and he has a logical and orderly mind. Some topics are not treated with quite as much fullness of remark upon adjudications, as for example, the subject of estoppel of married women, in the short chapter on which we find no reference to Shivers v. Simmons, 54 Miss. 520; S. C., 28 Am. Rep. 372, a very important case. The proof-reading is occasionally slovenly, as for example, we find the very important case of Van Voorhis v. Brintnall, 86 N. Y. 18, set down in the table of cases twice, once as Vanvevorhis v. Bretnall, 84 N. Y. 41, and again as Vanvoorhies v. Bretnoll, 86 N. Y. 19. The book is very well printed, without padding.

ABBOTT'S NATIONAL DIGEST.

The second volume of this important and carefully edited work, covering Copyright-Insurance, edited by Benjamin Vaughan Abbott and published by George S. Diossy, of New York, is at hand. We can but reiterate our opinion of the merits of the work, expressed on the publication of the first volume. See 29 A. L. J. 519.

THE

COURT OF APPEALS DECISIONS.

HE following decisions were handed down Tuesday, Jan. 20, 1885:

Orders of General and Special Terms reversed, and the writ of prohibition quashed, and defendants permitted to proceed in the action of Faber v. Lawrence, as if the writ had not been issued, with costs to the defendants against the relator on this appeal-People ex rel. Alfred Lawrence, respondent, v. Elias Mann and others, appellants.-Judgment affirmed with costs-Edward Delahaunt and another, respondent, v. Etna Fire Ins. Co., appellant; H. Winsor Arnold, appellant, v. Harvey Parmlee and others, respondents; Robert T. Smart, respondent, v. Andrew J. Smart, appellant; Daniel McDermott, respondent, v. N. Y. C. & H. R. R. Co., appellant; Dennis G. Littlefield, respondent, v. Albany County Bank and others, appellants; Wm. H. Stratford, appellant, v. Edward R. Jones and others, respondents; James Hennessey, respondent, v. Greenwich Ins. Co., appellant; Henry Pennie, respondent, v. City of Brooklyn, appellant; Montague S. Marks, appellant, v. Edward M. Townsend and another, respondents; Hannah Lazear, appellant, v. Martha Ann Sly, respondent; Henry Van Gelder and another, appellants, v. James H. Prentice, respondent; Samuel A. Avila, respondent, v. Wm. Lockwood and others, appellants; Norman Porter, appellant, v. John Beale, respondent; Anna E. Blackmer, respondent, v. Arthur Holmes and others, appellants; Jay Ball, appellant, v. Edward P. Slafter, respondent; Henry L. Rogers, exr., etc., and another, respondents, v. Frank J. Squires, appellant; John P. Price, respondent, v. Ann Eliza Price, appellant; N. Y. C. & H. R. R. Co., appellant, v. Village of Fishkill Landing, respondent; William E. Langan, respondent, v. City of Brooklyn, appellant; David Kipp, respondent, v. David W. McLean, appellant; James G. Averill and another, respondents, v. David Day, 2d, and others, appellants; Eliza J. Guion, appellant, v. Isaac Clark, respondent, Wm. Lee, respondent, v. Troy Citizens' Gaslight Co., appellant; Edward D. James, appellant, v. George Shea, respondent; John P. Higgins, appellant, v. Thomas J. Crichton, respondent; Temple Grove Seminary, respondent, v. Louis H. Cramer, receiver, and another, appellants; Squires L. Newberry, appellant, v. David Abrams, respondent; George H.

Hencken, Jr., and wife, appellants, v. U. S. Life Ins. Co. and others, respondents; Edward P. Cutter, appellant, v. John D. Cutter, respondent; John Palmer, respondent, v. Thomas C. Platt, president, etc., appellant.Judgment of General Term reversed, and Judgment absolute ordered for the defendant with costs-James H. Coleman, respondent, v. Alfred E. Beach, appellant. Judgment reversed,new trial granted, costs to abide the event-Letitia Nolan, respondent, v. David H. King, Jr., appellant; Alfred Stout and another, administrators, etc., respondents, v. Lewis M. Smith, appellant; Hannah E. Hutchins, appellant, v. Orin B. Hutchins, respondent; Frank J. Mills and others, respondents, v. N. Holmes Odell and others, appellants; Hermanus Bucher, appellant, v. New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Co., respondents. Order of award of State Board of Claims affirmed with costs-George Mark and others, appellants, v. People.

