animal, which he called a pony, given to taking his time upon the road, and evincing, every now and then, a strong inclination to lie down, but kept up pretty well by jerking the reins and plying the whip, and kicks by the elder Master Crummler when he refused to go. A good pony at bottom, but certainly not at top, for his coat was of the roughest and ill-favored kind. 66 He is quite one of us," said Mr. C.; 66 his mother was on the stage. She ate apple pie at a circus for upwards of fourteen years, fired pistols, and went to bed in a night-cap, and in short, took the low comedy entirely. His father was a dancer, not very distinguished. He was rather a low sort of pony. The fact is, he had originally been jobbed out by the day, and he never quite got over his old habits. He was clever in melodrama, but too broad, too broad. When the mother died, he took the port-wine business-drinking port wine with the clown-but he was greedy, and one night bit off the bowl of the glass and choked himself, so his vulgarity was the death of him at last." The pony was a dernier ressort in the lack of all other novelties to the pony till everything else has failed," but Nicholas declined to sing a comic song on the pony's back, although it had been known to draw money.

"we never come

curiously it turns out to be the report of a trial for grand larceny in stealing a portrait of Thomas A. Cooper, a famous tragic actor, of New York, whom Halleck, in The Croakers," refers to.

John A. Graham defended the prisoner, on the novel ground that he looked and acted like an idiot: "every glance of that vacant, staring eye," said he, "every movement of that head. nay, his whole

exterior, indicates downright madness." He also argued madness from the fact that the prisoner had offered to sell, for two dollars, a superb, inimitable and valuable likeness, a "monument of genius" which some hundred years hence might sell for several hundred dollars." But as the jury could not see how that would benefit the prisoner, they found him guilty, and he went to prison for three years and a day.

Christian Smith's Case is prefaced by the reporter with a quotation from Virgil's Georgics, in the original and translated, and a very flowery and

hifalutin exordium, warning his countrymen against "the awful consequence of harbouring, for a long period, a settled malignity against a neighbor." The trial was for murder, and although the jury acquitted the prisoner, Judge Van Ness informed him that he considered him a very guilty man," and to beware-you have not escaped. Believe me, your most awful trial is yet to come," namely, at the bar of God, and predicted that unless he repented and atoned, his condemnation there is certain — whatever may be considered the law of Staten Island, your conduct is unjustifiable in the sight of God and man." This seems pretty hard measure, and rather extra-judicial.

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In Jemsen's Case, the reporter excuses himself for the use of "circumlocution and indirect demonstration" on account of the indecent character of the evidence, observing: "If not in the former, yet in the latter mode of reasoning, we are fully justified, even by the authority of Euclid. (Simp. Euclid, lib. 1, Prop. vii and xxvi.)" We must say that his painstaking rather enhances than hides the indecency in question. In John Balls' Case (arson), the reporter concludes the report with the remark that 'the character and situation of the defendant, as disclosed on the trial," reminded him of Arbuthnot's epitaph on Colonel Charteris (which he quotes in full), to the effect that God shows his contempt of wealth "by bestowing it on the most unworthy of all the descendants of Adam." Some of the headnotes are very funny. For example: " Where either a married or a single man is robbed of his property at a house of ill-fame, the least he can say is the better." Honest, prudent people need not fear highway robbery in the City of New York." • Vigilance in clerks is highly commendable." "The more respectable the friends of a thief may be, the more enormous his crime."

NOTES OF CASES.

