the lace handkerchief in his hand shows not the slightest quiver. This is his first circuit, probably his first murder case, and his hard self control does much to explain his personal unpopularity with the bar.

But why does the keen and zealous B. down there, who as magistrate's clerk has been the main instrument of conviction, bite his moustache and look anywhere but at the dock? We know his kindly nature too well to have suspected him of gratification at the success of his well arranged proofs, but we did not expect that such success would cause him positive disquiet. Perhaps the prisoner's demeanor and appearance have impressed him, as they have ourselves, and he regretfully thinks of those little circumstances pointing to insanity which no one followed up, because in fact no one was paid to do so. However, the strain of the present moment will soon pass off, and when we dine together at the "Hop-pole" this evening our friend will be himself again.

Look now during this interval of hushed attention, when even the "irresponsible frivolity" of the junior bar is silent, at the expression of all these faces whose eyes converge upon the prisoner. If instead of an English court of justice, the scene were a Roman amphitheatre, the act, a gladiator's death, the general expression of animal excitement might be more intense, but it is still sufficiently prominent to be painful. The same passion is being ministered too, and we feel it with the rest. Two persons only have their thoughts elsewhere. That young and handsome barrister, gazing abstractedly at the skylight, is the prisoner's counsel, who his duty done, has at his tongue's end hosts of brilliant expressions and striking appeals which come unbidden, now they are no longer needed, and that poor woman weeping bitterly in the distant corner, who can speak her griefs?

At length the judge has finished his formal sentence and not less formal platitudes. The convict, passionless to the last, is hustled down the trap door to the cells below. In three weeks time he will pass through another trap door and "justice will be vindicated!" How the account will stand in better balanced books than ours, nor you nor we can tell, but the general rush from the court room scatters our dissatisfied reverie, and we return to the civil side where our interminable mining suit is dragging its slow length along. No danger that these slight indications in the evidence will be left unworked, for that is an issue involving money!

CORRESPONDENCE.

EXEMPTION FROM EXECUTION. Editor of the Albany Law Journal:

In addition to certain enumerated articles in the inventory set apart, but not appraised, for the widow and minor children, they are also entitled to "other household furniture, which shall not exceed $150 in value." And by a still further provision they are also entitled to "necessary household furniture, provisions or other personal property, in the discretion of said appraisers, to the value of not exceeding $150, in addition to the personal property now exempt from appraisal by said section."

Under the last provision $150 in cash is sometimes allowed, or other property than household furniture. But the question is whether, under the former clause, "other household furniture which shall not exceed $150 in value," any thing but strictly household furniture can be set apart and appraised in lieu thereof. It would seem not by the strict letter of the law; and yet McClellan's Surrogate's Court Practice (2d ed.), at pages 377-8, in giving the form of an inventory filled out, enumerates under this provision as follows:

THE

COURT OF APPEALS DECISIONS.

HE following decisions were handed down Tuesday, Oct. 21, 1884:

Judgment reversed, new trial granted, costs to abide the event-William McKinley and another, appellants, v. Peter Bowe, sheriff, etc., respondent; Daniel N. Crouse and others, respondents, v. Laura Frothingham and others, appellants.- Judgment affirmed with costs-People ex rel. Mills Water Works Company, appellant, v. John G. Forrest and others, respondents; Jacob Stroher, respondent, v. Philip B. Elting, appellant; Frederick Diederick, respondent, v. John Keon, appellant; Henry Bamber, receiver, etc., appellant, v. City of Rochester, respondent; Bronson C. Ramsay and another, respondents, v. City of Buffalo, appellant; Archibald M. McPherson, respondent, v. George Sandrock, appellant; Jules L. Redmond, appellant, v. Jas. T. Eaton and another, respondents; Wells A. Bingham, survivor, etc., appellant, v. Richard C. Harris and others, respondents: Charles B. Perry, appellant, v. Cyrus Strong and others, respondents; Samuel M. Pettengill, appellant, v. Alfred S. Barnes, respondent. —Judgment affirmed-People, respondent, v. John McKeon, appellant.- -Appeals dismissed with costsMarion Hovey et al., appellants, v. William E. Dodge et al., respondents; People ex rel. Board of Supervisors of Chenango County, appellant, v. Board of State Assessors, respondent.-Order modified and affirmed without costs-Marion G. Washburn (formerly Catlin), respondent, v. William H. Catlin, appellant.-Order affirmed with costs-Stephen C. Johnson, appellant, v. New York, Ontario and Western Railroad, respondent; People ex rel. Willard Van Houton, appellant, v. Ambrose Sadler, superintendent, etc., respondent; In re Claim of Receiver of Guardian Savings Bank, respondent, v. S. F. Knapp, receiver, etc., of Bowling Green Savings Bank, appellant.

