law office of his uncle, the Hon. Aaron Vanderpoel, an accomplished lawyer and scholar of Kinderhook. Under his instruction he prepared for the bar, to which he was called on completing his three years legal studies. At that early age he gave pleasing indications of future professional eminence. His industry was untiring, and his resolute energy stimulated his research, saving him from that "numb rigidity of in

tellectual life" into which students sometimes fall. With many rare qualifications the young lawyer commenced his practice in his native village under prosperous circumstances. After the lapse of a few years, superior professional advantages opened to him in New York, and in 1850 he removed to that city, where he resided the remainder of his life. His talents, learning and reputation soon called to him an extensive and influential clientage, and while yet comparatively young, he took his place in the front rank of the metropolitan bar, brilliant with legal luminaries of the first magnitude. Thus fortunate in his profession, he was equally fortunate in all his other relations in life.

Mr. Vanderpoel occupied a very high position as a lawyer. He was eminent not only for his professional accomplishments but for his endowments and attainments as a scholar. His mind was enriched by a thorough education, a life study of the classics, and by the perusal of the best writers in our own tongue from Hooker and Bacon to our own times. Like Nicholas Hill, Charles O'Conor, Daniel Lord and other eminent jurists, his distinction rested on his professional excellence alone. His ambition centered on his place at the bar; he preferred its solid, lasting honors to the doubtful, ephemeral fame derived from political distinction, which renders a man prominent and influential to-day, while to-morrow by. the vicissitudes of partisan strife, he is nobody, a thing cast one side by struggling and pushing aspirants for his place.

Mr. Vanderpoel was fortunate as a speaker at the bar. "His arguments were not set with diamonds, nor decked with flowers," but they went forcibly and successfully along the track of logic and reason to the center of the attack or defense. He often levied upon the classic, ancient lore, and modern research, for illustration, but it was only for so many recruits to the forces he commanded in his legal conflicts. He always spoke with animation, fervor and convincing emphasis. His manner was uniformly easy and natural, his diction chaste and unpretending, and he always commanded the respectful attention of courts and juries.

Mr. Vanderpoel was one of the founders of the State Bar Association, and always took a lively interest in its welfare.

Though Mr. Vanderpoel was entirely devoted to his profession, he did not stand entirely aloof from politics, for he believed it the duty of every citizen to adopt and maintain with reasonable firmness, political opinions, and as parties are necessary in a government like ours, to identify himself with that party whose principles most naturally agree with his sense of right and justice. Accordingly, early in life, he identified himself with the democratic party giving it his unswerving allegiance through all his life. His advice and counsel were always regarded valuable by the leaders of his party, and he often found it difficult to successfully resist their repeated solicitations to accept official position.

Mr. Vanderpoel was a gentleman in 'the true interpretation of the term-a gentleman by birth, education and association. He possessed the true dignity which results from proposing habitually a high standard of feeling and action, and accordingly, the regard he called forth was always tempered with respect.

He was one of the last men to be approached with rude familiarity. In all his relations as husband, father, friend and citizen, it is no exaggeration to say that he was in many senses a model. No one who met him in the social circle will ever forget the attraction of his manner and conversation.

The loss of such a man is indeed a public misfortune. He has passed away at a period of his greatest usefulness in his profession, and when most tenderly loved by his family and friends, and when held in the greatest esteem by the public. May we not say that his death is not the extinction of a life, but its apotheosis? His memory will be perpetuated in the annals of the great city he loved so well, and with many of whose institutions he was so honorably and usefully identified. It will be perpetuated in legal history, in the records of that profession which he so long and so honorably adorned. L. B. PROCTOR.

CORRESPONDENCE.

ANTIQUITY OF SEPARATING WITNESSES.