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- A late decision in

BOARDING MOVING TRAIN. the New York Court of Appeals in Distler v. L. I. R. Co. on this point is important, and shows some contrariety of opinion. The decision here is that it is not negligence, as a matter of law, for a passenger to attempt to get on to a train, in pursuance of the direction of the conductor, while it is moving at the rate of two or three miles an hour, when there is nothing to indicate any unusual danger. Three judges dissent. The case is distinguished from Hunter v. C. & S. V. R. Co., 126 N. Y. 18, where, as the train approached a platform at the rate of one or two miles an hour, the conductor said to the plaintiff, "If you are going, jump on," and he was injured in trying to do so. This was held contributory negligence as

matter of law, three judges dissenting. The Hunter case had been up before in 112 N. Y. 371, and the same decision was then made, one judge dissenting (Andrews, J.), Peckham, J., giving the prevailing opinion. Andrews, C. J., and O'Brien, J., who dissented on the last appearance of the Hunter case, were dissenters in the present case. In Northern P. R. Co. v. Egeland, 163 U. S. 93, the plaintiff, a common laborer in defendant's employ, returning from work on a train, was ordered by the conductor to jump off at a station when it was moving about four miles an hour, and he was injured by doing so. The question of his negligence was held to have properly been left to the jury. Mr. Justice Peckham gave the opinion, and endeavored to distinguish the Hunter case in 112 N. Y., in which he had given the prevailing opinion, on the ground that in the Egeland case there is an element of obedience to the command given by the person in charge of the train and of the crew and given to the common laborer, and upon a matter where the jury might find that the danger was not so great and so obvious as to render obedience to the order a risk to the person obeying." He speaks of the speed in the Hunter case as quite rapid," but the testimony put it from four to eight miles an hour, while in the Egeland case it was put between four and five. Things seem a little mixed, but possibly the cases in the two courts are distinguishable. We are rather inclined to side with the dissenters in

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the New York cases, on the ground that an intending passenger might be deemed warranted in following the conductor's invitation on the spur of the mo

ment.

DYING DECLARATIONS. It is gratifying to us to observe that the views which were expressed in these columns some months ago in respect to the admissibility of previous or subsequent contradictory statements to impeach dying declarations, have received the approval of the United States Supreme Court. In the recent decision of Carver v. United States, that court have declared such statements admissible, and that no foundation need be laid, as in the case of living witnesses, by calling the witnesses' attention to such contradictory statements. The court say: "They may be contradicted in the same manner as other testimony, and may be discredited by proof that the character of the deceased was bad, or that he did not believe in a future state of rewards or punishments." Citing State v. Elliott, 45 Iowa, 486; Cone v. Cooper, 5 Allen, 495; Goodall v. State, I Oregon, 333: Tracy v. People, 97 Ill. 101; Hill v. State, 64 Miss. 431. This decision substantiates the opinion of the New York Law Journal and our own,

opposed to that of the Harvard Law Review. See 8 GREEN BAG, 223.

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GOATS ARE 66 CATTLE." -In State v. Groves (N. C.), 25 S. E. Rep. 819, under a statute making it a misdemeanor to wilfully and unlawfully kill or abuse any horse, mule, sheep, or other cattle," the court was called upon to decide whether the word "cattle," as here used, included a goat. Clark, J., who delivered the opinion, said that while the word "cattle" was often used in a restrictive sense as applicable to the bovine species only, it had another and broader meaning, which took in all domestic animals; and the context made it evident that it was here used in the broader sense. Indeed," said the court, the broader sense is the more usual one. Worcester's definition, a collective name for domestic quadrupeds, including the bovine tribe, also horses, asses, mules, sheep, goats and swine,' was approved by this court in Randall v. Railroad Co., 104 N. C. 410, 413. To the same effect are the Standard, Webster and Century Dictionaries. In the Scriptures, the word cattle' ordinarily and usually embraces goats, notably in the contract between Laban and Jacob. Gen. xxx, 30, 32. In Decatur Bank v. St. Louis Bank, 21 Wall. 294, the word cattle' is held to be broad enough to include even swine. In England, the statute 9 Geo. I. ch. 22 (commonly called the Black Act ') made it punishable with death, without benefit of clergy, to maliciously and unlawfully kill any cattle.' Under this it was held that the statute embraced domestic animals other than the bovine species, as a mare, in 2 East P. C. 1074; Rex v. Paty, 2 W. Bl. 721, and 'pigs' in Rex v. Chappe, 1 Russ. & R. 77."