lawyer," and that he is either too modest or too censorious. As for the rules which the writer in the Century lays down, they are mere truisms. Of course "a lawyer ought to be a gentleman; ought not to lie; ought not to sell his services for promotion of injustice and knavery." But to assert that the typical lawyer does either of the two latter

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We are not going to find fault with him for this, nor to call him a pharisee or a hypocrite. But we may be allowed to say that we think he exaggerates, as most reformers do, at least if he is correctly reported in the Century for November as having said to the Social Science Association that "the typical lawyer is not the type of honesty." We think that lawyers are the honestest class of men on earth. We think this is so intrinsically, and by reason of their position. Intrinsically, as a class, they are much more honest than merchants, so many of whom cheat and lie; than people who gamble in stocks; than clergymen, so many of whom preach creeds that they do not believe - and we may add, to congregations which pretend to believe them but do not; than physicians, many of whom practice methods in which they have no faith, and hold out hopes which they know to be false; than editors, many of whom sell their opinions, and change them from day to day according to the exigencies of party demands, and advocate men whom and measures which they know to be unworthy, at the dictation of the caucus. By reason of their position they are honest, because they are called on to make no profession of belief, and make none, in the justice of their clients' causes. They are simply the mouth-piece of their clients, presenting their causes for what they are worth, and leaving the responsibility of decision with the proper tribunals. Mr. Bacon is quite right in saying that the lawyer generally believes he is right and his client is right. At the worst, he cannot know he is wrong until he hears the evidence on both sides, and even then it is his duty to see that the court does not apply a wrong rule of construc-❘ tion or discretion. So the writer in the Century on this topic of "Lawyers' Morals" is far astray when he says "there must be many dishonorable lawyers, for undeniably there is a vast number of civil cases in which one side is palpably in the wrong." This assertion we deny. We undertake to say that the writer of it does not know any thing of what he is talking about. Any lawyer could make him believe either side by turns of any case. The cases in which a lawyer can or ought to see at the outset that his client is wrong are extremely few. The cases in which the event shows that one side is palpably wrong are those depending on facts which can only be known after trial.

As to questions of law it is extravagant to say that any one is ever palpably in the wrong, for the courts themselves are not harmonious with each other, nor with themselves for any length of time. In short, we think Mr. Bacon is the "typical VOL. 30 No. 18.

the association, whether it is not the most highly educated attorneys who "prove the most facile and unscrupulous instruments as the advocates of large corporations and monopolies," we would simply remark that the most unscrupulous examples of thick and thin advocacy, and the most disgusting exhibitions of injustice which the world has ever seen, have been and still are in church councils.

