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the promisee's land before the making of the promise. In such cases the true analogue of the restrictive agreement is the note payable to bearer.

THE "Liability of Telegraph Companies" is discussed exhaustively by Morris Wolf in an article of some seventy pages in The American Law Register for December. The conclusion which is reached is this: "That the best basis upon which to lay the foundation for a telegraph company's liability consists in the public nature of its employment; and that, so laid, recovery can be had, according to the ordinary measure of damages in delictual actions, in every case in which a message is sent and carelessly handled, whether the message be open or cipher, and whether the natural and not too remote consequences of its non-delivery or of its late or inaccurate delivery be pecuniary or sentimental injury."

TAKING as a text the newspaper protest against the decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri in the Butler bribery case, The Kansas City Bar Monthly defends the action of the court, as follows:

The corpus delicti of bribery, as declared by the statutes of Missouri, is the exercise or attempted exercise of corrupt means to secure the action of some officer upon any matter "which may be then pending or which may by law be brought before him in his official capacity." The last clause is quoted literally from the statute. The first duty of the court was to determine what elements were essential to come within the terms of the statute and at the outset of his opinion Judge Fox defines these elements as follows: First, there must be a public officer of the city or of the State; secondly, the offer there made must be with intent to influence the votę, opinion, judgment or decision of such public officer; thirdly, the vote, opinion, judgment or decision must be in respect to some question which may by law be brought before a public officer in his official capacity.

The court then proceeds to examine the ordinance of the city of St. Louis under

which the contract was awarded to Butler by the Board of Health, and in the light of the city's charter determines the ordinance to have been void as an attempt to invest the Board of Health with powers expressly and exclusively vested by the charter in the Board of Public Improvements. Upon this branch of the case, which, by the way, is one that affects the law of municipal corporations far more vitally than it does the law of crimes, we venture no opinion but assume that the construction of the charter founded upon reason and precedent. As the ordinance entrusting the power in the public officer attempted to be bribed was void, the matter was not, therefore, one which might by law be brought before him in his official capacity.

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When the court found the ordinance void it is difficult to see how the court could have logically found otherwise than it did on the main issue. It is no doubt unfortunate for many reasons that the court should have been compelled in this particular case to hold the attempted exercise of authority of the Board of Health beyond the powers which might be entrusted to them under the charter of the city, but it is neither fair nor sensible to say that the justice and logic of the case demanded that in order to sustain this conviction the charter must be so warped by construction as to place municipal authority in hands other than those to which the people adopting the charter have plainly entrusted them. The division of governmental powers by charters adopted as those of this city and St. Louis are adopted is expressive of the will of the people as to the best method of securing efficient administration. The maintenance of such provisions is far more vital to the protection of public and private welfare, of personal liberty and private property than the conviction of any criminal, however great the enormity of his crime or however much its commission or his escape may shock the public conscience. Whether the question arises in a civil or a criminal action this division must be upheld. Otherwise chaos of municipal activity results.

IN the Michigan Law Review for January, Professor John A. Fairlie continues his discussion of "The Administrative Powers of President," taking up the special administrative powers conferred on him by the Constitution. Concerning the President's military powers "in maintaining internal order and suppressing resistance to law not amounting to war," the writer says:

For these latter purposes the army is actively employed under two sets of conditions: To protect a State against domestic violence, as guaranteed by the Constitution; and to enforce the laws of the United States and protect the instrumentalities of the Federal government against unlawful interference.

In cases of domestic violence the President was restricted by the condition that he should act on application of the State authorities. But under other circumstances he was authorized to act without any such condition expressed. This larger power of independent action was provided for, on the one hand in cases of invasion or imminent danger of invasion, and on the other hand in cases of opposition to the laws of the United States. The former class of cases deal distinctly with the conduct of war, which has already been considered. In reference to the latter, it is important to notice the statutory provisions and questions that have arisen in the exercise of the authority. The Militia Act of 1795, already mentioned, authorized the President to call out the militia "whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed, in any State, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act." The Act of 1807 authorized the use of the army and navy under these same circumstances. Under this authority troops were used on various occasions to overcome resistance to the internal revenue laws and for other purposes. And it was under these provisions that President Lincoln issued his first call for militia. By Act of July 29, 1861, the authority of the President was increased; and he was authorized to use the militia or the army and navy

"whenever, by reason of unlawful obstructions, or assemblages of persons, or rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States, it shall become impracticable, in the judgment of the President, to enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the laws of the United States within any State or territory."

This provision in the statutes has been continued since the Civil War; and even after the process of reconstructing the southern States was accomplished, Federal troops were stationed in these States and employed especially in enforcing the Federal laws regulating the elections for Presidential electors and members of Congress, commonly known as the Force Bills. But opposition in Congress to this policy prevented the passage of the Army Appropriation bill in 1877 until four months after the expiration of the former appropriation, and led to the adoption next year of a statutory provision to limit the use of troops. The Army Appropriation Act of 1878 provided that "from and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the army of the United States as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress."

