marry again, the share bequeathed to her shall go to her son, is valid, as the rule forbidding conditions in general restraint of marriage does not extend to second marriages. The Court said that one of the exceptions to the rule that conditions in general restraint of marriage are void, —

"Recognized by the general current of authority, and by the almost universal concurrence of modern judicial opinions, is that such a condition in restraint of marriage does not extend to the case of a second marriage. The principle itself was borrowed from the civil law, in which widows, as observed by Lord Thurlow in the principal case on that subject, were excepted from the Novels (Barton v. Barton, 2 Vern. 308); and this exception has been continued throughout modern English and American authorities. Further, on this question, Mr. Beach, in his work on the Law of Wills (section 234), says: "The present state of the law as regards conditions in restraint of the second marriage of a woman is this: that they are exceptions to the general rule that conditions in restraint of marriage are void, and the annunciation of that law has been gradual. In the first instance, it was confined to the case of the testator being the husband of the widow. In the next place it was extended to the case of a son making a will in favor of his mother. Then came the case of Newton v. Marsden (2 Johns. & H. 356, decided in 1862), in which it was held to be a general exception, by whomsoever the bequest may have been made (Allen v. Jackson, I Ch. Div., 399).' The whole subject will be found discussed by Mr. Beach, in sections 233-237; in Schouler on Wills, sect. 603; Story's Eq. Jur., sect. 276-291; in Pritch. Wills, sect. 155-160; and in the case of Scott v. Tyler, 2 White & T. Lead Cas. Eq., 429-512, and note."

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SURGICAL DISCRETION.- A very novel case regarding the right of a surgeon to go beyond his specific authority in performing an operation was recently tried in London. Miss Beatty, a hospital nurse, submitted herself to Mr. Cullingworth, an eminent surgeon of London, for an operation of ovariotomy. It was admitted by the defendant that she forbade him to go beyond the single operation, but he testified that he refused to perform the operation under that condition and told her she must submit to his discretion. This she denied. Finding it necessary, in his opinion, to perform the double operation to prolong her life, he did so. He testified that in view of the patient's wish he had hesitated, but he concluded to

overrule her objection. In consequence she felt compelled by conscientious scruples to break off her marriage engagement. The most eminent surgeons testified that they would refuse to operate under such a restriction. Sir Thomas Wells, however, the greatest expert, testified that he thought that the double operation in this case was unnecessary, but he had no doubt the defendant acted conscientiously. The defendant and his assistant testified that the plaintiff would not have lived ten years without the double operation. There was a verdict for the defendant. This of course may have been based on a finding that the defendant had refused to submit to the condition, and that consequently the plaintiff had tacitly assented. If any inference is to be drawn from the case that a surgeon may exceed his specific instructions, not dessented from by him, even if he deems it necessary to prolong or save life, it is bad law. Miss Beatty had a perfect right to prefer to live for only ten years, and to be for that time a wife and possibly a mother, rather than to live the ordinary length of time unmarried, or be a barren wife. The matter is probably less serious to the female sex than a somewhat analogous operation would be to the male but we believe that it would be rather difficult to induce a judge and a jury to justify a surgeon in disregarding explicit instructions of a similar purport on the part of a man. If a second operation in the case under consideration should have proved necessary, it would have been easy to make it, and not unsex the sufferer at the outset. We confess that we are surprised at the verdict, and that in any view we regard the result as wrong. We have a sympathy with a woman who demands to have her sexual physiology respected despite the custom of surgeons. We fully agree with the New York Law Journal that: " Where a proposed operation is as clearly the subject of definite agreement as the one under consideration, and especially where the worst that could result from following the patient's directions would be the necessity of submitting to a second operation later, we think such directions should be accepted as morally binding upon the surgeon, and held legally controlling by the Courts." If that case had arisen in this country the result would certainly have been to the contrary. The English Courts are tenderer toward dogs, but less considerate of women than the American Courts.

The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of

articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetiæ, anecdotes, etc.

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES.

PERHAPS the two most remarkable instances of judicial combat upon record are the following, which took place in Spain in the eleventh century Alphonso, King of Leon and Castile, in the year 1038, meditated the introduction of the Roman law into his dominions; but being uncertain whether this or the customary law which had hitherto prevailed was the best, he appointed two champions to determine the question with their swords in actual conflict; and the result was that the chevalier who represented the civil law was beaten. During the reign of the same monarch, the question was agitated whether the Musarabic or Roman liturgy and ritual should be used in the Spanish churches; and the decision was referred, as in the former case, to the sword. Two knights in complete armor entered the lists, and John Ruys de Matanca, the champion of the Musarabic, i. e. Gothic ritual, was victorious. The queen and archbishop of Toledo, however, were dissatisfied with the result, and they had influence sufficient to have the matter submitted to a different kind of ordeal. A large fire was kindled, and a copy of each liturgy was thrown into it. The Musarabic (perhaps being bound in some species of asbestos) stood the test, and remained unscathed, while the rival volume perished in the flames. But it is not easy to convince an opponent in a theological controversy, and because it was discovered, or asserted, that the ashes of the latter had curled to the top of the flames and leaped out of them, the victory was claimed for the Roman ritual. The result was that both liturgies were sanctioned; but as the Roman was chiefly favored, it gradually superseded its competitor.