-Petition to vacate, etc., order of General Term reversed; that of Special Term reversed with costs-In re Petition of Solomon Mehrbach.--Appeal dismissed without costs-Abel H. Crosby, repondent, v. Sarah Stephan, appellant (two cases).--Appeal dismissed with costs--People v. Knickerbocker Ins. Co. —Orders of General and Special Terms reversed and motion denied with costs in all the courts-Thomas F. Hayes, assignee, etc., appellant, v. Alex. V. Davidson, sheriff, respondent.-Order affirmed with costs-Jas. E. Brett, respondent, v. Gustavus A. Brett and others, appellants; Catharine W. Cooke, appellant, v. Spencer C. Platt and another, respondents.-Judgment of General and Special Terms reversed, new trial granted, cost to abide the event-Arnold T. Niver, respondent, v. Melville M. Crane and another, appellants.-Judgment, so far as allows interest, modified, and as modified affirmed-People, respondent, v. Gold and Stock Tel. Co., appellant; Same v. Western Union Tel. Co.

Judgment of General Term and County Court reversed; that of Justices' Court affirmed with costs in all the courts-Edward H. Neary, appellant, v. George Robinson and others, respondents.-Judgment affirmed without costs-E. T. H. Gibson and another, respondents, v. National Park Bank of New York, appellants.Reargument ordered upon its merits, and also its appealability, and that the case may be placed upon any day calendar and brought to argument when reached-Addie M. Smith, respondent, v. Louis H. Cramer, receiver, and another, appellant.- Order of General Term reversed and judgment ordered for the plaintiff upon the verdict with costs-Jacob F. Wyckoff, appellant, v. Henry P. De Graff, respondent.

-Motion for reargument denied with costs-Alex. Rich, respondent, v. Simon Solomon and another, appellants. Order of General Term reversed; that of Special Term affirmed with costs-Robert C. Clapp and others' executors, appellants, v. Thomas K. Hawley and others, respondents.- -Order affirmed with costs-Edward Place v. Peter Riley, respondent; John Wittaker and others, purchasers, appellants; In re petition of Union Stock Yard Co. to vacate assessment. ---Order reversed and motion for mandamus deniedPeople ex rel. James S. Z. Stranahan, president, etc., respondent, v. Hubert O. Thompson, commissioner, etc.—Order of General Term refusing to dismiss the appeal of the city affirmed; appeal from order of reversal dismissed with one bill of costs upon the two appeals against the appellants-In re petition of New York and Harlem R. Co.-Ordered affirmed and judgment absolute ordered against the appellant with costs-Mary Ann Dunham, respondent, v. Deborah H. Buckley and others, appellants.

yet their thirty-five millions are better represented by their 642 Lords and 670 Commoners, than our fiftyseven millions by our 76 Senators and 325 Congress men. We think we have national legislators enough. We are willing to admit that our 325 Congressmen do not know as much as their 670 Commoners, but we are inclined to believe that our 76 Senators know

I in the cur on "The French Law of Marriage." 30 Sport in concl more than their 642 Lords. Mr.

