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.

FACETIAE.

LORD ELDON lent two large volumes of precedents to a friend, and could not recollect to whom. In allusion to such borrowers, he observed that, "though backward in accounting, they seemed to be practiced in book-keeping."

THE man stammered painfully. His name was Sissons. Especially difficult to him was the pronunciation of his own name. He had the misfortune to stay out late and uproariously one night (according to the "Illustrated American "), and to account for it before the magistrate at the police court next morning. "What is name? your asked the court. Sissons began his reply: "SssSS-SSSS-SS-siss-" "Stop that noise and tell me what is your name," said the judge, impatiently. "Siss-sss-sss-sissss- "That will do," said his honor, severely; "officer, what is 'officer, what is this man charged with?" "I think, your honor, he's charged wid sody-water."

JUDGE JACOB- was the judge of an eastern Pennsylvania county. He was great on strong charges to the jury, constituting himself the thirteenth man on most of them. Once, during an absence, a judge from another county held court for him and was considerably surprised at the hesitation in the jury about leaving the box, followed by a very long stay out, but some time after court had adjourned, he was told that the jury wanted him. By this time, the courtroom was cleared, and the judge received the jury there, when the foreman, an old "Pennsylvania Dutchman," astonished him by the question, "Vell, Shudge, how is we to decide dis case? After the judge got his breath, he replied that of course he had nothing to do with that question,

that the jury must determine that point for themselves, when the foreman replied, "Vy, Shudge, Shake, he alvays do dat!"

NOTES.

MASSES said for a dead man's soul are charity, and therefore no legacy duty need be paid on money left for that purpose, according to a recent decision of the Irish court of appeal.

In a recently published invention for constructing prison doors and window gratings, there is suggested a protection from the safe-burglar. The idea is to make the bars of ordinary steel pipes, all filled with a liquid under pressure and connected by a main pipe with an alarm which would operate by reduction of pressure. Attempted sawing lets the liquid escape and rings the bell.

THE police of San Francisco have recently been enforcing the law prohibiting work on Sunday, especially against Chinese laundrymen. One Sunday, as a large load of these offenders was being carted to jail in the police ambulance, a resident of the Western Addition asked the reason, and was informed by a policeman. "Yep," grunted a disgusted Chinese, who stood near, "man workee Sunday, he go jail 'gainst law workee Sunday. Man no workee, he go jail vag. Amelica heap hell of countly."

THE London papers have managed to preserve perfect seriousness in their treatment of the suit for libel and trespass recently brought by the owner of Nelson's old ship, the “ Foudroyant", against the patent-medicine manufacturer who caused to be painted on the side of the vessel, in huge letters, the statement that "England expects every man to do his duty and take pills." When the ship was driven ashore at Blackpool, a man whose trade it is to laud this particular remedy considered that he had before him

's

and twenty thousand. An annual expenditure of thirty-five thousand dollars is authorized, a larger sum than is expended by any library except the British Museum. Appointments in the library will be made under civil service rules.

DURING the last two years, Victoria, in southeast Australia, has successfully dealt with the labor question by the formation of labor colonies and village settlements for the unemployed. The colonists received government help in raising their first crops. This came in the shape of loans at a low rate of interest and secured by the crops. The village settlements were made near swamp lands, the reclaiming of which provided ample labor and support for all able to work. Thus, while aiding the settlers to support themselves, the government has realized large profits from the enhanced value of the lands. In this way twenty-five hundred families have been provided for and are now permanently settled on these once waste lands.

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LITERARY NOTES.

THE Christmas number of HARPER'S MAGAZINE is a very attractive number, and the four pages in color are a new departure for HARPER'S. Among the articles we notice The Queen's Jubilee," by Richard Harding Davis; "A Bird's Egg," by Ernest Ingersoll, with facsimiles in color of birds' eggs; Puppets, Ancient and Modern,” by Francis J. Zeigler; "Reindeer of the Jotunheim," by Hamblen Sears; "George William Curtis at Concord," by George Willis Cooke; and The Wooing of Malkatoon," a narrative poem by Lew Wallace. The stories in this number are: Destiny at Drybone," by Owen Wister; "Marianson, a Mackinac story," by Mary Hartwell Catherwood; W. L. Sheppard ; and by Mary Tracy Earle.