Editor of the Albany Law Journal:

Perhaps one of the very earliest instances of confounding preconcerted perjury by the separation of witnesses is to be found in the Apochryphal "History of Susanna." There you will recollect, the story is told of how a couple of elders, with the proverbial weakness of elders for the softer sex, conspired to swear away the life of Susanna, on a charge of adultry, to avenge themselves for her refusal to respond to their desires. So far do they succeed, that their victim is on the way to execution, when a young man named Daniel - in utter defiance of Archbold and Bishop asked for and obtained a new trial. Appearing now as counsel for the fair accused, he first has the prosecuting witnesses, the brace of elders, separated, and next demands a bill of particulars, quoting largely from the brief of Evarts and associates in Tilton v. Beecher. The elders locate the offense in a certain garden (the favorite scene of woman's successful temptation), but the first witness when asked "under what tree sawest thou them companying together?" Answered, "under a mastic tree?" The second one, under a like interrogation names “a holm tree." The result, of course, is not only the release of the prisoner, but the separation of confederating witnesses, at the request of counsel, from the days of Daniel to the days of Ben. Butler. By the way, the cuteness of this young lawyer leads me very naturally to infer that he is that Daniel come to judgment" referred to by Shylock, or rather that this was an early feat of the

same Daniel, while yet at the bar, and before a dearth of fees had driven him to the more lucrative profession of lion-tamer; a suggestion aided by the fact that the story of Susanna was originally at the beginning of the canonically recognized Book of Daniel.

WILSON, N. C., Aug. 15, 1887.

NOTES.

HUGH F. MURRAY.

So great has been the demand for the report of the

proceedings of The New York State Bar Associa tion, particularly, the last (the tenth) by lawyers in all parts of the nation, and on account of the large accession of new members, that the extensive edition of this year's report is nearly exhausted, and the proposition to publish another edition will very soon be made to the executive committee. Many full sets of these reports have been furnished the faculties of law schools aud law classes in the universities.

man.

coming book, if it does not prove any thing else. We have read it carefully, and find very little new in it outside the cipher theory, although Mr. Donnelly insists that he breaks down Shakespeare's claim without resort to the cipher. As for the stale claim of Shakespeare's ignorance, we prefer the testimony of Ben Jonson, that he had "little Latin and less Greek," which does not mean an ignorant Mr. Davidson says: "Mr. Donnelly brings good evidence to show that Shakespeare was a fornicator, an adulterer, a usurer, an oppressor of the poor, a liar, a forger of pedigrees in order to obtain a coat-of-arms to which he had no right, a poacher, a drunkard, an undutiful son and a negligent father." This has very little pertinency to the question. Byron and Poe had a good many of these vices, but they were men of great genius. Even Bacon himself was a crafty, supple, timeserving courtier, a false friend, a corrupt judge. Forging pedigrees is a very venial thing at this day. It is very singular that Mr. Halliwell, who has spent a long life in investigating Shakespeare's life, has been able to find so few of these alleged failings. Stratford is not mentioned, but St. Albans, Bacon's home, is mentioned twenty-three times. There seems nothing singular in that as it is a historical place, the scene of two battles. Then the absence of any books or manuscripts of Shakespeare is dwelt upon. How many are there of Ben Jonson's, for instance, or for that matter, of Bacon's? Mr. Davidson gives a synopsis of the chapter of the "cipher narrative," in which among other startling occurrences are Bacon's attempt to commit suicide because his authorship of the plays was discovered by Elizabeth, and the warning to Shakespeare to fly! In chapter twenty-four "Shakespeare decides to fly." Then why didn't he fly? Like the policemen in "The Pirates," he "doesn't go." Is there a word of history or tradition that he ever fled? Mr. Davidson says his faith in Shakespeare has been shaken. All we need say to this is to call attention to his interpretation of the word "offices," in the seventy-seventh sonnet. The sonnetteer had sent out a note-book or common-place book, and says:

"These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book." Mr. Davidson says: "What does the word 'offices'

here mean? The commentators and translators, as far as I have access to them, have no answer to the question. One translator, Fritz Krausz, thinks the book sent was the album containing the sonnets; but why call it offices?' We have already referred to the Promus of Bacon, recently published by Mrs. Pott. Now, the word promus means a cellarer or butler, and proma cella means a cellar or larder. But in Bacon's time (as to some extent even now) cellars and larders were called offices. Is it possible that Bacon's Promus is identical with the offices referred to? If so, we have a strong argument that Bacon wrote the sonnets." Or the following:

"As full of perill and aduenturous spirit

As to o'rewalk a Current, roaring loud,
On the vnsteadfast footing of a speare.'

