periodicals, and in the making of utensils of every variety, useful and ornamental; indeed, there is hardly an enterprise or business engaging the attention and labor of any considerable portion of the community in which the public has not an interest in the sense in which that term is used by the court in its opinion; and the doctrine which allows the legislature to interfere with and regulate the charges which the owners of property thus employed shall make for its use, that is, the rates at which all these different kinds of business shall be carried on, has never before been asserted so far as I am aware, by any judicial tribunal in the United States." (Munn v. Ill., 94 U. S. 141). And again he says: "To what purpose can the constitutional prohibition upon the state against impairing the obligation of contracts be invoked, if the state can, in the face of a charter authorizing a company to charge reasonable rates, prescribe what rates shall be deemed reasonable for services rendered?" (Stone v. Wisconsin, 94 U. S. 187).

As in the Charles River Bridge case, the court in these later cases has, by each succeeding step, distinguished or overruled the doctrines of the Dartmouth College case in the particulars referred to without once mentioned that great judgment. To be sure, in Story's masterpiece (the dissenting opinion in the Bridge case) and in the dissenting opinions in each of the other cases, the departure is pointed out but never in the opinion of the court. The original opinion is not openly attacked but is undermined with the theory of public use. It has been stated that these departures have wrung from the court by outside pressure and certainly they are iu the line of modern public thought and demand, if not in the line of professional opinion.

Certainly, the public sentiment can not endorse one of the remaining outgrowths of this case which still receives the sanction of the Supreme Court, which holds that the legislatures may exempt the property of a corporation from taxation and that if the state afterwards passes a law taxing property of the corporation it passes a law violating the obligation of a contract and that such a law is void under the Constitution.

I think that Justice Miller's dissenting opinion in the Rouse cases (University v. Rouse, 8 Wall, 443) voices the sentiment of the public and the growing opinion of the bar on this subject when he says: "We do not believe that any legislative body, sitting under a state constitution of the usual character, has a right to sell, to give or to bargain away forever the taxing power of the state. This is a

power, which, in modern political societies, is absolutely necessary to the continued existence of every such society. While under such forms of government, the ancient chiefs or heads of the government might carry it on by revenues owned by them personally, and by the exaction of personal service from their subjects, no civilized government has ever existed that did not depend upon taxation in some form for the continuance of that existence. To hold, then, that any one of the annual legislatures can, by contract, deprive the state forever of the power of taxation, is to hold that they can. destroy the government which they are appointed to serve, and that their action in that regard is strictly lawful.

"It cannot be maintained, that this power to bargain away, for an unlimited time, the right of taxation, if it exists at all, is limited, in reference to the subjects of taxation. In all the discussion of this question, in this court and elsewhere, no such limitation has been claimed. If the legislature can exempt in perpetuity, one piece of land, it can exempt all land. If it can exempt all land, it can exempt all other property. It can as well exempt persons as corporations. And no hindrance can be seen, in the principle adopted by the court, to rich corporations, as railroads and express companies, or rich men, making contracts with the legislatures, as they best may, and with such appliances as it is known they do use, for perpetual exemption from all the burdens of supporting the govern

ment.

"The result of such a principle, under the growing tendency to special and partial legislation, would be to exempt the rich from taxation, and heap all the burden of the support of government and the payment of its debts on those who are too poor or too honest to purchase such immunity.

"With as full respect for the authority of former decisions, as belongs, from teaching and habit, to judges trained in the common law system of jurisprudence, we think that there may be questions touching the powers of legislative bodies, which can never be finally closed by the decisions of a court, and that the one we have here considered is of this character. We are strengthened in this view of the subject, but the fact that a series of dissents, from this doctrine, by some of our predecessors, shows that it has never received the full assent of this court; and referring to those dissents for more elaborate defence of our views, we content ourselves with thus renewing the protest againt a doctrine which we think must finally be abandoned."

To avoid the great abuses to the prejudice of the public, which have been mentioned in this paper, the people in many of the states have placed in their constitutions provisions reserving the right to alter, amend or repeal all laws that may be passed conferring corporate powers. These provisions, of course, take effect only from the time of their adoption, and the courts are still occupied under the authority of John Marshall's judgment, in protecting the corporations which had previously received grants. Mobile & Ohio R. R., v. Tennessee, 153 U. S. 486.

