A MENTAL CHAMELEON.

Insane in New York, sane in Virginia, and a sort of mental chameleon in the eyes of the federal courts, is the anomalous condition of John Armstrong Chanler, man of wealth, and divorced husband of Amelia Rives, the writer. Adjudged insane and committed to a New York asylum, he escaped to Virginia and there was as formally adjudged of sound mind. He thereupon brought suit in the federal court to compel his New York guardian to restore his property, and applied for a restraining order to prevent the New York officials from committing him again to an asylum should he return to prosecute the suit. The order was denied. Query: What is he?

An act has just been passed in New York limiting the campaign expenses of candidates for office. Such a corrupt practices act in Missouri has the occasional effect of disqualifying a careless manthat is about all.

The City of Vienna has bought out the principal undertakers, and is introducing a system of burial insurance, covering the cost of casket, grave, funeral and a small headstone. How about ultra vires?

JURISDICTIONAL CONFLICTS.

In a broader way, the effect of recurrent conflicts between state and federal courts in cases where enactments of the Legislature are upheld by the one and enjoined against by the other, is to bring law into disrespect, judges into distrust, and lawyers into discredit with the public. Passing any argument for upholding state's rights and authority to the last ditch or last appeal, or for wiping out at the first in the first forum any so-called law violative or probably violative of the basic principles of our Constitution, we begin to realize as practitioners that any practicable means of escaping these conflicts, if it be devised, will have a healthy effect on the public mind. Within the past fifteen years we cannot but grant there has been a lessening of honor for our law as a working system, for our judges

as dispassionate arbiters, and for lawyers as citizens, caused partly by the resourcefulness of counsel in devising means by which great clients may move with the organizing spirit of the age in the face of a jealous popular outcry, partly too by the lamentable number of dissenting opinions in cases of great public interest, partly again by the absence of commanding personalities like Marshal and Story on the bench, and partly, we must add, by the political character of many recent appointments to the bench, and all fomented by social agitators and demagogic political orators who live upon unrest,— why, “Injunction Day" is set apart and vulgarly observed now in at least one state! Then come these newsful conflicts in jurisdiction, with judges and attorneys general seemingly upholding their respective political interests, and the bewildered layman doubts their sincerity, damns them both and the turmoil to boot, and discounts the bench and bar.

The cutting of the leaves of the magazine in this number for the first time is due to such letters as the following from Baker, Voorhis & Co., 47 and 49 Liberty street, New York city, dated September 9, 1907: "We have occasionally sent books to the magazine for review, but inasmuch as the periodical is issued with the leaves uncut, we do not consider a review in the magazine is of any special benefit to us." Hereafter the leaves will be cut.

DIVERSE CITIZENSHIP.

Alabama is attempting to revoke the license of the Southern Railroad for removing a personal injury case to the Federal Court, in violation of a state law to prevent foreign railroad corporations from removing causes for diverse citizenship, the theory of such acts in several states being that this is a reasonable condition to impose upon those who enter.

There have been three common reasons for such removals in the common run of railroad litigation. First to get the benefit of the Federal negligence law; second to get what amounts to a change of venue usually to a greater distance than a mere county change, and to a jury more likely to be made up of a majority of city men; and third for vexation and delay.

The first ground is because of the fact that, despite the dictum that there is no common law of the Federal courts, this is not now a

practical principle, and a good practitioner, when he has the opportunity, will remove no few actions for no other reason. In negligence the Federal courts first declined to recognize the departmental theory of the fellow-servant law, and then in other directions that suggest themselves to those familiar with personal injury practise, they built up a negligence law fairer to defendants that generally prevails, possibly because they leaned against the notorious prejudice of juries in such actions more than the more political state forums. The proper way to get rid of this ground was to change the state law, not to deny removal. But instead of this, changes were made in the Federal law by the last Congress so that this reason exists, if at all, in far less degree to-day.

The second reason is of little importance either way to influence legislation; gambling on juries is too problematical, though the right of the Federal judge to express his opinion of evidence in connection with his charge has aided defendants in these negligence

cases.