These lines are certainly peculiar, and the last seems to suggest Shake-speare." He is "inclined to think that the plays are the production of a knot of brilliant briefless lawyers belonging to the Essex party, of whom Bacon was the chief, and to whose number the W. H. of the Sonnets, and perhaps, Sir Walter Raleigh belonged. Unwilling to acknowledge the authorship publicly, they allowed Shakespeare, to whom they had sold the acting copyright (if the expression be allowed), to publish them under his own name. In this way Shakespeare attained great fame as a dramatic writer, whereas he was at best a clever theatre-director, and a smart caterer for the rather low tastes of the theatregoing public, altering the plays considerably, and vulgarizing them before producing them on the stage." This out-herods the cipherer, for it is inconceivable that by far the larger part of the plays were not the offspring of a single mind. As to the claim for Bacon: we assert that there is no resemblance, not the remotest, between his style and genius and those of the plays. Is there a touch of humor in all his writings? Could he have created Falstaff? If he, an educated and polished man, had written these plays, he would not have been guilty of their anachronisms, coarseness, barbarisms, obscurities; nor would he have borrowed his plots. Probably if he wrote these plays he would have left other and acknowledged poems, but he left nothing worthy the name. The examples given are ludicrously feeble. Certainly, if the cipherer is right, he would not have flattered Elizabeth in the "Midsummer Night's Dream." And most certainly he would not have gone out of life without leaving some claim to the plays more certain to be found than this fantastic cipher discovered after two hundred and fifty years. We shall be curious to see how Mr. Donnelly reconciles his theory with Bacon's known coldness and treachery toward his friend and benefactor, Essex. About the strongest evidence of the absurdity of this Baconian delusion is the following: "A writer in Shakesperiana has recently pointed out a difficulty in believing that there can be a cipher in the folio of 1623, based upon the paging, because the same plays (1st and 2d Henry IV) were published in quarto, with different paging, twenty years before. Mr. Donnelly's reply to that is that in 1597--8 Bacon inserted a cipher in the plays adjusted to certain paging of a contemplated folio edition, the manuscript being arranged in sheets so numbered. Then right under the nose of Cecil and the queen he published the plays in quarto, arranged to a different paging, thus rendering detection impossible. Mr. Donnelly thinks Bacon must have chuckled to see Elizabeth

applauding plays which told the whole secret history of her life!" But vive la humbug! One of these days some one will arise to prove that Christ never lived and died in Judea. But suppose the cipher is really there? Well, then, Bacon or some one else put it there for purposes of mischief or mystification. What conceivable use or purpose could the cipher serve? The whole controversy

seems to us illustrate the credulity of the human imagination. We are now surprised to learn that the Abbé Labrieu has discovered that there is no such thing as the great Chinese wall!

IN

NOTES OF CASES.

'N Simmons v. State, Texas Court of Appeals, June 22, 1887, it was held that "D—d son of a b-h" is an expression which does not come within the legal meaning of terms "insulting words used toward a female relative," as those terms are used in the statute defining manslaughter. The court said: "The term used is rather a sudden expression of anger and contempt, and when used, no one understands it to be directed at the mother of the person to whom used. It is a lamentable fact that this mode of expression is of too common use in the country." This passes our comprehension. To call a woman to her face a bitch would certainly be insulting, and to tell a man that he is a son of one is intended to enrage him by defaming his mother, and is clearly within the statute.

In Hennessey v. State, in the same court, May 18, 1887, it was said: "In writing the name 'Knittel' in the indictment, in setting forth the instrument as it appeared after alteration, the pleader has dotted one prong of the letter 'n' instead of placing the dot directly over the letter 'i.' The letters forming the word 'Knittel' are however plainly and distinctly written, and the mere misplacement

of the dot intended for the letter 'i' certainly cannot be held to constitute a variance."