FACETIE.

MAGISTRATE: "The gamekeeper declares that he saw you taking this pheasant. What have you to say to that?”

Prisoner: "I only took it for a lark." Magistrate: "Six months for making such an ornithological error. Consult your natural history in future."

JUDGE CLOUD, of North Carolina, in sentencing a prisoner to death, solemnly adjured him to look to the Supreme Being for support, for "He has said, 'Come unto me, you who are heavily laden, and and and I will do the best I can for you,' here, seeing the Bar was attentive, he covered his retreat by adding, "or words to that effect, for the Court is not accurate on Scripture."

It was before an Irish trial justice: The evidence was all in, and the plaintiff's attorney had made a long, eloquent, and logical argument. Then the defendant's attorney took the floor.

"What you doing?" asked the Justice, as the lawyer began.

66 'Going to present our side of the case." "I don't want to hear both sides argued. It has a tindincy to confuse the Coort." So the defendant's lawyer sat down.

LUCAS S. BEECHER, a prominent lawyer in Ohio some years ago, toward the end of his professional career became somewhat hard of hearing. A farmer who lisped called at his office one day to employ him to bring an action against a railroad corporation to recover damages for negligently killing some of his pigs. Mr. Beecher understood the farmer to claim that the company had killed three thousand of them, and said to the client interrogatively: "Three thousand, and all at one fell swoop?" Whereupon the farmer shouted: "No! no! Good Heavens, no! Three thows and pigths."

NOTES.

"How Successful Lawyers Were Educated" is the title of a recent treatise by George A. Macdonald of the New York Bar. But its title is somewhat faulty in view of an old legal saying that "the lawyer is never educated, but until the day of his death is constantly educating himself and dies with an education never complete." Perhaps "valuable aids to legal progress" might have proved a more appropriate title. All" successful lawyers" will agree that object-lessons for legal practice and progress are of higher value than even books. The Benchers in the Inns of London advise their students to frequent the Courts and Assizes and there to study the strong points in cases therein arising, as well as the play of barristers and Q. C.'s in managing trials or presenting arguments. Treatises and reports will store the memory of the law student or young practitioner with learning; but observation of human nature, of the various pursuits of life, and of the conduct and methods of judges and successful lawyers must best supply the carte and tierce of forensic fencing. When the young lawyer asks, How can I be most successful in my profession? the answer will best come by his embracing some specialty in it and perfecting himself in that. And in all varieties of life pursuits, professions and business, the trend of the times is towards specialties. As a character in Shakespeare's play of "All's well that ends well," says - "Twere all one

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That I should love a bright particular star And think to wed it."

SIR ALBERT PELL, a verbose and prolix, but very successful English advocate, who made havoc of syntax and pronunciation every time he opened his mouth in court, is admitted to have owed his forensic victories largely to his iteration. When a gentleman criticised a jury address of his in an important cause, Pell "confessed and avoided" the justness of the criticism. "I certainly was confoundedly long," he replied; "but did you observe the foreman, a heavy-looking fellow in a yellow waistcoat? No more than one idea could ever stay in his thick head at a time, and I resolved that mine should be that one; so I hammered till I saw by his eyes that he had got it. Do you think I cared a critics might say?" Lord

for what you young Brougham was so im

pressed by this advocate's style of speaking that he said "it was not eloquence, it was pelloquence, and deserved to have, in books of rhetoric, a chapter to itself."

THE largest police office in the world is New Scotland Yard, in which 3,000 officers can be accommodated.

In spite of the odium which is supposed to be attached to the office of the hangman in Europe, there is a great rush for the position of high executioner of Prussia, now that Herr Reindell, the present incumbent, is about to retire. The post pays $37 "a head" and traveling expenses.

A GERMAN Court has decided that electricity cannot be stolen. A man was arrested on the charge of having stolen several thousand amperes of current by tapping a light company's mains and using it to run a motor. The Court, on appeal, ruled that " only a movable material object" could be stolen, which electricity was not, and therefore the man was acquitted. - Electric Re

view.

