ing to influence or impede the administration of justice, or to bring into disrepute the law or its ministers; but pointing out clearly the illegality and danger to the State of such licentious and irresponsible abuse as that published by the Evening Journal. If the public press of the country shall learn from the fate of their contemporary that violent abuse and defamation of courts and judges is sometimes dangerous, the supreme court of Illinois will have done service to a people much wider than the limits of its State.

A very handsome compliment was paid to Judge Brady at the close of the recent trial of Mayor Hall. The counsel on both sides had prepared a number of points on which they requested the judge to charge, and at the conclusion of the charge, Judge Brady said: "Now, gentlemen of the jury, before you take your seats, there is a bulky paper of requests to charge;" whereupon Mr. Stoughton, for the mayor, arose and said: "We do not desire your honor to read the requests. So far as we are concerned, we are entirely satisfied, and do not ask you to vary the charge.” Mr. Tremain for the people as promptly responded that

from the administration by the appointment of a negro to the cabinet of the next term. The coming man is John M. Langston, a well-known colored lawyer, and the coveted position the attorney-generalship. The arguments advanced are that the colored men have, as a class, stood by President Grant, and have contributed largely to his re-election, and are therefore entitled to this recognition at his hands. The Washington Chronicle is in the movement. Considering the saltations of the colored race during the last five years, their representation in the cabinet is by no means improbable, but it will doubtless be as well for all parties to have that event postponed for a time.

It has come to be almost an axiom, that to be a good lawyer one's autography must be next thing to illegible, but ambitious neophites must not place too much reliance on writing a bad hand, for a writer in last week's Appleton, speaking of Chief Justice Chase, says: "With him, a good handwriting, as Chesterfield said of good manners, is the best letter of recommendation. I know of a young man who was appointed private secretary to the chief justice on account of the excellence of his handwriting." Should this assertion induce any present or prospective lawyer to mend his chirography, we may perhaps forgive the author the folly, to say the least, of making it.

The supreme court of Illinois on Friday of last week rendered their decision in the Chicago Evening Journal contempt case. Mr. Wilson, the proprietor, was fined $100, and Mr. Shuman, the managing editor, $200 with costs. Chief Justice Lawrence delivered an able, dispassionate and dignified opinion, conceding the right of the press to make any criticisms not tend

the requests to charge. Seldom is a judge so fortunate as to steer so successfully between Scylla and Charybdis.

The

The Maryland Law Reporter informs us that the supreme court of Pennsylvania has lately decided that a divorce decree of New York, which, under the statute of the States, provides that one of the parties shall not marry during the life of the other, will not prevent such other party from contracting a valid marriage in Pennsylvania during his or her life-time. Such a provision, the court held, has no extra-territorial effect. This decision, our contemporary adds, applies to divorce decrees of States where statutory provisions similar to those of New York prevail. The statutory provision referred to is doubtless chapter VIII, section 49 of the Revised Statutes, which enacts that, "whenever a marriage shall be dissolved, pursuant to the provisions of this article, the complainant may marry again during the life-time of the defendant; but no defendant convicted of adultery shall marry again until the death of the complainant."

The number of poisoning cases alleged to have been perpetrated by women is becoming fearfully great. If peculiar vices are epidemic, and specific crimes are periodic in their nature, the epidemic of hate and the period of the poison-cup is upon us. Borgias are no longer confined to Italy, and the middle ages no longer remain inimitable, if all the suspicions and allegations which are made against women, in different countries in the vicious present, are true. No sooner is one of the fair sex suspected of administering a fatal dose than she is arrested on the charge; and forthwith a hundred gossiping neighbors, a score

of detectives and a dozen physicians and chemists are set to work to weave a web of suspicion, of circumstance, of analytical "results," which would make the heart of an innocent and pure woman quail, and the brain of a guilty one grow giddy. A perfect labyrinth of circumstantial evidence is constructed for the accused to find her way out of—if she can. A case illustrative of this tendency to criminal exaggeration has recently come to light in Scotland, where one Mary Ann Cotton is said to be imprisoned on the charge of poisoning her step-son. The little fellow was beaten by her one day, and was taken ill and died soon after. A post-mortem was had, and arsenic was discovered in the organs of the deceased in quantities "sufficient to cause death." The sequel, so far as announced, is that Mrs. Cotton is now suspected of having poisoned no fewer than twenty persons, viz.: her mother, three husbands, fifteen children and a lodger, many of whom were supposed at the time to have died of "gastric fever." It seems that there has not been, in a decade or more, a death at which she was present, or, immediately before which, she had seen or been with the sick, but is now laid to her door by a morbidly suspicious public. But the cause of the accused is only favored by these extraneous charges, for, if they were all proved against her, even a Scottish jury would find no difficulty in acquitting her on the ground of insanity.

