v. People, 47 Mich. 416; S. C., 11 N. W. Rep. 221; Jordan's case, 25 Grat. 945; People v. Vernon, 35 Cal. 51; Burns v. State, 61 Ga. 194; Augusta Factory v. Barnes, Ga. Sup. Ct. April, 1884. In the last case the party was severely injured while employed in a factory. She was removed to her home, and about one-half hour after, while enduring severe bodily suffering, which had continued in the interval, she made a statement to her father of the particulars of the cause of the accident, which the eourt held proper to be received as part of the res gesta. In O'Connor v. Railroad Co., 27 Minn. 173; S. C., 6 N. W. Rep. 481, this court after reviewing the cases, and in considering this subject generally, say " that a considerable time may elapse and yet the declaration be a part of the res gestæ," and "that each case must depend on its own peculiar circumstances, and be determined by the exercise of sound judicial discretion." In the case at bar the witness had been waylaid and robbed. He had suffered personal violence. A great crime had been committed. He had specially observed and marked his assailants at the time. And while great care and discrimination should be exercised in receiving evidence of this kind, we are unable to say that the court erred in its judgment in this case in admitting the evidence in question. It might be considered that when the declarant thus described the men who had assaulted him, whom it appeared he had never before seen, his mind was still so occupied and absorbed with his exciting and hazardous experience as to maintain for so brief a period a close and natural connection between the event and his statements to the officer, and that hence such statements would be the direct and natural outgrowth of the robbery and its concomitants, and they would derive a special credit from that fact (though they would otherwise be hearsay), and would also be relieved from the suspicion of device or afterthought. See Whart. Ev., § 259; 1 Greenl. Ev., § 108. It was clearly competent for the witness to testify that he recognized and identified the same parties the next morning at the police station, and the particulars of such identification were properly received. We see no error or abuse of discretion in the refusal of the court to grant a new trial on the ground of newly discovered evidence. Order affirmed. Sup. Ct. Minn., Oct. 13, 1884. State v. Horan. Opinion by Vanderburgh, J. (See 35 Am. Rep. 30; id. 596; 28 Eng. Rep. 592; 31 id. 741; 78 Mo. 380; 69 Ga. 68; 39 Ohio St. 74; 61 Miss. 158, 161.-ED.)

The Albany Law Journal.

ALBANY, JANUARY 10, 1885.

CURRENT TOPIOS.

archy and confusion, for it will soon be upon us in the direst forms. The lawyers who invented this process of throttling their political opponents are open to the gravest censure at the hands of all respectable law-abiding men.

played in the courts of justice, held in the city of New York, in which the aldermen have alternately been enjoined and released, has only been surpassed in unseemliness by the eagerness of the aldermen to measure out the office-spoils of that unfortunate city. Whatever the provocation, snap injunctions upon inadequate grounds do not seem to people outside of the city ot New York to be the proper remedy for aldermanic misconduct. The late mayor was certainly an unfortunate example of the ordinary American idea that special training is unnecessary for public office and that a good and sagacious merchant may be turned into a good any thing else he chooses at a moment's notice. He appears to have barricaded himself in the mayor's office during the excitement, in order to avoid the inquest of the grand jury which his friends professed to fear was wholly in the interest of Mr. Grace, his opponent. The entire machinery of the courts and of the county appears in fact to have been involved in the interest of Mayor Grace's new administration, the desire of his friends being that he and not the out-going mayor should fill the vacant public offices. In other words, a political struggle between the adherents of Mayor Grace and the adherents of Mayor Edson was championed by the judges and the scene of its conflict transferred to the halls of justice, where a ridiculous pugilistic contest against time and somewhat impromptu took place. If this kind of spectacle is permitted to go on in the interest of the politicians why not rename some of the tribunals after the shade of political opinion entertained by the judges; one might be the "Court of the County Democracy," another the "Court for Tammany Hall," and a third the "Court of the Straightout Republicans. In this event there need be no subterfuge and all sides could be equally protected by injunctions and vacaturs, while an over-zealous grand jury of the county could be quashed all around. Seriously speaking we think the course of Mayor Grace's friends most demoralizing, and that it would have been far better in the interests of public decency and morals that Mayor Edson should have been permitted to appoint to office the worst elements of society than that Mayor Grace should have gained the day by the methods chosen by his advisers. What the unfortunate tax payers of New York city must think of its judicial machinery, is the worst aspect of this whole affair. If there is any power in the State to call all the participants to a rigid account it should be immediately invoked, for a more seriously wicked and vulgar display has never been seen in the solemn halls of justice. If this sort of thing is permitted to go on uuchallenged by the powers of the State we may as well give ourselves over to anVOL. 31-No. 2.

It may be possibly thought that we are inclined to to codification than their objections intrinsically merit, and there is force in this suggestion. But when the New York City Bar Association sees fit to promulgate the social theories of such neo-philosophers as Mr. J. Bleecker Miller it magnifies them into prominence, and we may be excused from dwelling upon them. Mr. Miller detects latent incendiarism, social retrogressions to barbarism, and lynch law in codification, and he avows it, and the association deliberately prints it. Now gentlemen with conclusions so radical as these are bound to furnish facts or else they are open to the suspicion that their theories are examples of false induction. We deny that any of the conditions of our political society warrant any such notions as those in the awful horoscope of the gloomy introspective Mr. Miller. The inventors of radical social theories should before announcing them subject them to the methods pursued by the other professors of social science, experiment and verification. The fashionable modern philosophy of Spencer, Fiske, Maine and other re

condite thinkers is the result of laborious research into the facts of social evolution and of the inductive method in scientific research. It is not a

philosophy of high sounding terms and hasty conclusions only; but this is generally conceded and need not be emphasized. If anybody thinks he can palm off on an intelligent American public a new social theory produced off-hand out of a superficial German mysticism, half understood, and the mere terms of modern English philosophy wholly misapplied, he is greatly mistaken. We have no patience with quackery in any profession, and a learned association which sees fit not only to tolerate on its records, but to print such hasty generalizations as those of Mr. Miller, well deserves to share in the ridicule which Molière bestowed on the French doctors of the seventeenth century. If the City Bar Association will spare the public any more theories such as that codification leads to lynch law we shall then be able to spare our space for more important matters.

