phen, who both in his digest and in his history of the criminal law uses language perhaps wide enough to cover this case; but it does not cover it of necessity, and we have the highest authority for saying that it was not meant to cover it. If it had been necessary we must, with true deference, have differed from him; but it is satisfactory to know that we have probably, at least, arrived at no conclusion in which, if he had been a member of the court, he would have been una~ ble to concur. Neither are we in conflict with any opinion expressed on this subject by the learned persous who formed the commission for preparing the Criminal Code. They say on this subject, "We are not prepared to suggest that necessity should in every case be justification. We are equally unprepared to suggest that necessity should in no case be a defense. We judge it better to leave such questions to be dealt with when, if ever, they arise in practice, by applying the principles of law to the circumstances of the particular case. It would have been satisfactory to us if these eminent persons had told us whether the received definitions of legal necessity were in their judgment correct and exhaustive, and if not, in what way they should be amended. But as it is we have, as they say, to apply the principles of law to the circumstances of this particular case. Now except for the purpose of testing how far the conservation of a man's own life is in all conditions and under all circumstances an absolute, unqualified and paramount duty, we exclude from our consideration all the incidents of war. We are dealing with a case of private homicide, not one imposed on men in the service of their sovereign and in the defense of their country. Now it is admitted that the deliberate killing of this unoffending and unresisting boy was clearly murder, unless the killing can be justified by some well recognized excuse admitted by the law. It is further admitted that there was in this case no such excuse, unless the killing was justified by what has been called necessity; but the temptation to the act which existed here was not what the law has ever called necessity. Nor is this to be regretted. Although law and morality are not the same, many things may be immoral which are not necessarily illegal; yet the absolute divorce of the law from morality would be a fatal consequence, and such divorce would follow if the temptation to murder in this case were to be held by law au absolute defense of it. It is not so. To preserve one's life is, generally speaking, a duty; but it may be the plainest duty, the highest duty, to sacrifice it. War is full of instances in which it is a man's duty not to live, but to die. It would be a very easy and cheap display of common-place learning to quote from Greek aud Latin authors passage after passage in which the duty of dying for others has been laid down in glowing and emphatic language as resulting from the principles of heathen ethics. It is enough in a Christian country to remind ourselves of the duty-which we propose to follow-of the duty in case of shipwreck of a captain to his crew, of the crew to the passengers, of soldiers to women and children (as in the noble case of the Birkenhead). These duties impose on men the moral necessity, not of the preservation, but of the sacrifice of their lives for others, from which in no country last of all, it is to be hoped, in England men will not shrink, as indeed they have not shrunk. It is not correct therefore to say that there is an absolute and unqualified necessity to preserve one's life. Necesse est ut eam non ut vivam is a saying quoted by Lord Bacon himself with high eulogy in the very chapter on necessity to which so much reference has been made. It is not needful to point out the awful danger of admitting the principle which has been contended for. Who is to be the judge of this sort of ne cessity? By what measure is the comparative value of lives to be measured? Is it to be strength, or intellect, or what? It is plain that the principle leaves to him who is to profit by it to determine the necessity which will justify him in deliberately taking another life to save his own. So spake the flend, In this case the weakest, the youngest, the most unresisting was chosen. Was it more necessary to kill him than one of the grown men? The answer must be "no." It is not suggested in this particular case that the deeds were "6 devilish," but it is quite plain that such principles once admitted might be made the legal cloak for unbridled passion and atrocious crime. There is no safe path for judges to tread, but to ascertain the law to the best of their ability, and to declare it according to their judgment; and if in case the law appears to be too severe on individuals, to leave it to the Sovereign to exercise that prerogative of mercy which the Constitution has intrusted to the hands fittest to dispense it. It must not be supposed, in refusing to admit temptation to be an excuse to crime, it is forgotten how terrible the