The courts of this country have always been kindly tolerant of the religious views and customs of the different sects. A Chinaman or Hindoo may be sworn after the manner of an oath in his native country. A Quaker may affirm, as he has conscientious scruples against swearing by his Bible or by any thing on the earth or in the heavens. But it is sometimes a perplexing question as to how far these private notions of fas and nefas may be carried in court. The Quakers in some sections of our country are a large and influential class, whose personal wishes and conscientious whims have to be gratified to a large extent in judicial proceedings. A contemporary states that not long ago a Philadelphia Quaker came into court and persisted in sitting with his hat on, notwithstanding the request of the judge to remove it. By order of the judge the head of the disobedient auditor was deprived of its covering by force, and now all the good people in the city of "Brotherly Love" are howling about the act of indignity committed by the court in violation of a timehonored custom of the sect to which the insulted man belonged. But it appears to us that the majesty of the law and the sanctity of courts should have some importance attached to them even in the Quaker city, and that something might be justly said about the indignity offered to the court, through personal caprice, as well as the indignity offered to the man and his sect, through a strain of judicial authority.

We should suppose that judicial pugnacity is as uncommon in England as it is unnatural and disgraceful. It is a comparatively easy matter for two men holding judicial positions to refrain from falling upon each other, on account of personal grievances, and fighting like dogs. Nevertheless two magistrates of Norwich, England, Mr. Blake and Major Brignold, did this very thing, and committed the absurdity of being members of a commission of the peace, and, at the same time, breaking the peace within the walls of the magistrates' rooms, by engaging in personal conflict. But the lord chancellor promptly attended to their cases, and, in response to an address respecting the disgraceful proceedings, said: "I have come to the painful conclusion that, after such a public scandal as was occasioned by the altercation and personal conflict between the two magistrates, during and immediately after the meeting, and in the presence of those attending the same, it is impossible that either of the two magistrates can continue usefully to fulfill the grave duties of their office." Their removal was therefore ordered.

The recurrence of such disastrous conflagrations as those of Chicago and Boston calls attention to the necessity of more stringent legislation regarding the limit, in amount, of risks to be taken by insurance companies. It has become evident that there is no absolute security to policy holders, so long as underwriters are allowed to limit their risks in any one locality only by the energy and capacity of their agents. It might also be well, were it possible, to legislate a little about "Mansard" roofs, which, however ornamental, have proved very disastrous to the commercial interests of the country.

NOTES OF CASES.

Wagner v. Lathers, 26 Wis. 436, was an action by a parent for the seduction of his daughter, and the question before the court as to the right of plaintiff to cause the arrest of defendant on mesne process. The provisions of the statute of that State on the subject are identical with those of the New York Code. No allegation was made that the plaintiff was "not a resident of the State," nor that he was about to remove therefrom. The court held that the order of arrest was not justified. We quote from the opinion: "It is not contended that it is within the statute, unless it can be regarded as an action for "an injury to the person or character" of the plaintiff. We do not think it can be so regarded. It is clearly not an action for an injury to the plaintiff's person; and it is almost equally clear that it is not an action for an injury to his character. However much the wrong complained of might injure his feelings, it can have no legitimate tendency to injure his character. And the law does not recognize any such injury as one of the elements of the cause of action." This decision is

J

in conflict with that in Delamater v. Russell, 4 How. Pr. 234, which construed the words of the Code "for an injury to person," as equivalent to the words "for injury to personal rights"-relative as well as absolute rights. It also conflicts with Straus v. Schwartzwaelden, 4 Bosw. 627, which followed the decision in the Delamater Case, though evidently only out of regard to stare decisis.

In these days of gambling ventures the rights of the parties to the contracts which arise therefrom are likely to be brought often before the courts for settlement; although, as a general rule, contracts of this

efforts of his life. We let McCarthy tell the rest of the story:

But even Palmerston's speech was thrown into the shade by the unexpected brilliancy, power, spirit and grace of the speech in which the almost unknown advocate, Alexander Cockburn, surprised and delighted the house. When the new orator sat down the ministerial benches were in a moment almost deserted, such was the rush of members to congratulate him. That speech was the sensation of the session. I doubt whether any speech delivered within my memory ever created such a sensation. For, although there have been many far greater speeches, yet these came from lips to which the ear of the house already turned with the natural and well-justified anticipation of great

honor existing among speculators in Wall street and elsewhere.