The ideal lawyer seldom has been better portrayed than in the following, by Judge Cassoday, of Wisconsin, in a recent address to the law class of the University of Wisconsin: "But remember the true lawyer is not, as some suppose, a skilled magician, engaged in the business of winning causes by withholding, suppressing and manufacturing evidence and perverting law, but an honest man who makes his client's cause his own, and then wisely counsels and ably maintains, regardless of the effect upon his personal interests. Such a man will be broad, generous, benevolent, forgiving, ready to spend and be spent, to sacrifice and be sacrificed, in order that his convictions of right and justice may be triumphant. His purpose will be to build up rather than to pull down-to heal wounds rather than to make wounds - - to praise others rather than to traduce others a peace-maker rather than a peace-breaker. He will be thoroughly master of himself-master of his temper master of his disposition-master of his will — master of all his faculties. He may sometimes lose his cause, but will never lose himself. He will always be loyal to the truth and the law as well as his client, to his conscience and his country as well as himself. He will be a minister of justice called by the good, because he is wanted retained by the wise, because he is useful- trusted by all, because he is honest. * In the common law we must ever look to the great English lawyers and judges who took the law in its infancy and reduced it to a philosophical science. We are not however to blindly worship, but to wisely discriminate, for while we are always to admire all noble qualities of head and heart, yet we are to reject as unworthy, all hate, arrogance, envy and jealousy, even in men like Cokeall corruption, even in men like Bacon - all superstition, even in men like Hale-all coarse vulgarity and profanity, even in men like Thurlow — all abnormal ambition and conceit, even in men like Loughborough all prejudice and malignity, even in men like Burke all deceptive plotting, even in men like Eldon and to spurn with contempt all cruelty and wickedness in men like Jeffreys — all vacilation, knavery and profligacy in men like Shaftesbury —

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and to withhold our praise not only from the vast number of dull, weak and ignorant, but from the brilliant and eccentric, whose usefulness is destroyed by lack of judgment and good sense.

we do not understand

Mrs. James Bennett sends us two copies of a pamphlet, entitled "An appeal for Woman Suffrage," an address delivered by her, with an injunction on the title page in her own valuable autograph, to "vote for Blaine," because a vote for Cleveland, whether the accusations against him are true or false, will amount to a vote "for the destruction of woman, body and soul, for whom Jesus shed his blood." It is greatly to be feared that Mrs. Bennett lacks the logical faculty which should characterize the statesman and the lawyer. Governor Cleveland certainly should not be made to suffer on false accusations. We are grossly ignorant of politics, and take no pleasure in them, but that the Republicans are more favorable to woman suffrage than the Democrats. We cordially concede that Mr. Blainc is a handsomer man than Governor Cleveland. Some years ago we got ourselves into a terrible scrape by writing of a reiguing prima donna, that so long as she wore high heels, painted, powdered, pinched her vitals by tight lacing, and squirmed and wriggled in her gait she would not be fit to vote. Now we will venture under our breath to say that we do not think that if women are generally such fools as to be liable to be seduced, as Mrs. Bennett seems to think they would be if Governor Cleveland should be elected, they are not fit to vote. Nor do we see how the elective franchise is going to save them from seduction. With one remark in Mrs. Bennett's screed we heartily concur : "God says he takes no pleasure in fools." If the sensible women want to vote we should say, let them. We have seldom known a sensible woman who did. Most of such women prefer to stay at home and rear men to do the voting. This however Mrs. Bennett seems to think "a crucifixion afresh."

The British idea of eloquence differs quite widely from our own, and British eloquence, compared with ours, is heavy. In a very complimentary notice of Mr. David Dudley Field's recently published works, in the London Law Times, speaking of his argument in the Milligan case, the writer says: "We confess that we admire, but do not altogether like, Mr. Field's poetical fervor of expression. Speaking of the weight of the judgment about to be pronounced by the court, he says: 'It will stand when the statue, which with returning peace we have raised above the dome of the Capitol, shall have fallen from its pedestal, its sword broken, and its shield scattered (quare shattered) in pieces; nay, when the dome itself, which though uplifted into the air, seems immovable as the mountains, shall have crumbled; it will stand as long as that most imperishable thing of all, our mother-tongue, shall be spoken or read among men.' Now the last of

these images is pretty and touching, but the first two savor of the stump, and remind us of the writ ings of another American who does not profess dignity, and mocks at sentiment. Bursts of eloquence, such as this, are best unwritten." And elsewhere the writer speaks of Mr. Field as "eloquent beyond the bounds of moderation." It will amuse Mr. Field to learn that he is considered an “eloquent " man at all, to say nothing of being immoderately eloquent. We confess that the above quotation is rather livelier reading than most British eloquence; and yet we never heard the British find any fault with the figure of the New Zealander sitting on the broken arch of London bridge and sketching the ruins of St. Paul's, rendered famous by Macaulay, but by no means original with him, but used before him by several English authors. What would the Times say of Daniel Webster's apostrophe to the National flag floating over the same dome, or rather its more humble predecessor? We think Mr. Field's figure of speech fine and appropriate, but we are able to take a little of the poetry out of it. That statue, so far from being raised with "returning peace, " stood there, we believe, before the civil war. At all events its form was decided on by Jeff. Davis, while secretary of State, and it is amusing to note the changes from the artist's original design, as explained in Hicks' memoir of the artist Crawford.