temptation was here, how awful the suffering, how hard it was in such perils to keep the judgment straight and the conduct pure. We are often compelled to set up standards which we cannot reach ourselves, and to lay down rules which we could not ourselves satisfy; but a man has no right to declare temptation to be an excuse, though he might himself have yielded to it; nor allow compassion for the criminal to change or weaken in any manner the legal definition of the crime. It is therefore our duty to declare that the prisoners' act in this case was willful murder; that the facts as stated in the verdict are no legal justification of the homicide; and to say that in our unanimous opinion they are upon this special verdict guilty of murder. OUR LONDON LETTER. WE are now arrived at the end of the first portion of the legal year, and in a technical sense the season is not appropriate for retrospect, but for all that there are many external reasons which cause lawyers, like other men, to look back upon the last twelve months, and to give a good or bad character to the year which intervenes between one Christmas and another. Truth to tell, there are not many men at the English bar to whom the retrospective process can be pleasant, aud it is much to be feared that if the secrets of the bankers were revealed the list of diminished incomes would be exceptionally large. In the first place, business is undoubtedly weaker than it has been before within the memory of living man. The courts indeed are hard at work still, but there has been a great lack of substantial cases, and the men who made handsome profits upon the London sittings in former times now complaiu sadly. The fact is that the city merchants prefer the rough justice of a lay arbitrator, which may be obtained without delay, to the costly and tedious process of squeezing a decision out of the courts of justice. Ere long there is a prospect courts of arbitration will be systematically established in which legal assistance will be carefully eschewed. Upon this point there is not any serious ground for alarm, your correspondent believes, because on the whole, a lawyer is considerably clearer in statement and explanation than a layman. Moreover cross-examination is the best kind of machinery for eliciting truth, and there is no need to remind lawyers that the art of cross-examination is both delicate and difficult of acquisition. "Condemned by Minos's decrees, You ridicule the awful Cretan, With every fact contained in Seton; Plaintiffs in person have been the plague of the year; The plaintiff declined the proposal, made a violent they waste time, they insult the judges, and worst of speech, and gave his evidence. The eminent advocates all, they win their suits. Mr. Bradlaugh indeed ar- who appeared for the defendant did not cross-examgues as well as any man at the bar, but then he is prac-ine, aud offered no evidence, expecting apparently that tically a specialist in his own particular department of Manisty, J., would rule that the letter was privileged. law. He has given particular study to an abstruse What actually happened was that the judge told the subject. He is infinitely respectful, and in fact a law-jury that the letter was privileged unless there was yer in every thing except name. But there is the ter- motive, and the jury having expressly found motive, rible Mrs. Weldon, who bandies courtesies with the overruled the verdict on the ground that there was no Court of Appeal, defies poor Mr. Justice Wills, and evidence by which it could be sustained. The result schools the frowning Mr. Justice Stephen in the rules was an universal chorus of disapprobation from the of polite society. Some excellent rhymes have lately press and in society, and although there is a certain appeared with reference to this good lady's courses of diversity of opinion on the point, the profession on the action: whole is inclined to join in the strain. Manisty, J., made matters worse by explaining that he had often done the same thing before in order to save expense. This every one knew, and in ordinary cases a certain effect in this direction may be produced; but here we have the plaintiff appealing to the Court of Appeal against the judgment, and the defendant moving for a new trial in the Divisional Court on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. Prudence too ought to have warned Manisty, J., that a case in which so great a personage as the Lord Chief Justice was concerned could not be treated like an ordinary case. And after all, where is the logic of the course adopted? What is the sense of saying to a jury "Find for or against express malice," and then saying "There was no evidence upon which you could come to such a conclusion." The Mignonette case was a solemn and sensational farce. A shipwrecked crew killed and ate one of their number on the high seas, without casting lots or obtaining his consent. Was there needed a special verdict in order to discover whether this was murder or not? It would have been equally murder if lots had been cast, or if the consent of the victim had been obtained, but the moral guilt of the murderers would have been less. Voila tout, and a good many people fail to see why Baron Huddleston should not have laid down the law in these terms to the jury in Devonshire. These reactionary methods of trial produce strange results, and show the error of confusing ancient and modern practice. Thus in another instance Mr. Bradlaugh, unsuccessful in pleading his case in his trial at bar, was compelled to move for a new trlal before the very same judges by whom he had been tried. She has had a succession of victories of late, having persuaded a jury to disregard Wood v. Leadbitter, 13 M. & W.