6

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In Chesapeake & Ohio R. Co. v. Bank, 92 Va. 495, I Va. L. R. 825, it was held that a statute forbidding transportation companies to keep cattle, sheep, swine, or other animals," confined for a longer period than twenty-eight hours, without unloading and allowing them to rest, included horses. In State v. Dunnavant, 3 Brev. (S. C.) 9, 5 Am. Dec. 530, the term "horses," in a criminal statute, was held to apply to mares. "Cattle " usually includes horses and sheep (Louisville, etc., R. Co. v. Ballard, 2 Metc. [Ky.] 177); also pigs (Child v. Hearn, 9 Exch. 176); but not buffaloes, (State v. Crenshaw, 22 Mo. 457.) A domestic fowl is an animal (State v. Bruner, III Ind. 98); and "bird or animal" would include a gamecock (People v. Klock, 48 Hun. 275); and tame linnets are within the protection of a statute punishing cruelty to "domestic animals." Colam v. Pagett, 12 Q. B. Div. 66.- Virginia Law Register.

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.

THE GREEN BAG.

EDITOR OF THE GREEN BAG.

Sir: "Your Disgusted Layman" was always half sure he was right as to Portia's trick on Shylock, that it wasn't either law or sense. Now that the best and sweetest as well as most mentally girl in the world, the deaf and blind Helen Keller, agrees with "Your Disgusted Layman," he wouldn't give two cents to have the Supreme Court of the U. S. "affirm" him.

acute

In a recent letter to Y. D. L. from Mr. Arthur Gilman of The Cambridge School, where Helen is studying, he writes: "She must know the meaning of chicane,' and the exact meaning. I showed her that Burke meant trickery, sharp practice, or a legal quibble, and referred to the means which the Americans had used to ensure to themselves the privilege of holding town-meetings after August 1, 1774, when they were forbidden. I showed her that they knew that by parliamentary usage an adjourned meeting was not a new one, but the same old one, and that by adjourning the last meeting previous to the time set as a limit, they would be able to meet and adjourn at liberty without asking permission of the royal governor. Helen saw the legal quibble at once, and exclaimed, as her mind ran back to 'The Merchant of Venice,' 'There is an in

stance in the trial scene where Portia successfully used a legal quibble that Bellario had taught her.'' Now surely Mr. Westley will not defend Shakespeare as a lawyer after Helen Keller has "reversed" him?

YOUR DISGUSTED LAYMAN.

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. "LET this be the method of taking down judgments and committing them to writing," says

IN Kentucky, as well as farther south, for some years after the late war, courage exhibited and scars received in the service of the lost cause were, as a rule, a sure passport to public office. The element of capacity being thus minimized, some brave but incompetent heroes reached positions unattainable in less troublesome times.

One of these was C. C. Having a smattering of law, stentorian lungs, and a fervid oratory, he sought and was chosen public prosecutor in the

-th district. On one occasion he was engaged in the trial of a murder case. The prisoner showing an alibi. In closing the argument for pleaded "not guilty," and relied on evidence the prosecution, C. was especially vehement. "Gentlemen of the jury," said he, "the prisoner is trying to escape the law by pleading an alibi. What is an alibi, gentlemen? If I had Bouvier's Law Dictionary I would read you the definition, but in its absence I can repeat to you the substance of it. An alibi, as I recollect it, is where a man charged with a crime proves that he was somewhere else at the very time he committed it."

