basis of English judicial opinion on the subject, has never received the assent of Parliament (Bish. on Marr. & Div., § 318). Mr. Schouler's statement of this table (Husb. & Wife, § 15, note) does not even include the relationship in question. It is true that Parliament in 1835 declared void all marriages "within their prohibited degrees," but to say that this forbids marriage with one's deceased wife's sister, is begging the question.

Mr. Gebhard in his communication in another

column misses the point of Mr. Speaker Patterson's remarks. There is no reasonable objection to a lawyer's working for money and there is no doubt that the modern lawyer needs more money than the ancient lawyer needed; but no lawyer should work merely for money, or strive for more money than he reasonably needs. The lawyer needs money for roast beef and house-rent, but he need not “de

florins.

had him graduated after he finished his studies. The order paid all of N.'s expenses while he was pursuing his studies, amounting in all to 1,134 But notwithstanding his vows and profession, N. left the order of the Brethren of Mercy on March 4, 1880, and rendered his services to the order only to that time. He now practices as a private physician. The order then sued N. for the 1,134 florins expended for his education, setting up the above facts. The District Court nonsuited the

plaintiff, holding that no contract relation existed

between N. and the order. The order had him educated trusting in his vows and profession. These make no business contract binding in law, and the plaintiff cannot maintain that the defendant in case of non-compliance with his vows had bound himself to dare, facere, præstare. The breach of the vow may have moral consequences, but it gives the order no civil right of action. The plaintiff asserts

to is the spirit of greed which has come over a considerable part of the profession. In the strife for wealth and power, the moral tone of the profession has been lowered. Although great interests are represented, the charges of many lawyers are out of all reasonable proportion. The recent receivership investigation should be a caution to some members of the profession. The blot on the career of Coke and Bacon was their greed, and they were punished for it in their own day, and are despised for it now. As to eloquence, it has lost its opportunity in a great measure for want of time; but it will never lose its nobility. Its "commercial value" has diminished, but its moral and intellectual value is intrinsic and unfading. We have listened to Mitchell Sanford many times, and while we do not rank him high as a lawyer, we believe that if a great number of our profession had attended and heeded his temperance lectures it would have been the better for them and their clients. So in regard to professional dress, we think it well for the lawyer to be "disguised as a gentleman," even in a "dress-coat." hope the judges of our Court of Appeals will adopt the gown, as they talk of doing. In conolusion, we would ask our correspondent if he thinks lawyers are as much respected as a class as they were forty years ago and if not, whose fault is it?

NOTES OF CASES.

We

THE following is taken from the Vienna Juristische

Brethren of Mercy, on February 21, 1866, and on February 20, 1870, had taken the vows of the order in the convent of the order at Linz, which vows were accepted on the other hand. Among other things, he bound himself to belong to the convent of the Brethren of Mercy during his entire life, and to devote his services in the same to poor sick persons. Thereupon the order had N. educated for a physician, had him take a course of studies at the school of medicine and surgery in Salzburg, and

that a negotiorum gestor is entitled to be reimbursed for his expenditures. The question then arises whether the plaintiff order, in having the defendant educated for a physician, acted in its own interest or in that of defendant, and further whether the expenditures are such as by law the defendant would

have had to make himself. It cannot be doubted that the order in having one of its own members

educated for a physician, trusting in the vows he

had taken, and intending to fulfill its own noblest object, to wit, the service of the sick, did not have in view the interest of the individual morally bound to the order, but its own though purest and noblest interest.

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And further, there is no doubt but that the expenses arising therefrom are not legally to be paid by the student, the member of the order, who after taking the vow of poverty is without means, but the order that causes the expenses. The fact that the defendant is now practicing as a physician for his own private profit, does not prove that the order made the expenditures connected with his professional education for the defendant's interest, as he might have gone into some other business. The order appealed, and the Appellate Court at Vienna affirmed the judgment for the reasons stated by the lower court, and also because the order was at best entitled to damages for the defendant's failure to perform the duties assumed by him, and the cost of his education was not the proper measure. The Imperial Supreme Court refused to reverse the judgments."

