Persons on foot must use care to avoid danger from carriages, and may not lawfully interrupt unnecessarily the passage of vehicles. When a child, without discretion to avoid danger, is in a public way without any one to guard him, and is there run over and injured, the traveler is not liable, except upon proof of culpable negligence.

Every person, in any manner using a public way, must conduct himself in such use, with reference to the convenience, rights, and safety of others. If he would leave his horses in the street, he must leave them in the care of a suitable person, or hitch them with reasonable care; and if he shall, in any case, omit these precautions, trusting to the discretion of his horse, and damages arise to one who is in the use of the road and in the exercise of ordinary care, he will be responsible therefor. So, one driving a loaded vehicle, or a team which from its nature must pass slowly, must exercise due and reasonable diligence in giving place for one who should properly, or may reasonably and lawfully, drive more rapidly. A loaded team may not needlessly and unreasonably delay the passage of others, by refusing to turn out, and if its owner or driver does so, without justifiable excuse, he will be liable in damages, or may be indicted therefor. The same rule holds in favor of a horse car, or any vehicle rightfully upon and in the use of the road. This question was ably, and with his usual vigor, discussed by the late Chief Justice Shaw of Massachusetts, in a case brought before him upon an indictment for obstructing a horse car, by refusing to turn out from the track. Any unreasonable occupation of a public way, whether arising out of a refusal to turn out and allow a more rapid vehicle to pass, or from an unjustifiable occupancy of such a part of the road as prevents other vehicles from passing, will render the party so trespassing, liable in damages to any one suffering injury therefrom, and generally, also, to a criminal indictment or complaint therefor. See Commonwealth vs. Drew, 14 Gray, 69.

CHAPTER XL.

OF PRESUMPTIONS, AND GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF EVIDENCE.

EVERY sane man is presumed to contemplate the natural consequences of his own act. For example: an intent to murder is presumed against one, who makes an assault with a deadly weapon. A person marrying, within the time limited for the legal presumption of the death of a husband or wife not heard from, will be presumed to have intended to commit bigamy, if it turns out that the former husband or wife was alive, even though such person honestly believes, upon information received, that the former husband or wife was dead. (So held by the Supreme Court of Massachusetts in "Commonwealth vs. Mehetable Mash," 7 Metcalf, 472.)

An infant, under the age of seven years, is presumed to be incapable of committing a felony. If a woman act in the presence of her husband in the commission of an offence not amounting to treason or felony, she is presumed to act without guilty intent and by the coercion of her husband.

Some presumptions are conclusive, while others are subject to be disproved.

Disprovable presumptions are such as are founded upon the general experience of the connection usually found to exist between certain facts or occurrences. For example: upon proof of homicide, the law presumes malice, and the burden of disproving it is thrown, in most cases, upon the accused; though this rule is not universal, and the contrary is vigorously claimed by a dissenting judge, in the case of Commonwealth vs. York, 9 Met., 93.

A person found in possession of stolen property is presumed to have come by it unlawfully.

A letter, duly posted, is presumed to have reached its destination by due course of mail.

Every man is presumed to obey the laws; and, upon accusation of crime, is presumed to be innocent, till he is proved to be guilty. This presumption is so strong, that when guilt can be affirmatively established only by proving a negative, the negative must in most cases be proved by him who alleges the guilt, in opposition to the general rule, which devolves the burden of proof upon the party alleging the affirmative.

Other presumptions are founded on the continuance or permanency, of longer or shorter duration, of human affairs: thus, every natural person is presumed to be sane, till the contrary is proved. When he is once proved to be insane, his insanity is presumed to continue, and the burden is devolved upon the party who alleges the contrary. So, there is a presumption of the continuance of human life, which must be met by affirmative proof of the death of a party, or by the lapse of such period of time (usually seven years) as is fixed upon to raise the contrary presumption of the death of a party who has not been heard from in that time.

A partnership is presumed to be continued till it is proved to have been dissolved. So, there is a presumption that the law is observed, and that all things are rightfully and properly done: as, where words are interlined in an instrument, it is presumed that they were rightfully so interlined, by one having authority, at a time when it might properly have been. done. So, a person in possession of land or other property is presumed to be rightfully in possession; and the payment of rent for the last quarter, and application thereof by the lessor, unexplained, raises a presumption of a payment of all. prior rent.

There are other presumptions, which differ from the foregoing in that they are conclusive upon the parties. These consist chiefly of those cases in which the long experienced connection, before alluded to, has been found so general and uniform as to render it expedient that this connection should be taken to be inseparable and universal. The most common example of these presumptions is presented by the statutes

of limitation, which are but express declarations of the common consent, that such presumptions shall be conclusively acted upon. Thus, a debt, after a limited period, is conclusively presumed to have been paid; a trespass, in like manner, is conclusively presumed to have been satisfied. So, possession of land, for the period named in the statute, affords conclusive presumption of title. And, as to this, there is no difference in principle, whether the subject enjoyed be a corporeal or incorporeal hereditament,—a right of way over one's land being established by the same lapse of time as would warrant the presumption of a valid grant of the land itself. So, the neglect of a party to appear and answer judicial process, he having due notice thereof, is taken conclusively against him, as confession of the matter charged. So, a sealed instrument is, in the absence of fraud or illegality, presumed to rest upon a sufficient consideration.

The law of estoppel rests upon this same basis; by force of which, when a man has done some act, the effect of which the law will not permit him to deny, he is said to be conclusively estopped thereby as, where one takes land as lessee, he is not permitted to deny the title of the landlord from whom he takes. So, the records of a court of justice are conclusively presumed to be correct; former judgments, still in force, rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction in a suit between the same parties, are conclusive evidence upon the matter directly in question in such suits, in any subsequent action or proceeding, the parties being estopped to deny the effect of the judgment.

CHAPTER XLI.

OF PATENTS.

SECTION 1. What is Patentable.

CONGRESS is authorised by the constitution of the United States," to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries." The provision is in favor of authors and inventors, and the right intended to be secured to authors is called copyright, and that to inventors, patent right.

The first act passed by Congress, in pursuance of the power thus conferred, was in 1790. This was repealed by the act of 1793, and other acts were passed in 1800, 1819, and 1832; all of which were repealed and superseded by the act of 1836, which, together with the amendatory acts since passed, constitute the present statutory law of the United States on this subject. Those laws are collected in pamphlet form, and, together with the rules and directions for proceedings in the patent office in another pamphlet issued by the Commissioner in 1867, for the convenience of those who have occasion to use them, are sent to parties on application. For practical use, these are the original and most complete source of information which parties specially interested can have. We shall, therefore, here only state briefly and generally what is patentable, how a patent may be obtained, and the rights of a patentee.

The words of the statutes are applicable "to any person having discovered or invented any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement in any art, machine, manufacture,