Every law, written or unwritten, must rest in the sanction of those affected by it. No court may promulgate a doctrine which is not founded in the good sense of the people and have it respected. Changes in the methods of business, the morals and even the political views of the country are gradually reflected in the statutes of the legislature and the opinions of the courts; and the most casual observer cannot fail to see that the authority of the Dartmouth College Case is fast passing away.

THE CONCLUSIVENESS OF FOREIGN JUDGMENTS.-The cases of Hilton v. Guyot and Richie v. McMullin, recently decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, seem to have founded the doctrine that while judgments of foreign tribunals are prima facie conclusive, they are not so where there is a claim that they were obtained by fraud. This is especially true with reference to those countries from which the principles of international comity receive no recognition. The question as to just how far foreign judgments should be deemed conclusive is by no means clearly established. However, if the validity of such a judgment is attacked it becomes the duty of the court to which it is submitted to make a careful examination of all the facts. In the case of Hilton v. Guyot Justice Gray who read the opinion said that this particular judgment, if the offers of proof which the defendants made, and which the court below rejected, were substantiated, could not be enforced in France nor in England, nor in any civilized country in Europe. If this suit had been brought in any other country, he said, the judgment would have had to be examined, and its value should be recognized in the United States only so far as France exercises judicial discretion in similar cases. The case of Ritchie v. McMullin invoked the question of conclusiveness of a Canadian judgment, but as there was no allegation of fraud and merely of error, the Supreme Court affirmed the decision holding the judgment conclusive.

THE "TORRENS' SYSTEM-The "Torrens" system of land transfers is exciting wide-spread interest and agitation at this time, and bids fair by its general adoption to do away entirely with abstracts of title. The Illinois State Legislature has taken the initiative, and although the act is not operative in any County until approved by popular vote, it is confidently believed that its universal adoption will speedily result. That it is a move in the right direction must

be apparent to all who are familiar with the tedious and cumbersome system of title transfer and registration now in vogue. By the new method, every question whether it be formal or substantive, is finally disposed of at the time the transfer is made so that the certificate of title will admit of nothing affecting the title or interest intended to be conveyed. The many vicissitudes through which a title may have passed are thus rendered inconsequential. The title itself is registered as distinguished from the registration of the accumulated evidences of title. In the registrar's office a much simpler routine will suffice, and very few books will be imperative. Virtually a ledger account is kept with each piece of property, and reference to the tract index will indicate the page on which one may ascertain at a glance the precise condition of the title. Transfers of property and liens upon the same will be of no effect unless entered upon the record, and this requirement will serve to abolish the acquisition of title by adverse possession. The registration of title under this method is not strictly enjoined in the first instance, but once registered the title must remain subject to the system. The offices of recorder and registrar are kept conjointly, and the recorder is ex-officio registrar of titles in his county. The Examiners of title, who are deputies of the registrar, are the only new clerkships created by the innovation.

DOES SUICIDE BAR RECOVERY ON A LIFE INSURANCE POLICY? -There seems to be no direct authority either in this country or in Europe upon the question whether suicide by the assured whilst in the full possession of his faculties avoids the policy. This point was recently brought up in the case of Ritter, Executor v. The Mutual Life Insurance Co., in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The Defendant's first request to charge was as follows: "There can be no recovery by the estate of the dead man of the amount of policies of insurance upon his life, if he took his own life designedly, whilst of sound. mind." This request was granted though as said in the charge "there is nothing to be found on the subject but dicta and this is conflicting, and there is no evidence before the court of any custom in the business of insurance bearing on the subject.' The Companies almost invariably provide against the commission. of suicide by special clauses by which the policy is to be null and void in case of suicide. The question in this case whether in the absence of such a stipulation the fact of suicide alone avoided the policy. The Court charged the jury that if they found that the deceased was in a sane condition of mind at the time, able to understand the moral character and consequenses of his act, his suicide is a defence to this suit." The plaintiff requested the court to charge that "if one whose life is insured intentionally kills himself when his reasoning faculties