AN agitated lawsmith of Minnesota has introduced a bill to the State legislature which is styled "A bill for the suppression of female fools." It provides that "women, or men, or neuters who send flowers, and candy, and angel-cake, and plushbound copies of Keats to wife-murderers and thugs, shall be punished by imprisonment or fine, unless the wife-murderer or thug be a near relative." The latest dispatches do not say that the measure has been acted upon decisively as yet.

CURRENT EVENTS.

DR. SCHROER, the eminent German professor, advocates that means be taken to make English the one language of the world. He says the need of a universal language has long been felt, and any attempt to introduce an artificial language is unnecessary. The English language is universal by its spread over the entire globe and by the ease with which it may be learned. It has, he declares, reached a position far in advance of all other tongues.

English is spoken by most of the people of North and South America, it is spoken by the most powerful nation of Europe, it is spoken in India and in Australia. Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the number of English-speaking people has

grown from twenty-five million to a hundred and twenty-five million, and there is no prospect of any check to its increasing triumph.

WITH the completing of the Chicago Drainage Canal one of the greatest engineering feats of modern times will have been successfully performed. The work would have been comparatively simple if drainage alone had been considered, but the eventual welfare of the nation was thought of, and it was recognized that a ship-canal between the Mississippi and the Great Lakes would be of great advantage to the entire nation. Within a year from the present time, there will be a river, formed by the hand of man, diverting from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi system 300,000 cubic feet of water per minute, this amount to be doubled when the growth of the population requires it. It is seriously believed by some people that the flow through the canal will permanently lower the level of the Great Lakes. On this account there is a possibility that the canal will be made the subject of international diplomatic correspondence.

LITERARY NOTES.

THE March CENTURY is an " Inauguration Number," devoted especially to articles on life in the White House and at the Capitol, illustrated with a great number of interesting pictures.

THE February number of CURRENT LITERATURE has in addition to its well-filled and interesting regular departments a signed article by Hamilton W. Mabie; a page of verse, the work of Johanna Ambrosius, Germany's Peasant-Poet; and a reading from Paul Leicester Ford's new book. Mr. Geo. W. Cable has become the editor of this periodical.

IN HARPER'S MAGAZINE for March there is a significant and timely paper, " Preparedness for War," by Capt. A. T. Mahan, U. S. N., the leading writer on American naval topics, which outlines a scheme for defense by sea.

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Other interesting articles are "The Decadence of the New England Deep-Sea Fisheries," by Joseph William Collins, and Henry E. Marquand," by E. A. Alexander, which chronicles the bequests of the most intelligent and liberal American patron of Art, and describes the Marquand collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The short stories are Separ's Vigilante," by Owen Wister; "La Gommeuse," a character sketch by Charles Belmont Davis; and Perdita," by Hildegarde Hawthorne, a story with a supernatural implication.

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THE public seems never to grow weary of hearing about Rudyard Kipling and his achievements, and it ́ will find in the February REVIEW OF Reviews a candid and unpretentious, but not the less exhaustive, critique of Kipling by Mr. Charles D. Lanier. He has given us an interpretation of Kipling which is frankly sympathetic and at the same time irresistibly attractive.

This number also contains a most complete account of the many-sided career and public services of the late Gen. Francis A. Walker who died so suddenly, early in January. It reviews General Walker's life as a student, lawyer, soldier, adjutant-general on Hancock's staff, journalist, teacher, government statistician, census commissioner, writer on economics, historian and educational administrator.

WHAT SHALL WE READ?

This column is devoted to brief notices of recent publications. We hope to make it a ready-reference column for those of our readers who desire to inform themselves as to the latest and best new books. (Legal publications are noticed elsewhere.)

ALL the horrors of the Indian mutiny are most thrillingly set forth in On the Face of the Waters,' the latest novel by Mrs. Steel. The story is of absorbing interest and is written by one who has lived where the exciting events depicted took place, and who is well informed as to both sides of the question. The book as a whole is the best which has come from Mrs. Steel's pen.

Students of political history will find much of interest in the selections of orations delivered by our ablest American statesmen which are being published in a series of volumes entitled American Orators.2 The selections have been made not only as examples of eloquence, but with reference to their historical value. The series will be completed in four volumes.

We are in doubt as to whether "The Beginning of the End, "3 is intended to be taken seriously. The 1ON THE FACE OF THE WATERS. By Florence Annie Steel. The Macmillan Co., New York.