Among the purposes for which the use of the army and navy is expressly authorized by Acts of Congress are in reference to Indian affairs, the protection of the public lands, the execution of neutrality laws, the protection of merchant marine and the suppression of piracy, the enforcement of judicial proceedings and the suppression of insurrections or unlawful combinations obstructing the laws of the United States.

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ance with the Constitution and laws of the United States. They were used to enforce the laws of prohibiting the obstruction of the mails and conspiracies against inter-state commerce, and to secure the execution of judicial processes of the Federal courts. The broader scope of Federal action at this time was due in part to a new interpretation as to what constituted an obstruction of the postal service. Formerly where strikers had cut out passenger and baggage cars from a mail train, but did not directly prevent the move ment of the postal cars, it had been assumed that they were not obstructing the postal service. But it was now held that interference with any part of a mail train constituted an obstruction to the postal service. Another factor, however, in the extension of the field for the employment of the army was the recent statute prohibiting conspiracies against

commerce.

The interpretation of President Cleveland as to the powers and duty of the executive under the circumstances was approved by the Supreme Court and by the Senate and House of Representatives in resolutions adopted by both bodies.

IT was to be expected, says The New Jersey Law Journal for January, that ultimately Christian Science would get into the courts, and it seems the first decision relating to the subject in New Jersey comes about in an odd way. Kate McCulloch, of Camden, being in feeble health, placed herself under the treatment of George Tompkins as a Christian Science healer, and in the course of the treatment gave him a power of attorney to collect her moneys and invest the same. After a while she became dissatisfied with his management and filed a bill in chancery, demanding an accounting. The defendant, in his plea, set up, inter alia, that she had agreed to allow him twenty per cent. on his collections. This the complainant denied. In giving his decision in the case Vice Chancellor Gray says: "The defendant claims that he earned commissions by making collections for the complainant by a combina

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tion of letter-writing and a making of 'demonstrations.' . . . So far as the defendant's testimony explains what he calls a 'demonstration,' it appears to have consisted of locking himself in a room and devoting himself to the thought' of collecting the debts due to the complainant. The defendant testified that the parties who owed the complainant were not in any way connected with the Christian Science Church. The influence which he exerted by 'thought' in collecting the money for the complainant was, therefore, enforced against unbelievers in Christian Science. The moving of the absent unbeliever to pay his debts probably required from the defendant a more intense application of healing power, entitling him, from his point of view, to a higher compensation for his labors." The court allowed him one hundred dollars, "not because the defendant earned or deserved it, but because the complainant consented to give it to him." 62 N. J. Eq. (17 Dick Ch.) 269.

IN his President's address (printed in the Yale Law Journal for January) before the last meeting of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, C. LaRue Munson discussed the interesting question: "How far shall the justice and rights of the particular cause prevail over a strict application of established rules of law?" In the course of the address he says:

Of the adherence to settled rules of law, it is admitted by all hands that certain legal principles have been established—although not all uniformly in every court of last resort -and. to those principles additions are constantly being made, and so far as they may be conscientiously applied, must prevail; but it may well be asked where is the legal principle that can stand the strain of time unless it be bottomed and fastened upon natural justice?-that which we call equity, because in this sense it is indeed "the correction of that wherein the law by reason of its universality is deficient." Rules of law may be firmly declared, and to them we must bend the knee of obedience, but unless they have for their foundation a justice which appeals to man's conscience, they are as unstable as the

shifting sands of the sea. And herein is the very warp and woof of the question at issue. Aside from various modes of reasoning whereby different interpretations are arrived at even under similar conditions, there has ever been and always must be an evolution in the law, a progress in jurisprudence, as there is in forms of government, human thought, modes of life, manners and customs, and in the arts and sciences through new discoveries and inventions. That which may. have been a well settled and accepted principle of law at one stage of human progress would not be tolerated for one moment in these modern days; the earlier legal treatises are full of such principles, they are not merely obsolete, they are positively denied by advanced thought and by the results of experience. The law cannot stand still any more than can mankind cease to progress; as one goes forward so must the other, and as human conditions improve and develop, so, of necessity, must jurisprudence advance..

The foremost and chief principle of all law, and one which cannot be changed, is that justice is to be done, that that which is right and just shall alone be decreed. A law that is not just, or which in its application works an injustice, will not and cannot survive. . . . If we are to have rules of law hard and fast, and are to bind them so tightly around our judges as to compel them to be followed by the strictest construction, without conscience and without heart, then will our courts become mere machines of learning to force the facts of every cause within those "procrustean" rules, irrespective of the destruction of natural right, and regardless of that justice which will then meaninglessly define their official titles, but which by law and by conscience they have been sworn to uphold; all, forsooth, that we may have the "knowne certaintie of the law," and that the advocates having applied its measuring stick to their clients' causes may be assured that it may likewise be the means of adjudication by the Bench, irrespective of the wrongs done to others.