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My Fifth in Mammy," by Mr. Willie's Wedding Veil,"

MR. GARRETT P. SERVISS, the widely known and popular astronomer, has a most instructive and interesting article in APPLETON'S POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY for December, in which he discusses the probability of there being planets similar to our own earth, containing inhabitants, among the so-called fixed stars. The apparatus and methods used in the production of animated photographs, in the cinematograph, biograph, etc., are fully described and pictured by J. Miller Barr. This number also contains “ Our Liquor Laws as seen by the Committee of Fifty," by F. A. Fernald, and an illustrated paper on · Pacific Coast Gulls," by H. L. Graham.

THE Christmas number of MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE has a special Christmas cover, designed by Charles L. Hinton, and contains pictures by F. S. Church, Charles Dana Gibson, Ernest G. Peixotto, Corwin Knapp Linson, and other of the best-known artists, as well as reproductions of some famous paintings appropriate to the season. Rudyard Kipling, Anthony Hope, Charles A. Dana, Robert Barr, Ella Higginson, Bliss Perry, W. T. Stead, and the distinguished Asian Explorer, Dr. Sven Hedin, are among the contributors to the number.

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.)

A dainty little volume in which the reader is taken on a trip through a most delightful country is entitled Romance and Reality of the Puritan Coast. ' Starting

at the historic old town of Medford, the route foliows the favorite North Shore" of the Massachusetts coast as far as Cape Ann. This shore abounds in natural beauties, which are graphically described by the author, and at the same time he has interwoven with the word pictures many historical facts and legends. The illustrations are beautiful, numbering nearly one hundred full-page plates and vignettes from pen and ink drawings by the author. The book is a delight to the eye and mind and eminently suited for a Christmas present.

A capital book for children, in fact for older readers as well, is Miss Belladonna,2 just issued by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. The contents include eleven stories, brightly and amusingly written, and admirably illustrated. No better book for a Christmas gift to the little ones could be found.

Mrs. Goodwin, whose romances of colonial times are so well known, in her new novel, Flint, gives us a story of the present day, the scenes of which are laid in New York and at a New England seashore resort. The work is one of exceeding interest and well sustains the established reputation of the author. There is a peculiar charm about Mrs. Goodwin's writings

1 ROMANCE AND REALITY OF THE PURITAN COAST with many little pictures, authentic or fanciful. By Edmund H. Garrett. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1897. Cloth $2.00. Full Crushed Morocco, $4.50.

2 MISS BELLADONNA. A child of to-day. By Caroline Ticknor. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1897. Cloth, $1.50. 3 FLINT: HIS FAULTS, HIS FRIENDSHIPS AND HIS FORTUNES. By Maud Wilder Goodwin. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1897. Cloth, $1.25.

due to her fresh, unaffected and at the same time cultivated style. We recommend the book to our readers as one which they will find decidedly worth the reading.

No living man has had a wider or more intimate acquaintance with actors than M. Jules Claretie, the general manager of the Comédie Française, and in his "Brichanteau, ," he portrays an actor enamored of his art, but who for various reasons has not achieved success - but he is a failure without melancholy or envy, an optimist failure. Brichanteau is delightful because he is always treading the boards, and because he believes, in good faith, that his life is a drama in which he plays the principal part. Jules Claretie has grasped all the shades of character of his hero and has rendered them with great delicacy. The book is charmingly written, and will afford the reader thorough enjoyment.

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Boys and girls who read Mr. Harris's "The Story of Aaron" will be delighted to learn that the author has prepared a further treat for them in a story entitled Aaron in the Wildwoods. This story gives the further adventures of Aaron the Son of Ben Ali" while he was a fugitive in the wild woods, and Timobon the black stallion, Grunter the white pig, Gristle the gray pony, Rambler the track dog, etc., again display their friendliness to the poor hunted Arab. The book is beautifully illustrated, and it would be hard to find a more acceptable Christmas gift for children

NEW LAW-BOOKS.

A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF BAILMENTS, INCLUDING CARRIERS, INNKEEPERS, AND PLEDGE. By JAMES SCHOULER, LL.D. THIRD EDITION. Little, Brown & Co. Boston, 1897. Law Sheep, $6.00.

This new edition of what has long been considered the standard authority upon the law of Bail

1 BRICHANTEAU, Actor. Translated from the French of Jules Claretie. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1897. Cloth, $1.50.