2 AMERICAN ORATORS. Edited by Alexander Johnson. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York.

8 THE BEGINNING OF THE END. Little, Brown & Co., Boston. Cloth.

writer, who by the way is anonymous, takes for a motto Life is love, and love is the beginning," but the book deals mostly with ideas on death rather than love, though it finally leads up to it. The story begins and ends in a graveyard, even the declaration of love being made there. The author is extremely fond of queer words. Resilience," "nescience," "unaxiomatically," are among the most unusual, but “unmitigable" is the favorite which occurs at least twenty times, "relentless" evidently being too simple for the author's style. The book is interesting as a literary curiosity.

Dr. Fridtjof Nansen's Farthest North is a work which, in addition to its popular interest, has a scientific value beyond that to be found in other records of Arctic exploration. The expedition was not a mere feat. In physical geography, in biology, meteorology, the results obtained will mark a new departure in the various sciences concerned. The continuous observations made during three years on the meteorology of the Arctic regions, when combined with other observations, will be of the highest practical importance in relation to the climatology of Europe and North America. In 84° 4′ north, this intrepid explorer, finding his vessel, the Fram, solidly frozen in the ice, started with one companion, Johansen, for the unknown regions of the North Pole. They left their vessel, equipped with three sledges, two kayaks, and twenty-eight dogs, with provisions for the dogs for thirty days, and for themselves for one hundred days. When this stock was exhausted, they lived on seal, walrus and bear meat, when they could get it. The account of the months these two hardy men spent in the polar regions, even in such fragmentary statements, is most thrilling. When a dog died or fell by the way, he was served as food by the survivors. Nor were the chances of death by starvation the only dangers they had to face. Yet the experiences of peril were mere incidents, breaking the monotony of Nansen's scientific observations, during those many months of hardships and privations, the results of which are of incalculable value to the scientific world. Many of his observations were taken in latitude 86° 14' north.

4 FARTHEST NORTH. By Dr. Fridtjof Nansen. Harper & Brothers, New York.

NEW LAW-BOOKS.

THE LAW RELATING TO PRIVATE TRUSTS AND TRUSTEES. By ARTHUR UNDERHILL, M.A., LL.D., of Lincolns Inn. Fourth Edition enlarged and revised. First American Edition by F. A. WISLEZENUS and ADOLPH WISLEZENUS of the St. Louis Bar. F. H. Thomas Law Book Co., St. Louis, 1896. Law sheep. $5.00 net.

This work, so far as we have been able to examine it, seems to us admirably adapted to the needs of both practitioner and student. Mr. Underhill's treatise has been most favorably received in England, and with the full and exhaustive American notes

added by the editors it should be heartily welcomed here.

MORTUARY LAW. BY SIDNEY PERLEY.

George $3.00.

B. Read, Boston, 1896. Law sheep. This little volume sets forth in a most interesting and exhaustive manner the general principles which underlie all law concerning dead human bodies. The subject is one of importance in these times of ostentation and lavish expenditure over the remains of the departed. That even after we have shuffled off this mortal coil" we still are liable to be the subject of litigation is evidenced by the fact that the author cites some seven hundred authorities to support his propositions.

The work covers almost every point likely to arise from the last sickness, death and burial.

THE LAW OF RAILWAY ACCIDENTS IN MASSACHUSETTS. By G. HAY, Jr. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1897. Law sheep. $4.50 net.

Mr. Hay's treatise, although based upon Massachusetts decisions, covers the question of the liability of Railway Corporations in case of accidents so thoroughly, that the work will prove exceedingly useful to the profession at large. It is evidently prepared with great care, and is an exhaustive resumé of the law upon the subject.

A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON THE Law of ReceiveRS, with extended consideration of Receivers of Corporations. By CHARLES FISK BEACH, Jr., of the New York Bar. Second Edition, with elaborate additions to the text and notes, and material changes therein, by WILLIAM A. ALDERSON of the St. Louis Bar. Baker, Voorhis & Co., New York, 1897. Law sheep. $6.00, net. Probably no subject, recognized by the law, has developed such a rapid growth as that covered by the treatise before us. It is sad that it is so, but, such being the fact, a thorough and reliable work upon the Law of Receivers cannot but be welcomed by the profession. The original treatise by Mr. Beach we have already spoken favorably of. This new edition contains many additions and alterations judiciously made by Mr. Alderson, and in its present form the volume is a clear presentation of the law governing receivers, and brought fully down to date. We cheerfully commend it to our readers.

THE CRIMINAL LAW. By JOHN G. HAWLEY and MALCOLM MCGREGOR. The Collector Publishing Co., Detroit, 1896. Law sheep.

This volume does not purport to give anything more than a mere outline of the principles of criminal law, and is useful only as an elementary work for law students. For this purpose it seems admirably adapted, and we commend it to the consideration of our law teachers.