But the third reason, to put the plaintiff to the greater expense of prosecuting his action far from home, sometimes amounted almost to a denial of justice, where the Federal court sat half way across the state from the residence of the plaintiff and his witnesses. Even in retaliation for the commonly trumped-up character of these predatory damage suits, this has been so arrogant a practise that retributive legislation was naturally provoked. Recalling the historic conditions at the time of the adoption of the diverse-citizenship provision, when there were almost no corporations doing an interstate business, it is doubtful if the intention was more than to protect natural persons from the parochial prejudices that ran rife in that day. Grant this, and it is justifiable to deny to these unthought-of creations the benefit of what they have only crawled under. Besides, railroads entered most foreign states as objects of public bounty, with grants of land and the proceeds of aid bonds, and having grown powerful too often forgot their character as public servants and must thank themselves for a portion of the lamentable prejudice they suffer from. Since the act of Congress reconciling in great measure the state and Federal negligence laws, no other substantial reason for removal in such action exists than this of vexation, and the public is likely to begrudge the right and hedge it about with restrictions of one sort or another, however the first tentative steps in that direction may be impeded and perhaps fail.

LANDIS.

Thirty pages is a pretty long opinion for a trial judge to hand down in fining a defendant thirty million dollars. It looks a little like judicial fireworks when the usual form would have sufficed, "The jury has found the defendant guilty and the Court fixes the penalty at a fine of $30,000,000." And there seem to have been enough carbon copies for the newspapers too. An exhaustive opinion might have been eminently proper on overruling the motions --if counsel should take occasion to offer any such-for new trial and in arrest; but in premising a fine, what was the use? It smacks of the police court. However, literature at a million dollars a page ought to be pretty good literature. But it was unbecoming practice, and we doubt whether it was good politics; indeed our prediction would be that the popular idol who went up like a rocket in ephemeral interest will, in the sober judgment of afterthought, come down as a stick.

In Doncaster, England, the town council manages the spring and fall race meetings, deriving therefrom a revenue of about $160,000 annually. And nobody mentions tainted money.

HONORARY MEMBERS.

The fraternity, now firmly established, does not need the glamor of alien distinguished names. They may have served a purpose from 1869 down to about 1890. Now great men have developed from our own ranks-Roosevelt and Hadley and Hughes, we think of just now. We can point to our own. The national organization has nothing now to gain from honorary members; on the contrary, it can suffer by them. We have had them in the Council where none has worked. The file of correspondence of one active member of the last Council, who employed the flat filing system too, was at the Columbus Convention, containing several hundred letters. No honorary member, busy with what has made him worthy the honor, has time for such work; it would be an imposition to ask his participation. None has participated. A figurehead in the Council of five leaves it possible to deadlock with votes 2 to 2. If we need a figurehead, let us vote in the Washington monument, or something like that. Let the men who do the work, as a labor of

love for bonor only, enjoy what honor there is in it without subordination to anyone. The Columbus Convention disqualified honorary members from office, both on their own account and on that of the fraternity.

Often persuasive reasons

But in the Chapter it is different. exist for honoring members of the local faculty or bar. The honorary member of the Chapter taking an interest in the students individually, broadens their views, sobers them, and has a wholesome influence in many directions, besides helping to maintain satisfactory relations with the school and the profession. It is a local matter purely, varying in different places, and the national organization as such should not intrude.

But the Constitution should be amended at once to make such membership local and not general. Wisely disqualified from office, the bonorary member has naught to do with the fraternity. But he remains a menace; for some subsequent convention, after the lesson has been forgotten among our ever-changing active personnel, will some time amend the Constitution in order short-sightedly to elect another figurehead who happens to be in the public eye. Raise the barrier high All the admission of national membership accomplishes is to throw an unfair tax of five dollars upon the Chapter admitting the bonorary member. This being a local matter, let us keep it local

Now night sessions of the police court are held in New York City. Things were dark enough there before.

"Whether a lower rate will lessen dividends or increase them by increasing travel and shipments is chiefly a matter of experiment," Assistant U. S. Attorney General Russell. Federal Judge Smith McPherson took this view of the case when the railroads sought to enjoin the Missouri two-cent rate law, and denied the order until after a ninety-day test should be had. Other federal judges might have done wisely to act as cautiously.

A woman in Richmond, Indiana, has sued for divorce, praying for the custody of a child en ventre sa mere. Doubtless she will be allowed to ansend in due time.