2 A BROWNING COURTSHIP, and other stories. By Eliza Orne White Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York, 1897. Cloth, $1.25.

3 AARON IN THE WILDWOODS. By Joel Chandler Harris. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York, 1897. Cloth, $2.00.

ments brings the law upon the subject fully down to date. The whole volume has been revised by the author and much new matter added, including a chapter upon the law of Carriers under the Interstate Commerce Act. In its present form the work is an exhaustive exposition of the law, and no lawyer's library can be complete without it. We heartily bespeak for it the recognition to which its merits entitle it.

A TREATISE ON FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCES AND CREDITORS' BILLS. By FREDERICK S. WAIT of the New York Bar. THIRD EDITION, revised and enlarged. Baker, Voorhis & Co., New York, 1897. Law Sheep, $6.00 net.

Mr. Wait's treatise is so well known to the legal profession, by whom it has long been regarded as the standard work upon the subject, that we need not enlarge upon its merits. This new edition will be welcomed, as much new and fresh matter has been embodied in the text, and the citation of authorities increased by several thousand cases. To those who are not familiar with the work, if there are any, we commend it as the most exhaustive and valuable treatise upon the subject.

A TREATISE ON THE LAW IN RELATION TO PROMOTERS AND THE PROMOTION OF CORPORATIONS. By ARTHUR M. ALGER. Little, Brown & Co. Boston, 1897. Law Sheep, $4.00.

In these days, when the "promoters " of schemes of every imaginable kind are offering the most tempting bait to the ever credulous public, a work setting forth the reciprocal rights and obligations of the promoter and the corporation, and of the shareholder and the promoter, is of great practical importance. Mr. Alger's treatise is therefore very timely, and being the only one on the subject should be welcomed by lawyer and layman as well. It has been prepared with evident care and seems to cover fully all points likely to arise.

GENERAL DIGEST - American and English, Annotated. Refers to all Reports, Official and Unofficial. Vol. III. New Series. Lawyer's Co-Operative Publishing Co., Rochester, N. Y. 1897. Law Sheep.

This last volume of the General Digest is especially noteworthy for the great improvement made in the way of Annotation." Two features may be particularly noted. First: The authorities relied upon by the Court in the case digested, outside its own decisions, are added with the citation of the

cases criticised, distinguished, limited or overruled, thus putting before the user the leading cases upon the point. Second: To the more important propositions from current decisions is added reference to a line of decisions upon the point involved, showing the cases to similar effect or variant. The publishers promise to make these annotations still more prominent in subsequent volumes. So that the Digest will really be a complete encyclopædia of the law founded upon the current decisions. They should certainly be encouraged in their work by a lively appreciation on the part of the profession of the great merits of this Digest.

THE LAW OF MORTGAGE AND OTHER SECURITIES UPON PROPERTY. By the late William Fisher of Lincoln's Inn. FIFTH EDITION. BY ARTHUR UNDERHILL, M.A., LL.D. Butterworth & Co. London, Eng. Cloth, $15.75.

There can be no better evidence of the intrinsic value of a law book than the fact that edition after edition is demanded notwithstanding the bringing out of numerous more modern treatises upon the same subject. Mr. Fisher's book on Mortgages has long been recognized both in England and America as a work of authority, and freely quoted by the courts in England. In the present edition Mr. Underhill has added several new chapters and has made a number of changes which serve to greatly enhance the value of the work.

Mr. Clinton, for many years the leading criminal lawyer in New York City, gives in this volume sketches of many of the celebrated trials with which he was professionally connected between the years 1857 and 1874. These trials include many of thrilling interest. Among them will be found the trial of Mrs. Cunningham for the murder of Dr. Burdell in 1857; the trial of Dr. E. M. Brown, in 1863, for the murder of Clementina Anderson; the trial of Isaac Van Wart Buckout for the murder of Alfred Rendall in 1869; the trial of William M. Tweed, in 1873, for official misconduct (which resulted in his conviction and imprisonment); the case of John Kelly, the distinguished leader of Tammany Hall, against Mayor Havemeyer for libel (the Mayor died during the argument of the case); and the trial of Richard Croker, the noted politician, for the murder of John McKenna in 1874. It is needless to say that the work is one which cannot fail to interest the reader, be he lawyer or layman.