In Re Carnes, Circuit Court, S. D. Georgia, W. D., June 28, 1887, it was held that the facts that one summoned as a juror in the United States courts was an officer of the navy anterior to the late war; that he resigned, and thereafter served in the Confederate army; and that his disabilities have not been removed, will not support a personal claim for exemption from jury duty. Speer, J., said: "Capt. Carnes is a resident and citizen by birth of the United States of America, having their protection, and enjoying all of the enlarged and liberal advantages of such citizenship. Should his rights be infringed by any other nationality the government would extend to them the same jealous and watchful supervision that another citizen would have under similar circumstances. It is altogether anomalous, and not to be permitted, that enjoying these privileges he should be exempt from jury duty because of any action of his during the late war. If he could for this reason decline to serve on the juries, he might, with the same propriety, decline to serve in the armies of the country; and thus would be presented the extraordinary spectacle of a citizen excused from defending his government because previously he had been in armed re

sistance to it. The government might raise this question, but does not do so. The juror is known to be a man of exemplary character, and now devoted to the Union and Constitution of the United States. Besides, the Revised Statutes, section 800, provide that jurors in the United States courts shall possess the same qualifications, and be entitled to the same exemptions as jurors in the State courts, and no other, and it is not disputed that Capt. Carnes is qualified to serve as a juror by the laws of Georgia. This statute operates as a repeal of his disabilities, so far as service as a juror in the United States courts is concerned. I hold that while since Capt. Carnes has not thought proper to apply for the removal of his disabilities, he may not be permitted to hold offices of trust and profit under the general government, he cannot for that reason be exempted from rendering the usual services, and performing the ordinary duties of citizenship. This is a direct and beneficent result of the complete restoration of our government in all of its integrity, and the redintegration of our people in their rights of citizenship after the termination of the unhappy struggle between the sections of our common country a marvelous instance of the presence of an advanced civilization, literally without parallel in history, satisfying the most incredulous of the perpetuity of our liberties, and silencing the criticism of republican institutions."

At Bristol, on August 9, before the lord chief justice, without a jury, the cause Brown v. Accident the plaintiff, Mr. Charles, Q. C., for the defendInsurance Co. was heard. Mr. Bullen appeared for

ants. In 1852 the plaintiff insured himself with the defendants in a policy against railway accidents, whereby 2,000l. was to be paid in case of his death by accident, and in case of an accident not causing death the plaintiff was to receive "such sum by way of compensation as should appear just and reasonable, and in proportion to the injury received." In March, 1884, the plaintiff was knocked down by an engine at Risca Station on the Great Western Railway and seriously injured. The plaintiff now sued the defendants on this policy to recover compensation in respect of the injuries he received on that occasion. The defendants however contended that the accident was not an accident happening while the plaintiff was travelling on a railway, or within the terms of the policy. Also that the plaintiff had already obtained compensation in respect of the accident in an action which he had successfully brought against the Great Western Railway, and consequently was not in law entitled to recover any further compensation from them in respect of the accident. The facts were undisputed. The plaintiff on the day of the accident, having taken his ticket, was crossing the line to reach the proper platform, when he was knocked down by a train of empty carriages. In his action against the Great Western Railway he recovered 750l. The only points to be argued therefore were the two

mentioned above. Mr. Bullen argued that the plaintiff was at the time of the accident travelling on a railway within the meaning of the policy, citing Theobald v. Ry. Passengers' Ins. Co., 23 L. J. Rep. Exch. 249; 10 Exch. 45, and an American case in support of this view. As to the second point he cited Bradburn v. Great Western Ry., 44 L. J. Rep. Exch. 9; L. R., 10 Exch. 1, and Dally v. India and London Life Assur. Co., 24 L. J. Rep. C. P. 2; 15 C. B. 365. Mr. Charles argued that the policy did not apply to such an accident as this; and further, that it was a contract of indemnity. The learned judge said in his opinion the particular policy was a contract of indemnity; and further that it was only intended to cover an accident received while the assured was actually travelling in a train, which the plaintiff was not doing when he met with this accident. He accordingly gave judgment for the defendants, with costs, but ordered execution to be stayed until the eighth day of the Michaelmas Sittings, and then till hearing if appeal entered within that time. - London Law Journal.