-somehow or other juries do not think highly of ancient authorities—and having beguiled the Court of Appeal into a declaration that under the two Married Women's Property Acts (1870, 1882), a man may commit trespass in entering the house of a married woman, even by command of her husband, if that house happens to be her separate property. The first success is a matter for congratulation, for the case will go higher, and it is quite time that Wood v. Leadbitter, which decides that a mere license is revocable at will, because no irrevocable interest in land can be trausferred otherwise than by graut, should be reconsidered. It is correct enough in point of law, no doubt, but it is as unjust as possible, for it means that if A. pays half a guinea for a seat at the Lyceum Theater, and B. offers the lessee fifty guineas for the seat, because he wishes to see and hear Miss Mary Anderson, the lessee may forcibly expel A., who can only recover damages for breach of contract. Meanwhile there is a definite reason for Mrs. Weldon's successes, and a lesson for the bar in that reason. She knows that eloquence touches the juryman's heart, and she uses every art of oratory, appealing to sympathy and to common sense. She first affects their feelings, and then flatters their vanity, and finally wins the day. | Now at the bar the practice of eloquence is rare, except in criminal cases, and the language and style of the best advocates is woefully slipshod. Yet one would bave thought that the experience of criminal courts was an ever-present testimonial to the value of decla mation. I have heard Mr. Montague Williams or Mr. Charles Matthews ask in thundering tones, "What motive - what motive, I repeat could the unfortunate prisoner have had?" and the jury, notwithstanding the fact that the motive was perfectly obvious, have acquitted men of manifest larcenies. Two great trials demand attention, the first being Adams v. Coleridge; the second the Mignonette case. I take it that the facts of the first case are familiar to your readers, but they may be stated very shortly. The Hou. Bernard Coleridge, finding that his sister intended to marry one Mr. Adams, wrote her a letter, which was the reverse of complimentary to her and to her fiancé. Upon this the abused gentleman brought an action for libel, and again as plaintiff in person, oocupied the attention of the court for two fulldays or thereabouts. From the beginning he was unkindly treated by the judge, Manisty, J., who opened the ball by hurling at his head a suggestion that the case should be referred to an eminent person and heard in private. The last news is that the official receivers have suffered a grievous defeat, and that the solicitor general has announced that various details in the bankruptcy machinery are under consideration with a view toward alteration. What happened will have a peculiar iuterest to absconding bankrupts, of whom, I take it, there are several in the States. Messrs. Parker & Parker,solicitors, failed and fled. On the very day of their adjudication the official receiver put their property up for sale without consulting the creditors. Seeing that the object of the act is, inter alia, to secure to creditors the management of the estate of a debtor, this was a little arbitrary, and the official receiver is ordered to refund the fees at six per cent, which he took for realizing the estate; that is to say, for his trouble in ordering an auctioneer to put it up for sale. This first check to the operation of a statute ruinous to lawyers is naturally a subject of gleeful comment, and evidently was highly displeasing to their excellencies from the board of trade office, who were present in considerable numbers. The decision of the board in the matter of altering the fees is also welcome, and if alterations are judiciously carried out, good results may ensue, for it is the general belief that the machinery of the Baukruptcy Act is good enough, and that an amendment of detail may convert it into an effectual measure. At present creditors, debtors and practitioners are equally Your correspondent "Lex" (30 Alb. L. J. 499) might have added to his list of the influences against a lawyer's making a living the following, namely, the application of the denunciation " Væ victis,' to unsuccessful parties, in the shape of exorbitant costs and allowances. I know of a case where a party, a lawyer, not the writer, has a fighting probability of success in an interesting case, and will not sue because of the costs and allowances against him if defeated. Better for the profession, moderate costs, and the rest matter of contract with the client. NEW YORK, December 30, 1884. UNUS. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. THE WOMAN QUESTION IN EUROPE. make short work of the historical school of common lawyers, with their ridiculous assumption that the common law was the triumph of human genius. The editor of this volume, Mr. Stanton, has collected a number of essays from the pens of distinguished women of various European countries, which pretty fully show the degree of recognition now accorded to women in Europe. In this regard this volume is important to legislators, and amply repays a perusal. The literature of this subject is increasing with the importance of the question which is accelerating in momentum like all other questions with an element of right in them. It is ouly a fortuight since Mr. Throop.gave our readers an interesting sketch of an Italian work on "Women in the legal profession." "La Donna e l'Avocatura." The North American Magazine often touches the subject, as do most periodicals of the better sort. We are not prepared to take the most advanced ground on this subject, or to ignore the strong contra argument of the physiologists, but we do believe in every measure which protects the primordial rights of women, life, property, personal security, and liberty, and which tends to annihilate those common-law provisions which once classed them with lunatics, drunkards, idiots aud other incapaces. As a statistical book this volume of essays is not without considerable claim to recognition. As we have indicated, it treats of au important political question, even if we quite ignore that portion which relates to women suffrage. A -Among the announced contributors to the Ameri- A Series of Essays-Edited by Theodore Stanton, M. A., within Arizona we don't do things that way. We are very apt to relegate this woman question " to what are known as "peculiar people," and yet it is a very important problem, the significance of which increases yearly. Oftentimes its serious phases are belittled by politicians and overlooked by lawyers, but this is certainly not wise. The common-law position of women in political society was formerly simply disgraceful; and it is only recently that modern legislation has emancipated them from a sort of middleage domestic slavery. Once they had few, if any, rights of property; they could be beaten with impunity by their barons, as husbands were significantly called, and their very legal existence was either ignored or impaired under some metaphysical pretense of unity. This book of essays before us, it is true, does not treat of the legal phase of the question, about which the adherents of Codes could, if they chose, move quick. We haven't so much style or red tape, The Albany Law Journal. ALBANY, JANUARY 17, 1885. CURRENT TOPIOS. TEE English language is pretty boopuus, and for 66 judges and lawyers and reporters without resort to gether with the sum of £3 10s. per week for her be read, not as the punctuation indicated, but "are While we are engaged on the subject of writing English, we may add that it is also very difficult to write a statute so plain that some body will not misunderstand it. We find an amusing example of this in the current newspapers. Section 453 of the Penal Code enacts that "An assemblage in any public house or other place of three or more persons disguised by having their faces painted, colored or concealed is unlawful." A man went to the theatre wearing a false beard. He had no companions in inquity. But the police took him in, and imIt seems difficult enough to write our own lan-prisoned him over night, and next morning he was guage unambiguously, without dabbling in other tongues. We are indebted to the New York Daily Register for two curious cases of construction arising on punctuation. In Nixon v. Cameron, Eng. Ct. of App., 32 Week. Rep. 834, & will contained these words: "I hereby give and bequeath unto Hannah Cameron, my wife, the house in which she resides in Cornbrook Park and all the furniture therein, to- | bard" VOL. 31-No. 3. fined $5. There is some doubt whether wearing a 1 The natural love of approbation has led us occasionally to publish some of the numerous expressions of approval which come to us from our readers. If there is any thing on which we pride ourselves however it is our impartiality, and so we feel bound to give publicity to the following, written by a late Florida subscriber on discontinuing this journal: "I hope you will kindly excuse me if I tell you plainly my sole reason for so discontinuing it. I think you are too kind to somebody and too cruel to your readers in printing so many of those longwinded judges' decisions or opinions, who are so fond of reiterating over and over