and after that insult had taken place, the defendant announced that no man in uniform should have dinner at his house, being unable to discriminate between them, taking them all as parties coming there to create disturbance in his house;" which testimony the presiding judge excluded. The court said: "An inn-keeper's right to exclude from his inn all disorderly persons; all persons who come with an intent to make an assault, or to insult him or his customers, and the right to exclude such without waiting until the assault was made, or the affray begun, or the insult perpetrated, may be admitted. Markham v. Brown, 8 N. H. 523. The defendant further claims however that when he has reasonable cause to believe such conduct is intended, he may exclude though no such intent, may have, in fact, existed. No authority is cited for this last proposition, nor is its applicability clearly manifest. These actions are not for an exclusion from the inn. The exceptions do not show any attempt to exclude the plaintiffs from the house. They were admitted to, and allowed to remain in the house without objection. The only act complained of, was the refusal to furnish dinner. If however the proposition be correct and applicable, the offered testimony would not be admissible unless it logically tended to prove a reasonable cause for such belief. The bill of exceptions states, that some eighty or a hundred men, members of two militia companies, and clad in the uniform of the Maine militia arrived in town on the day named; that 'more or less' of them (how many is not stated) went to the defendant's inn, and there behaved in a disorderly and insulting manner. These plaintiffs, though members of the militia companies, were not of this disorderly party, nor with them. It is not claimed that the plaintiffs were otherwise than sober, orderly and respectable. The only connection shown between them and the disorderly ones was their membership of the same militia companies. It is not even shown they were of the same company. The only similarity in appearance was in the uniform. Such membership was honorable, and there was not in that any reasonable cause to believe the plaintiffs intended insult. The uniform was honorable and the rightful wearing it by the plaintiffs was no reasonable cause for apprehension of insult. We do not know how many of the organization had misbehaved. We have no right to assume the number was large. We ought rather to assume the number was small. It would be illogical and unjust to say, there was reasonable cause to believe that every member of those companies meditated misconduct because a small number of them had already misconducted. Yet if there was reasonable cause to fear insult from the plaintiffs, there was equal cause to fear it from every member. The defendant's claim that he could not distinguish between the plaintiffs and the others cannot be admitted against the plaintiffs' right to entertainment. The plaintiffs were not with the others. Their rights cannot be abridged by the similarity in appearance to other persons not present.

It was the defendant's duty to discriminate. We think the offered testimony, taken in connection with the facts shown by the exceptions, falls short of a logical tendency to prove a reasonable cause for the defendant's alleged apprehensions."

A rather curious case of libel is Zier v. Hoflin, Minnesota Supreme Court, Jan. 3, 1885, 21 N. W. Rep. 862. The defendant caused to be inserted in a newspaper an advertisement, "Wanted, E. B. Z., M. D., to pay a drug bill," and some third person cut it out, pasted it on a postal card, and sent it to a young lady to whom the plaintiff was affianced. Held, that a verdict for the plaintiff should be sustained. The court said: "We do not think the words published come under the third class in the classification given in Pratt v. Pioneer Press Co., 30 Minn. 41, i. e., of words already defamatory on their face. For the only facts suggested by them standing alone, to-wit, that the plaintiff owes a drug bill and that the creditor wishes him to pay, do not necessarily impute any thing wrong to plaintiff. But words which may be innocent of themselves may be rendered libellous by the place and circumstances of their publication, for such place and circumstances may impress on them a meaning and suggestion which standing alone they do not have. Thus, though the words here do not, of themselves, impute wrong, they might be published in such a place or under such circumstances as to make them capable of naturally conveying the impression that plaintiff had been guilty of dishonest practices, either in contracting the debt or in withholding payment of it. And so they come under the second class mentioned in the case referred to, of words reasonably susceptible of a defamatory as well as of an innocent meaning. What meaning they would naturally convey was for the jury to determine, in view of the circumstances of their publication. In this respect the case is similar to Woodling v. Knickerbocker, 31 Minn. 268. * * * Although one who publishes a libel is not to be held responsible for an independent wrong done by a third person, for the natural consequences of his own wrongful though connected with the libel, he is responsible act, although the wrongful act of a third person may concur in bringing about such consequences. If it were a natural consequence of defendant's publication through the newspaper that some evil-disposed person should send a copy of the paper, or the item cut from the paper, to some one whom defendant had not thought of its reaching, he would be liable for it as the consequence of his own wrong. Townsh. Sland. & Lib. 158; Miller v. Butler, 6 Cush. 71. It was for the jury to say whether sending the postal card by a third person was a natural consequence of defendant's publication in the newspaper." In Woodling v. Knickerbocker, supra, the libel consisted in a placard on a piece of furniture on a sidewalk in front of a store, inscribed, 'taken back from W., who could not pay for it; to be sold at a bargain. Moral, beware of dead-beats."