In Logan v. Bonsall, 29 Leg. Intel. 356, the supreme court of Pennsylvania decided that a contract for the delivery of oil, if called for, is not per se a wagering contract; but in Kirkpatrick v. Bonsall, id., the same court decided that, in an action on such a contract for non-delivery "on call," the defendant was entitled to prove that the plaintiff had entered into many similar contracts about the same time, and that he was pecuniarily unable to fulfill the same. This evidence is admissible to show that the plaintiff was dealing in "differences" and not as a bona fide purchaser, or, in other words, that the contract was only an “instrument of illegal and ruinous schemes, injurious to the community and contrary to the highest policy of the State." This last decision is of considerable importance to the commercial community, in view of the vast number of ventures that are now made on "differences."

SOME GREAT ENGLISH LAWYERS. Justin McCarthy, always a pleasant gossipper, gossips most pleasantly in the Galaxy for December, about "Some Great English Lawyers."

He describes Sir Alexander Cockburn, the lord chief justice, as a man now rather more than seventy years of age, with a haudsome face, bright, sweet manners, clear voice, and free, facile style. He began life without much fortune, and his early career at the bar was rather a hard struggle. But when he was nearly fifty, he won celebrity, and won it all in a flash. He had succeeded in getting a seat in the house of commons, but had made no way there until the famous "Don Pacifico" case in 1850. Don Pacifico lived in Athens, but claimed to be a British subject. A riot having broken out there, his house was attacked and his property injured or destroyed. He claimed compensation of the Greek government, and on that government's refusing to pay, because the demand was too high, Don Pacifico appealed to the British government. The latter compelled the Grecians to settle, but was afterward constrained to return a part of the money exacted. Lord Palmerston was premier, and a vote of censure on the government was carried in the Lords. A motion was made in the house approving the action of Palmerston. His own speech in defense of himself was said to be one of the ablest and most successful

scure man, and he sat down a celebrity. The success was like that which some really great actor makes when he gets his first chance of playing a fine part, and, coming on the stage a nobody, leaves it with fame and fortune at his feet. England is governed by parliamentary speaking. It would not be easy to convey to any stranger a full idea of the influence on a man's career which one remarkable speech in the house of commons may have. Cockburn's way was made by that night. In a few months he was appointed solicitor-general; in a few months more he was raised to the rank of attorneygeneral. He had never again any great opportunity of proving his powers as an orator in the house of commons; but whenever he had occasion to speak he always made it evident that he was no "Single-speech Hamilton," as a once celebrated parliamentary personage was called, but that an occasion worthy of his eloquence would always find the orator equal to it. At the bar, however, he had some remarkable chances while he held the place of attorney-general. He prosecuted in the Rugeley murder trial-an extraordinary case of systematic poisoning by a man named Palmer; and he took a leading part in the "Hapwood cause a dispute for the possession of a great Lancashire property, in which half the peers and nobles of England appeared as witnesses on one side or the other-a dispute almost as interesting to the public of its day as the Tichborne claim of our present time. Sir Alexander Cockburn proved himself beyond all cavil one of the greatest English advocates of his generation. There was, moreover, a masculine breadth of view in him which raised him above the rank of the mere pleader. He seemed to have some claim to be regarded, as in his sphere, a great man, and not merely a clever talker. His style is singularly fascinating. It is always rather hazardous to attempt to convey to an audience a notion of what a foreign orator is like, by comparing him with some one familiar to them; but, if I may make the venture, I would say that Cockburn, in personal appearance and in oratorical manner, reminds me more of Mr. Wendell Phillips than of any American orator I have heard. Exceeding facility, grace and strength; the light play and the rapid penetration of a rapier- these are the qualities with which one is chiefly impressed who listens to the eloquence of Cockburn. One is not, perhaps, to undervalue the thought and care which must have gone to the production of those masterpieces of force and grace. A certain class of steadygoing lawyers always shake the head of doubt and disapproval over Cockburn, and suggest that politics and not law ought to have been his business. Perhaps this is true. Probably Cockburn is not a great lawyer.