again, using only a slight change of words." We are glad that our friend lays it to the judges and not to us. Probably he could not conscientiously accuse us of being "long-winded," whatever else our faults may be. There is some justice in his reason. The judges are "long-winded," but it is the fault of our system, and not of the judges. So long as the judges are the source and breath of the law, they must keep on flowing and blowing. Most lawyers are very anxious to consult these oracular utterances, and to watch for sudden changes as they watch the weather-vane and the barometer and thermometer. There may be no necessity for this anxiety in the halcyon and millennial legal climate of Florida, but until we get a Code-perhaps always—there will be great need of keeping an ear open to these Delphic utterances in all other communities. We should be blamed by more if we did not promulgate them. The New York State Bar Association will hold its annual meeting in the Common Council Chamber, in the new City Hall in this city, Tuesday, the 20th inst., at 10 A. M. A reception will be held the same day at 8 P. M. A general attendance of members is requested. Governor Hill's message to the Legislature touched upon a useful reform of legislative methods, and the necessity of employing a trained class in drafting legislative acts. We hope before long to see a new departure in this respect and a regular class of parliamentary solicitors at Albany whose business it is to prepare bills for submission to the Legislature; then the English and the law of our session laws may begin to be a little orderly. At present an undigested mass of legislation tumbles annually out of the Legislature. Oftentimes it disfigures the statute book or else it throws out of key other well-prepared statutes which precede it. We welcome Governor Hill's official intimation as an important recognition of what all thoughtful people recognize. The Congo Free State question is attracting the attention of the international lawyers by reason of American representation at the European Congress. Mr. Belmont's protest was better late than never. It must be contrary to the policy of this country to interfere in the proposed European partition of Africa. What have we to do with such far-off questions and complications? We have had occasion to say before that we regarded Mr. Evarts' interference in Egyptian complications as unfortunate, and that it is already cited against us by the Powers. Should we embark in the Congo Free State matter, how can we object to European dictation in the Panama and Nicaraguan questions? And that we must object is already clearly foreseen. It is difficult to know how far we can afford to isolate ourselves from international questions, but it is pretty clearly our interest to confine our supremacy to this hemisphere. When the question of interference seems doubtful, let some ambitious secretary of State forego the pleasure of cutting a figure at some convention of the European powers, for the wily diplomats of Europe are sure to outwit him and his country. N NOTES OF CASES. 'N Knowlton v. Hersey, 76 Me. 345, K. wrote to H.: "The bearer of this letter, my son-in-law, * In * * wishes to place a stock of groceries in his provision and meat store in this place. To enable him to do this, I am willing to be responsible to you for the amount of groceries he may order of you." Held, that the letter did not create a continuing liability. The court said: "It seems to us that the letter was not intended by the writer, and could not properly be understood by those to whom it was addressed, as creating a continuing liability. It expresses a willingness to aid Mr. Young in starting a new branch of business, but fails to express an intention to continue such aid in the future. the language of the letter, the aid which the writer proposes to render is to enable Mr. Young 'to place a stock of groceries in his provision and meat store,' not to replenish or keep such a stock good afterward; and that when the stock of groceries had been selected, and with the aid of Mr. Knowlton hnd been paid for, the latter's liability ended, and that two months after other goods could not be sold to Mr. Young on Mr. Knowlton's credit, without the latter's consent, and a new promise to be accountable for them." To the same effect, Morgan v. Boyer, 39 Ohio St. 324; S. C., 48 Am. Rep. 454. In State v. Kelly, 76 Me. 331, it was held that when a mortal blow or wound is inflicted in a fort of the United States, and the person struck or wounded dies out of the fort, the crime cannot be regarded as committed where the person dies. The court said: "The conclusion is therefore inevitable that the courts of this State do not have jurisdiction of the crimes of murder or manslaughter committed in a United States fort. In fact we do not know that this proposition is denied by any one. But it is said that although a mortal wound may be inflicted within a fort, still if the person wounded dies elsewhere, the crime must not be regarded as |