SOME FACTS ABOUT LAWYERS TOOLS.

of New York. One of these cases, a case of descent, turns upon the law of marriage as it stood in the

THAT lawyers should be indems very surprising, early part of the eightherland relative to

with which they work seems very surprising, and yet it is measurably true of them as a class. The law of the State of New York is the English common law, modified by certain accidents of situation, by local statute and by revolution. The methods of its development are, notwithstanding the revolution, essentially Anglican in character, and the modifications are such as the post-revolutionary government impressed upon it at a bound, or such as are consistent with the theory on which the present government exists. The substratum of American law is still the English common law as it stood in the cases collected in Tomlin's Repertorium Juridicum (which brought the English adjudications about up to the battle of Lexington), and the theretofore adjudged colonial cases which determined what portions of the Anglican law were hostile to the colonial situation. The colonial cases have a decided negative value, and act as a sort of index expurgatorium to Tomlin's Repertorium Juridicum. The colonial statutes are of considerable absolute value, notwithstanding their repeal, and they are of immense historical value.

Yet New York lawyers as a class take little interest in these vestiges of the past, either because they have no active fee-producing qualities, or because no immediate personal advancement is apparent in them. Consequently the antiquaries, or the public authorities, are left to do the work which should be done by the profession most interested.

What the colonial law of New York was, is often a question of great practical importance, and yet the means for ascertaining it are wholly inadequate. Massachusetts, and lately Maryland, have published costly volumes of their colonial statutes, but in the great State of New York there is not a single public institution, not a public library where a complete set of the New York colonial statutes exists. Massachusetts carries the history of her colonial courts back for some period by means of a volume of colonial reports of immense value, but in New York nothing of this kind exists, though the material is abundant. The colonial bar of New York was an able one, clever, cultivated and assiduous, yet most of the present practitioners would be puzzled to know who the colonial barristers were, for no official chronicles of their forensic triumphs and contentions remain. Yet they paved the way to the revolution, and they laid the foundations of our present system of law. It is not in the sentimental aspect alone that a volume of colonial leading cases is due to the profession, but in the practical aspect. The true development of our law would be greatly promoted by tracing certain of our present juridical ideas to their source; and if properly annotated the reports themselves would point the attorney's way to sources of practical import. For instance, within the past few days, several important cases have arisen which involve the construction of the ancient law

upon the law of New Netherland relative to the ownership of the soil of the highways. These instances are but two of many; they however serve to show the practical importance of colonial law.

Unsatisfactory-most unsatisfactory-as the condition of the sources of colonial law is, it is next to impossible to awaken the interest of the bar in the subject. A very eminent private collector has expended a large part of a useful life in the collection of the unpublished colonial statutes, but he has never been able to arouse the interest of the legal profession in his endeavors to publish them. Whether this lethargy comes from the large sprinkling of non-native lawyers in the New York State bar, many of them coming to the metropolis from other States or countries, is uncertain; but the fact exists, and the fact is not creditable. That New York should have less public spirit than Massachusetts or Maryland is equally discreditable. Why the bar associations should not now take hold of the subject and interest themselves more than they do in such movements we cannot tell. Certainly they are the only professional associations of the kind in the world that manifest little apparent interest in the development of the literature of their profession. The reports of their doings might be made far less jejune by their taking hold of some intellectual movement, by means of enlarged publication funds, through professional and paid corresponding secretaries, or by active participation in the old world movements toward new educational methods.

As matters at present stand the literary tools' of the New York lawyers are behind the age. Compare the curriculum of any of our law schools with that prescribed by the law faculty of Oxford, and learn

how primitive our conceptions of legal training actually are. We have been termed the Asiatics of western civilization,' so complacent are we with our own crude methods, and with the legal ploughs, inherited from our ancestors. Nor do we in this remark ignore the notable exceptions which have from time to time been seen among us; they are not sufficient to change the fact.

In many directions we Americans prefer bigness of tools to more delicate characteristics of skilful work. Our law libraries are comparatively enormous in point of quantity, but with one or two exceptions they are singularly defective in quality. It would be unjust to deny that bigness is a merit in any library; but bigness is not all. No one appreciates this better than the actual librarians of our institutions, but they are usually controlled by indifferent or perfunctory guardians, by respectable mediocritics or by ignorant officialism. One of the best, perhaps the best, law library in the State is that of the New York Law Institute, in the city of New York. It now approximates to 33,000 volumes, and by reason of the intelligent interest of Mr. Lodewick and Mr. Winters, the assistant librarians,