In Allen v. Baker, 86 N. C. 91, the defendan failed to fulfill a contract of marriage upon the ground that he was afflicted with a venereal disease which rendered him unfit for the married state. Held, that he would be answerable in damages if the disease was contracted subsequently to the time of making the promise, or if before and he knew his infirmity was incurable; but if it was contracted prior to the promise and he had reason to believe it was temporary only, he would be excusable. The

court said: "We cannot understand how one can be liable for not fulfilling a contract, when the very performance thereof would in itself amount to a great crime, not only against the individual, but against society itself. * * * The usual, and we may say legitimate, objects sought to be attained by such agreements to marry, are the comfort of association, the consortium vitæ, as it is called in the books; the gratification of the natural passions rendered lawful by the union of the parties; and the procreation of children. And if either party should thereafter become, by the act of God and without fault on his own part, unfit for such a relation and incapable of performing the duties incident thereto, then the law will excuse a non-compliance with the promise -the main part of the contract having become impossible of performance, the whole will be considered to be so. In Pollock on Contracts, 370 (a book in which the principles of contract are treated of more philosophically than by any author known to us), the decision in Hall v. Wright is referred to with the remark that it is so much against the tendency of the later cases as to be now of little or no authority, beyond the mere point of pleading decided therein. We are not unmindful of the fact that the malady under which the party in this instance labored, was the legitimate result of his own imprudence; or that the evidence offered showed that the disease was upon him when he gave his promise to the plaintiff. As to the first point, the same might have been said of consumption or any other fatal and disqualifying disease; it too may have proceeded from imprudent and sinful indulgence, but if contracted when he owed no duty to the plaintiff, we cannot see how that can vary the case. The other is a point of more consequence; if knowing, or by using extraordinary diligence he might have known, that his infirmity was incurable, or of long duration, he entered into a contract with the plaintiff, his subsequent incapacity to perform it would furnish no excuse for its breach-so far from it, it would amount to a gross aggravation. But on the other hand, if he had reason to believe his disease was a temporary one, which might be healed in time to enable him to complete his agreement, then the law would hold him excusable for a breach resulting from a knowledge subsequently attained that his disease was in fact not only incurable, but such as must necessarily be communicated to his wife, and probably to their offspring, in case he made her such and availed himself of his conjugal rights. The law will constrain no man to assume a position so full of peril as to have placed within his reach the lawful means of gratifying a powerful passion at the risk of another's health or life, and the possibility of bringing into the world children in whose constitution the seeds of a father's sin shall lurk. As said in the dissenting opinion in Hall v. Wright, it would seem to be strange that a man should be liable in damages for not doing that which is against all law, human and divine." The court disapproved Hall v. Wright, Ell. Bl. & Ell. 746. The latter however seems to be approved in

Boast v. Firth, L. R., 4 C. P. 8, where Montagu Smith, J., says of it: "In the case of a contract to marry, the man, though he may be in a bad state of health, may nevertheless perform his contract to marry the woman, and so give her the benefit of social position, so far as in his power, though he may be unable to fulfill all the obligations of the marriage state; and it rests with the woman to say whether she will enforce or renounce the contract."

In Lane v. District Township of Woodbury, Supreme Court of Iowa, June 6, 1882, 12 N. W. Rep. 478, it was held that a school district is not liable for injuries sustained by a pupil in a public school by reason of the non-repair of the lightning-rods on the school-house. The court said: "A school district is a public corporation, or quasi corporation, created by statute for the purpose of executing the general laws and policy of the State, which require the education of all its youth. It is a branch of the State government, an instrument for the administration of the laws, and is, so far as the people are concerned, an involuntary organization. Code, § 1713. In these respects it is not different from a county, except that its functions and the purposes of its organization are more restricted and not so numerous. The education of youth is the only purpose of the corporate school district. Its powers are restricted to the execution of this purpose. The county is a governmental instrument for the collection of taxes, and it provides officers and means for the administration of the law by the courts. It is also charged with the construction and preservation of roads and bridges, with the support of the poor, with the registry of deeds, and the preparation and preservation of records intended to protect the property and rights of the people. It exists for various other purposes, and is clothed with power incident thereto. This court has held that a county is not liable for a personal injury inflicted by reason of the defective construction of a court-house, and negligence in failing to keep it properly lighted. Kincaid v. Hardin County, 53 Iowa, 430; S. C., 36 Am. Rep. 236. In that case the plaintiff was in attendance, at night, upon the court as a witness, and received injuries by reason of defective stairs of the court-house, and insufficient light. We held that the law gave him no remedy against the county. We discover no difference, as to the liability of the respective corporations, between that case and this, except such as exists from the fact that the school district is far more limited in its functions and powers than the county. These differences, of course, do not distinguish the cases, but bring this case within the rule of the other. We regard Kincaid v. Hardin County as decisive of this case. See Hollenbeck v. Winnebago County, 95 Ill. 148; S. C., 35 Am. Rep. 151, and note, 159.