It has been suggested that if the tendency of the courts to adjudge causes by the parti

cular equities of the case be continued, public distrust may follow, and the electors may refuse to continue for long terms the otherwise faithful judges. Rather let us look at the converse of the proposition and if the public come to believe that the courts are bound by precedent rather than by justice, by rule rather than by what is just and right, that decisions are made which shock the conscience and are contrary to that which men believe to be natural justice, we may see the time when the elective franchise will compel a statute that the jury shall be the judges of the law in all cases, whether civil or criminal, and where then, we may well ask, will there be any certainty either of law or justice?

It is true that there are cases to be found in the reports where the courts of last resort have departed from established precedent in order that justice might be done under the particular circumstances of the case, and I am glad to be of those who maintain that such a course is conducive to the proper administration of jurisprudence.

Ir seems, says Law Notes, that an innocent convict may obtain relief from the courts in one of two ways only, that is, either by a motion for a new trial or by a writ of error coram vobis, and that his choice of remedy must be governed by the provisions of local statutes governing these two proceedings in respect to the time within which they may be resorted to. If neither is available because of a time limitation, then relief can be obtained only in the form of executive clemency. An innocent man naturally wants justice and not clemency, and it would be well for legislatures to see to it that no innocent victim of circumstances should ever be subjected to the shocking injustice of being forced to ask to be pardoned for a crime which he did not commit, and to leave standing a judicial record declaring him a felon.

THE Canada Law Journal concludes an arti cle on "The Alaskan Boundary Award" in these words:

We recognize, of course, that the parties.

to the treaty are Great Britain and the United States, although it is Canada that is directly interested in the dispute. We also recognize that the general interests of the Empire, of which we form an integral part, are not to be ignored, either on moral grounds or grounds of expediency. And it may be claimed that for some reason which has not been made public it was necessary to submit to the demand of the United States for territory on the Alaskan border which, we say, belongs to us. But if this was the mind of the British Government, we have three things to say:-(1) Giving in to the demands of the United States, from time to time, and ignoring some very questionable diplomatic proceedings relating thereto, is not the way to secure their respect and cooperation. They have naturally come to the conclusion that a very mild threat is all that is necessary to bring England to their terms; and the feeling among their politicians may be expressed in a remark which has actually been made "England is playing our game for us with Canada." (2) If it be necessary to secure their good-will, by giving up portions of our territory, it is not consistent with the dignity of British statesmen to be parties in the solemn farce of joining in the formation of a Board of Judges to adjudicate upon one of these territorial claims, under the conditions and circumstances hereinbefore referred to. (3) If so necessary, as aforesaid, Canada can well say that she has the right to be consulted, and to be a party to the deed of gift. Her patriotism and loyalty to the Empire (proved on many occasions and sealed by the blood of her sons) will be equal to the strain.

In conclusion, let it be understood, once and for all, that Canada is an integral part of the British Empire. . . . She is as much a part of the Empire as any portion of the British Isles. The thought of annexation with the United States is dead and buried long ago and beyond possibility of resurrection. . . . There is as we say no shadow of a thought in this Dominion of any dismemberment; but simply that, should the occasion arise, we shall insist upon our

rights so far as they are consistent with the welfare of the Empire as a whole.

A NEW Scale of allowances to witnesses in cri inal cases has been authorized by the Home Secretary. The scale is the outcome of the report of Sir John Dorington's committee on the subject. These are the principal allowances: Per day-Legal and medical witnesses, I guinea; ditto (two or more cases), 2 guineas; ditto (over three miles), 2 gumcas; solicitor for prosecution, 6s. 8d.; expert witnesses, I guinea; expert analyses, medical examinations, plans, etc., extra at discretion of court; interpreters, I guinea; ordinary witnesses, maximum, 7s.; ordinary vanesses, if detained all night, 5s. (these allowances are double the old rates, but the maximum is not always to be given); children, servants and unemployed, Is.; laborers, 33.; artisans and mechanics, 5s.; others, 35.; right allowance, 5s. (only half these allowances to be paid if detention is under four hours). First-class fare is not to be allowed "unless there is reasonable ground for sup posing that the witness ordinarily travels first class."-The Law Times.

THE Central Law Journal (January 1) opposes the appointment of trust companies as executors, administrators and guardians. It concedes that "there are many advan tageous features connected with a trust company's handling" a trust estate, but says:

These considerations do not apply to the more personal relations of executors, administrators and guardians. While these are also in their nature trust relations, there is also a personal aspect that cannot be avoided. The executor stands in the place of the decedent toward the rest of the family during the interim of administration. During this period the property of the estate and possibly the entire income of a family is tied up in his hands as an officer of the court. If the executor, who thus becomes a member of the family during the period of administration, is a stranger, or worse still, a corporation whose officers must naturally insist on every legal

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