We fully agree with the Virginia Law Jounal, that the judges ought not to make the head-notes for their reported decisions. The Journal says: "It does not follow that the man who does the work is best qualified to interpret it and state its results with accuracy and conciseness, any more than it follows that a great author must be also a great critic and analyst. The two things require different faculties of mind; and while it is not impossible that these faculties should unite in an individual we believe it is very rarely the case that they do, since they are in fact somewhat antagonistic. One

of the first requisites—indeed, an indispensable requisite of a good reporter is the power of condensation, which is universally conceded to be one of the rarest faculties of the human mind. Without this faculty, well developed, no man can be a really good reporter; but a man may be a really great judge with little or none of it. That it is, in fact, rarely met with among the judges will be conceded by our contemporary if he will recall the interminable subject of 'Judicial Prolixity,' about which so much has been said, and so much yet remains to be said, in the legal press. And it is not surprising that this should be so. The mental habitat of the judges (so to speak) is upon the broad fields of legal principles, and their daily occupation is the applying of those principles to the facts of the particular case before them, and stating the results in general terms. The habits of mind thus induced do not tend to condensation or rigid analysis, but rather the contrary. The judges create, they do not take to pieces. The reporter, on the other hand, is (or ought to be) a skilled specialist, an analyst, whose sole duty it is to take the work as he finds it, reduce it to its constituent elements, and out of these produce the minutest possible photograph of the whole, which shall yet show every feature of the decision. Such work, whatever one's natural facilities, requires special training and long practice. We are opposed to the judges as reporters of their own decisions. They are, almost without exception, busy, hard-working men, with fully as much of labor and responsibility upon them as they ought to be required to bear. If, as is paradoxically true, they write long opinions because they have not the time to write short ones, we hardly know how they would fare if required to make the head-notes to their own

decisions; but we ought to know by analogy what

sort of head-notes they would make." This states the case very admirably. The nead-notes prepared by the judges are not among the worst, but they certainly are not the best. They are generally too diffuse; state the logical processes by which the conclusion is arrived at; and state the general principles of which the case is an exception or modification, or the exceptions and modifications to the case. In short, the judge is generally too anxious to put his best foot forward in the syllabus, instead of stating the bare point. We have seen an evidence of these tendencies of the judges in their cor

rections of the proposed head-notes of the reporters. They are always for amplification and hedgingabout, and very seldom fail to make the reporter's work worse than it was. Let not the judges go yond their bench; they are no reporters.

be

Mr. Ernest J. Miller, of this city, has recently read before the Albany Institute a very interesting and learned essay on "London Stone." Mr. Miller gives the following account of the "Lawless Court," held on King's Hill, in Rochford, Essex: "It is called lawless because it is held at an unlawful or lawless hour, meeting at night time instead of day time.

The tradition is that it was so held because the feudal lords were adverse to free open courts, and the tenants had to take the best steps possible to evade the lords' laws and still keep up their old institutions. The steward and suitors whispered to each other; they have no candles or any pen or ink but use a coal instead; and he that owes suit or service thereto and appears not, forfeits to the lord double his rent for every hour he is absent. This court is not obsolete even now; for in 1868 Mr. W. H. Black attended its meeting and gives an account of it, which is published in the proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries. Before the court opened the following lines were spoken, which Mr. Black translates from the hopelessly corrupt Latin of the court rolls: The court of the lord the king Called the court without law, Holden there

By the custom thereof
Before sunrise,

Unless it be twilight,

The steward alone

Writes nothing but with coals,

As often as he will,

When the cock shall have crowed.
By the sound of which only
The court is summoned.
He crieth secretly for the king
In the court without law;
And unless they quickly come,
They shall the more quickly repent;
And unless they come secretly
Let not the court attend.

He who hath come with a light,
They are taken in default,
The court without care-
The jury of injury.'"

Contradictory reports reach us about the health of Chief Justice Waite. It would seem that his illness

although serious is not so critical as was at first rep

resented. At all events there is no excuse for the the 4th of March, and the assignment of his office indecent speculations upon his possible death before which the partisan newspapers have published. It is hoped that the honored chief will be spared many years to continue the example which he has set of an able, dignified, impartial and modest administration of his great office.

N

NOTES OF CASES.

Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore R. Co. v. Hoeflick, Court of Appeals of Maryland, Oct. 1884, 18 Rep. 822, it was held that the fare of a child in charge of a passenger on a railroad train is properly chargeable to the passenger, and if the latter refuses to pay it both may be ejected from the train, though the passenger had paid his fare. The court said: "The plaintiff had paid her own fare, and the defendant had no right of course to eject her from the train, unless there was a contract, express or implied, on her part co pay the fare of her younger sister. There is no evidence of an express contract, and if one is to be implied it must be on the ground that the younger sister was under her