HORNBOOKS.-Hornbooks,-those leaflets containing the alphabet, the a-b, abs, a text for exorcism, the Lord's Prayer, and the Roman numerals, framed and covered with transparent horn as with glass, — with which the first lessons in reading were administered to our ancestors, have disappeared so entirely that they are hardly known except to antiquaries, yet they were common in England down to the time of George II, and were introduced into America in the seventeenth century. Mr. Andrew W. Tuer, who has written their history, says that the preservation of many of those which have come down to us is

hateful things through cracks in the floor or wainscoting, to be brought to light again when the house was pulled down. The earliest hornbook known to be left, which is assigned to the middle of the sixteenth century, was found behind the paneling of a farmhouse. A hornbook called the Middleton was discovered in 1828 in the thatch of an old cottage. As spelling books came more and more into use, hornbooks became obsolete; and when they were no longer in demand it is said that a million and a half were destroyed in one warehouse. They could, however, be found in use in the country villages down into the present century; and there may be people still living who took their first lessons from them, and had scholastic chastisement administered with the backs of them. As they became scarce, specimens of them rose in value; and while the usual price of them had been a penny, three halff-pence, or two-pence, a famous copy - the Bateman Hornbook was sold at auction for three hundred and twenty-five dollars. This book was three inches and three-quarters high and two inches and seven-eighths wide, with a handle an inch long, and was covered, except the handle, with leather. The alphabet was preceded by the cross, and this was the case with most of the hornbooks. Hence the phrase, "criss-cross

row." The back was stamped with a figure of Charles I, bareheaded and in armor, on horseback. At the top corner and facing the king was a large celestial crown, issuing from a cloud above his head, and in the other corner an angel's face and wings. The book bore other marks of less interest. Some of the hornbooks were costly. Queen Elizabeth gave one of silver filigree to Lord Chancellor Egerton, and others were made of ivory and bone. Finally, we come to the gingerbread hornbook, which seems once to have been a common baker's dainty. Of it Prior

wrote:

"To Master John the English Maid
A Hornbook gives of gingerbread;
And that the Child may learn the better
As he can name, he eats the Letter."

Hornbooks may be seen portrayed in pictures by the German and Dutch masters, as in Rembrandt's "Christ Blessing Little Children," and the works of Jan Steen and Van Ostade. -Popular Science Monthly, Jan., 1897.

THE sentence of Lady Scott for circulating libels. concerning her son-in-law, Earl Russell, calls attention to the fact that there are at present in Europe quite a number of other people of title and rank undergoing more or less lengthy terms of imprisonment. Lady Gunning, widow of Sir Henry Gunning, and granddaughter of the second Lord Churchill, is serving a term of several years' penal servitude for having forged the name of her father to a number of notes. She might have escaped with a punishment less severe had the fact not been brought to light during the trial that her frauds had extended over a number of years, and that the financial necessities which had prompted her to resort to this means of obtaining money had been caused by her recklessness in betting on the races. Mrs. Osborne, wife of Captain Osborne, of the Scots Greys, who belonged by birth to the aristocratic Elliott family, was sentenced to hard labor for purloining a pearl necklace from her dearest friend. Equal severity was extended to Gwynneth Maude, granddaughter of the Earl of Montalt, for obtaining goods under false pretences. The Dowager Duchess of Sutherland, more fortunate, was exempted from hard labor and convict garb during the six months' imprisonment she recently underwent in Holloway Prison, where Lady Scott is now undergoing her punishment. The daughter of Lord Robert Montague was convicted a year or two ago of the most shocking cruelty to her children, one of whom succumbed thereto. The popular feeling was that she deserved hanging. But owing to the tremendous influence exercised in her behalf by all the relatives of the ducal house of Manchester, to which she belongs, she was let off with a term of two years' imprisonment without hard labor. In times gone by, an English duchess, namely Her Grace of Kingston, underwent imprisonment for bigamy and forgery. At the present moment there are actually relatives of the queen who are "doing time." They bear the name of Count and Countess Leiningen, and belong to the princely and sovereign house of that name. The first husband of Queen Victoria's mother was a Prince of Leiningen. While the count is wearing stripes in an English penitentiary, the countess is in jail at Vienna for a long series of crimes, including forgery, blackmail, and swindling. The Marchioness of Donegal, a peeress of Great Britain, has time and again been