to find a comfortable place to live having the concurring privileges of a good climate and easy transmission of estates to expectant heirs and devisees.

The laws of many States on the subject of kidnaping have been revised to meet recent developments in that species of crime. In Illinois an act approved May 11th of this year makes the crime punishable by death or imprisonment for life, or a term not less than five years. In California an act approved March 6th of this year makes the crime punishable by imprisonment for life or a term not less than ten years. The increasing prevalence of this crime in the country at large calls for some revision of the laws of this State on the subject.

I regret not being able to review recent acts of our own State and of other States more at length, but the circumstances attending the preparation of this paper have not been favorable to good work. The laws of the last session of our Assembly have not been printed, and as to recent laws of other States, not many have been received at the State House.

Concerning the present status of this Association I am glad to be able to report that it has during the year kept in the even tenor of its righteous way with commendable zeal and perseverance. The Association is doing the work which its founders intended it to perform and the interest of members in its support encourages the hope that it will always be found in the path of duty and of honor. The Association has labored to increase the term of study on the part of candidates for the bar, believing that the course of two years heretofore prescribed was not sufficient for the work of preparation. In September last the Supreme Court adopted a rule making the course three years. New members admitted to the Association during the year have been satisfactory in number and character, so that the Association maintains a healthy growth and development. The work of the Grievance Committee has suffered no abatement in kind or quality. In five cases brought before the Supreme Court respondents were disbarred. Seven cases are now pending before the Court and they will be taken up at an early day. There are nine cases before the

Committee and proceedings for disbarment will be brought in six of them. In five cases the evidence was not sufficient to sustain the charge, and proceedings were dismissed. The whole number of cases before the Committee during the year was twenty-one, involving such considerable time and labor as can hardly be estimated by one who is not familiar with the subject. I beg to ask you individually to give to this Committee at all times and places such consideration and assistance as may be in your power to render.

In this hour of greeting and farewell, I desire to acknowledge the honor conferred in putting me at the head of the Association for the year now drawing to a close, and to express the hope that the good work of the Association may be long continued through your patriotic efforts to the consummation of a pure administration of justice throughout the State. To some of us who have seen much service, the evening shadows, lengthening, sometimes seem to say that we may not long remain in your councils; but while we may, we will build with you foundations deep and strong, or perchance only bamboo huts which may shelter for a night or day.

ADDRESS

OF

SYLVESTER S. DOWNER

OF

BOULDER, COLORADO.

THE MANNER OF THE ROMANS.

A waiver is the voluntary relinquishment of a known right, and it is held that in order to be binding it must be based upon a consideration, or arise through an estoppel. The doctrine of waiver has an honorable place in the realm of jurisprudence, and when confined within proper limits is without doubt a valuable principle in the administration of justice. This doctrine, and its kindred doctrine of acquiescence, when applied to judicial proceedings, have been carried to such limits during recent years as to cause thoughtful lawyers to inquire whether there be any right whatsoever that a litigant may have in a civil case that may not be lost by what the courts construe to be his waiver or acquies

cence.

Procedure is the method of conducting legal business. Only through an orderly system of procedure can the principles of the law be made available for human purposes. It is obvious that for every waiver sought to be asserted in judicial proceedings there must be a corresponding error or omission in the procedure of the party asserting the waiver. It is therefore apparent that the doctrine of waiver in judicial proceedings may be carried to such an extent as to destroy the certainty and regularity that should characterize the administration of justice. When courts are holding that a valid judgment may be predicated upon a complaint that does not state a cause of action, that through waiver a void judg

ment may receive the breath of life, that even jurisdiction, the basis of all procedure, may be supplied by a subsequent waiver or acquiescence, we are led to wonder when the extension of these doctrines is to cease, and where they are to find their ultimate limitations. It is not too much to say that a crisis has been reached in the development of our procedure, and that we are soon to know whether it is to survive for useful purposes, or is to degenerate into a labyrinth of technicalities in which the substance of justice will be lost. May we not find in the certainty and regularity of the civil law some suggestions that will aid us in the rescue of our procedure from the dangers by which it is encompassed?

The Roman government was for ten centuries the mightiest political organization in the world; and it deserved its long life, if for no other reason, because of the protection it afforded its citizens. The Romans devised and established a system of jurisprudence that has formed the basis of the laws still in force in some of the most enlightened countries of Europe,-a jurisprudence which may be fairly said to be the only system worthy to be compared with our own common law.

The affection of the Roman for his jurisprudence and its ministers, his implicit confidence in the purity of his tribunals, and his unhesitating acceptance of and acquiescence in their orders and decrees, have no counterpart in history. The tribunals responded to this confidence and devotion by administering justice in its purity, without sale, denial, or delay. delay. The Romans were a conquering nation; and as each barbarian people was subjugated, governors and judges were sent out from Rome whose duty it was to preserve the public order, but above all, to protect Roman citizens from injustice and wrong. The vengeance of Rome against those who injured her citizens was unrelenting and unsparing; and from this protection accorded arose the saying that to be a Roman was greater than to be a king. Where his liberty was in question the Roman always had the right to appeal to the imperial tribunals at Rome, and the barbarian rulers were taught to tremble with fear when the culprit brought before them uttered the words, "cives Romanus sum."

There is extant an authentic, though meager, account of a legal proceeding that took place under Roman auspices, which illustrates in a striking manner the strict adherence of the Roman courts to the idea of regularity. I refer to the proceedings which were instituted against the Apostle Paul before Porcius Festus, the proconsul in Cæsarea. Although these proceedings were criminal in their nature, the lessons they teach are not confined to that branch of the law, but are applicable everywhere, because of our acceptance of the doctrine of the essential unity of all procedure.

Paul had been arrested without process, and had been left in bonds by Felix, the predecessor of Festus. Paul's experience had taught him the sort of justice he would receive if he were tried at Jerusalem, so, upon his first appearance before Festus, he raised a federal question, to-wit: his Roman citizenship, and appealed to Cæsar. Immediately the answer came back from the bench, "Unto Cæsar shalt thou go."

Our knowledge of Festus is limited, but we have a right to infer from his bearing throughout this proceeding that he was well grounded in the rules of the civil law, and understood that accusation should precede punishment, and that statement should precede judgment; and further, that without the preliminaries of accusation or statement, the proceeding was "coram non judice." It is difficult to find a more majestic conception of due process of law than is contained in the answer of Festus to the importunities of the chief priests still crying out for the death of Paul: “It is not the manner of the Romans to deliver any man to die before that he which is accused have the accuser face to face, and have license to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him." It only requires a little amplification to lead up from this to Magna Charta and the other great bulwarks of English and American liberty.

Before leaving this subject, I wish to suggest two further thoughts arising out of the incidents of this trial. The first is, that Agrippa, Bernice, and Festus, sitting in bane, did not consider themselves bound by the previous judgment of Felix, who, upon the same state of facts, had left Paul in bonds. And sec