A singular question of negligence was decided in Wohlfart v. Beckert, 27 Hun (Mr. Hun's advance sheets). The plaintiff's intestate, who was suffer

ing from a diarrhoea, went, at the advice of a friend, to a drug store to procure ten cents worth of "black draught," a comparatively harmlesss drug, of which he intended to take, as a dose, a small glassful. The druggist's clerk testified that he came to the store and asked the proprietor, the defendant, for ten cents worth of "black drops;" that the defendant told him that that was a poison, that the dose was from ten to twelve drops, and advised him to take another mixture; he refused, and the clerk, by the defendant's direction, gave him two drachms of "black drops" in a bottle, with a label having those two words written upon it, but nothing to indicate the dose or that it was poison. The intestate took the bottle home, drank almost all of its contents, and died the next morning from the effects of so doing. In this action, brought by the plaintiff to recover damages for negligent killing by the defendant, held, that the court should have submitted to the jury the question as to whether the defendant was not guilty of negligence in failing to place upon the bottle a label showing that its contents were poisonous; and that it erred in nonsuiting the plaintiff. The court said, by Dykman, J.: “It is a crime to sell any poisonous substance without the word 'poison' written or printed on a label attached to the parcel. * * * The defendant made sale to the plaintiff's intestate of an article of the double strength of laudanum, for immediate consumption as a medicine, without placing on it any label marked poison, and the result was a natural one. True, he told him it was poison, and gave him caution respecting the quantity to be taken, but he placed no label on the parcel marked poison. It is plain that prudence required much more of the defendant than he gave, and it is equally plain that his action fell far short of the requirements of the law. The cause should have been submitted to the jury, with proper instructions respecting the caution and care required of the defendant to determine whether he was guilty of negligence in the transaction, and whether the intestate of the plaintiff was free from fault on his part." And then the jury should have found for the defendant.

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and running (course given)

number one, by said road to a stake," and thence around the rear of the lot "to the place begun at; also the land now owned by said Low between said road and Mousam river." The court said: "The well-settled doctrine in this State is, that a grant of land bounded on a highway carries the fee in the highway to the center of it, if the grantor owns to the center, unless the terms of the conveyance clearly and distinctly exclude it, so as to control the ordinary presumption. Oxton v. Groves, 68 Me. 372; S. C., 28 Am. Rep. 75. Here the principal piece is bounded by the road as a monument or abuttal. So is the land lying opposite 'between the road and the river.' Is there enough in the language used to exclude the street from the conveyance? The mere mention in the description of a fixed point on the side of the road as the place of beginning or end of one or more of the lot lines does not seem to be of itself sufficient. Cottle v. Young, 59 Me. 105, 109; Johnson v. Anderson, 18 id. 76. Nor will similar language, with reference to monuments standing on or near the bank of a stream, in lines beginning or ending at such stream, prevent the grantee from holding ad medium filum aquæ. Pike v. Monroe, 36 Me. 309; Robinson v. White, 42 id. 210, 218; Cold Spring Iron Works v. Tolland, 9 Cush. 495, 496. The case of Sibley v. Holden, 10 Pick. 249, cited by plaintiff, was commented on by this court in Bucknam v. Bucknam, 12 Me. 465, and that of Tyler v. Hammond, 11 Pick. 193, in Johnson v. Anderson, 18 Me. 78; and the apparent force of these decisions is somewhat restricted and explained by the learned court which pronounced them, in Newhall v. Ireson, 8 Cush. 598, and Phillips v. Bowers, 7 Gray, 24; although it is apparent from the last case and from Smith v. Slocomb, 9 Gray, 36, that the Massachusetts court lays less stress upon the ordinary presumption, and requires less distinctness in the terms of the deed to obviate it, than we have done in the cases above cited from the 18th, 59th and 68th of our own reports. See also, Perkins' note to Sibley v. Holden, in the second edition of Pickering's Reports, vol. 10, p. 251."

In the New York case, the description was as follows:

"Beginning at a point on the southerly side of the Wallabout bridge road and adjoining the land now or lately belonging to John Skilliman," and after running certain courses, the line ran along the land of Jacobus Lott, "north forty-eight degrees and nine minutes west 594 feet to the Wallabout bridge road," and thence along said road 1,225 feet to the place of beginning. Held, that the road-bed was excluded by the terms of the description, within the cases, Jackson v. Hathaway, 15 Johns. 447; English v. Brennan, 60 N. Y. 609; White's Bank of Buffalo v. Nichols, 64 id. 65. The court said: "The cases of Sibley v. Holden, 10 Pick. 249; Smith v. Slocomb, 9 Gray, 36, and Cottle v. Young, 59 Me. 105, confirm the conclusion reached in this case. The words 'to' and 'along the road, in the description in question, if not controlled by the start