I

AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION.

ADDRESS OF THE PRESIDENT, HON. THOMAS J.
SEMMES, OF LOUISIANA, DELIVERED AT
SARATOGA, AUGUST 17, 1887.
I.

PROCEED without exordium to the performance of the duty imposed on the President of this association by its constitution, which provides that he shall open each annual meeting with an address "communicating the most noteworthy changes in the statute law on points of general interest made in the several States and by Congress."

The Legislatures of all the States except Iowa, Maryland, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana have been in session during the year, but I have not been able to obtain the laws of Florida. The Legislature of New Hampshire is still in session. The session laws of Louisiana of 1886 were not printed in time to enable my predecessor in office to report upon them. I have therefore to review the legislation of Congress and the following twenty-eight States: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin. As my predecessors in office had established the practice of commenting on statutes as noteworthy in particular States, although not so in respect to other States, and as it had been the custom to call attention to statutes which had no direct relation to the service of jurisprudence, or the administration of justice, I felt very much embarrassed in dealing with so many States. I could have compressed the review within reasonable limits, either by grouping States or by the classification of the subjects of legislation; but so many Legislatures protracted their sessions until late in the season, I could not procure the statutes in time to pursue that course. As it is, in many instances I have had recourse to advanced sheets of the statutes as they came from the press, without any index, and in the case of Delaware, I have relied on an abstract taken from the parchment rolls

in the archives of the State, by the member of the gen

eral council representing that State.

I was therefore compelled to treat each State separately, and if in so doing I trespass on your patience, you must blame the command of the constitution, the practice of my predecessors in office, the custom sanctioned by yourselves, the immense mass of legislation to be brought to your notice, and the inability of a

large majority of the members of the general council

to communicate to the president, as enjoined by the constitution, the changes in the statutes of their respective States.

This inability is principally to be attributed to the delay in the publication of the statutes.

by Congress during the past year, which merit our at

There were several laws of a general nature enacted

tention.

The act of March 3, 1887, to regulate the removal of causes from State courts, to further regulate the jurisdiction of Circuit Courts, and for other purposes, takes from those courts the cognizance of any civil suit, unless the matter in dispute exceeds $2,000, exclusive of interest and costs.

Nor can any suit be brought against any person by any original process of procedure in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant, unless the jurisdiction of the court is founded only on the fact that the action is between citizens of different States, then the suit must be brought in the district where the plaintiff or the defendant resides.

Nor can an assignee or subsequent holder of a chose in action bring suit in the Circuit Court, unless such suit could have been brought if no transfer had been made; the only exceptions to this rule are assignees of foreign bills of exchange and transferees of choses in action issued by any corporation payable to bearer. The regulations as to the removal of causes are: 1. No suit can be removed from a State court, unless the matter in dispute exceeds $2,000, exclusive of interest and costs.

2. It can be removed only by the non-resident defendant, except where the suit is between citizens of the same State and the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court depends on grants of land by different States. 3. When in any suit there is a controversy wholly between citizens of different States, which can be fully determined as between them, then either one or more of the defendants interested in such controversy may remove the suit.

4. The application for removal must be made before or at the time the defendant is required by the laws of the State to plead, except where the ground of removal is local prejudice, or when jurisdiction of the Circuit Court depends on grants of land by different States as above stated.

5. Removal on the ground of local influence or prejudice is allowed to the defendant only in suits where the plaintiff is a citizen of the State in which the suit is brought, and the defendant] is a citizen of another State. The affidavit in such case must state that the defendant cannot obtain justice in the State court in which the suit is brought, nor in any other court of that State to which, under its laws, the defendant, on account of prejudice or local influence, might have the right to remove the cause; the affidavit of the petitioner is not conclusive, and the Circuit Court, if not satisfied with its truth, may remand the cause to the State Court. If there be several defendants and the suit can be tried separately in the Circuit Court without prejudice to the parties, that court may remand the suit to the State Court, as to the defendants not affected by local influence or prejudice, and retain jurisdiction of the cause as to the other defendants.

This act also takes away the right to an appeal, or