We venture to give the following extracts from a letter from a Maine lawyer: "From my standpoint of construction a sermon could be written on that little poem that so charmed Judge Folger. He must have drunk in its sweetness. That sof come in' was to him like the voices of the shining ones' in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, who met Christian at the end of his grand fight, in the land of Beulah, and whispered their sweet invitation to go up with them to the mountains of God. I want to thank you for the many pleasant hours your editorial work has given me. Instead of sending us a dull, cold law-book, merely, the sparkles of editorial humor have brightened its face into a most cheerful and welcome weekly visitant."

NOTES OF CASES.

N Stevenson v. Phoenix Ins. Co., Ky. Ct. App., Sept. 16, 1884, 6 Ky. L. Rep. 196, it was held that where one has taken out a policy of fire insurance containing a provision making it void if the insured should take out other policies, and he subsequently takes out another policy, having a similar provision against his then holding or afterward taking out other insurance, he cannot recover on the first policy on the ground that the second forbidding other insurance was void ab initio by reason of the existence of the first, and was therefore in reality no violation of the first. These provisions against other insurance are for the benefit of the insurer, and are not void but voidable at the

latter's option. The court said: "The question presented by the amended replies has heretofore been passed upon by this court in the case of Luggs v. Liverpool, London and Globe Ins. Co., MS. opinion. In that case the court in rendering the opinion used this language: 'Appellant contende that the last insurance was absolutely void, and left the first in full force. He is wrong in any aspect of the case. First, the second insurance was not void, but voidable only at the option of the insurer; and second, if it were void ab initio that fact would not relieve appellant from the forfeiture resulting from a violation of the stipulations in the first policy against additional insurance.' It is thus obvious that if the opinion in that case is to be adhered to, the judgment sustaining the demurrer to the amended replies must be affirmed. Counsel for appellant refers us to several authorities holding a doctrine opposite to that announced in the opinion referred to by this court, and perhaps the weight of authority in this country may sustain him. But on the other hand the decision of this court is supported not only by the Supreme Court of the United States and several State courts, but by principle and reason. In the case of Baer v. Phænix Ins. Co., 4 Bush, 242, where the question arose as to the proper construction to be given to a similar condition contained in a policy of fire insurance, this court said: 'The object of that condition was to assure the underwriter against over-insurance, or insurance equivalent to the entire risk, whereby the insured, relieved of all risk, might be tempted to procure the loss, or to take no care to prevent it. To make it the interest of the insured as well as the insurer to avoid loss, no prudent underwriter ever insures for the full value of the property, but leaves the owner so far interested in preventing the loss as to assure his fidelity and vigilance in proper care to avoid it.' This precaution on the part of insurance companies is not only justifiable, but indispensable to their success, if not existence. For without such provision against cumulative insur ance, fraud and bad faith on the part of the insured would be encouraged, and the legitimate and useful purposes of fire and marine insurance to a great extent defeated. A contract of insurance, like any other which the law sanctions, should be enforced by the courts according to its terms and conditions. In this case a plain and vital stipulation, which the insurer had the right to insert in the policy, and which the assured understanding, or having the opportunity to understand, agreed to, has been deliberately violated by the latter. And he now seeks to avoid the forfeiture which results from such violation, and is now claimed by the insurer upon the ground that the two subsequent policies being rendered invalid by like breach of contract and of faith on his part, the first one is now valid and enforceable by either party to it." See Emery v. Mut., etc., Ins. Co., 51 Mich. 469; S. C., 47 Am. Rep. 590; Funke v. Minnesota, etc., Ins. Ass., 29 Minn. 347; S. C., 43 Am. Rep. 216; Jersey City Ins. Co. v. Nichol, 35 N. J. Eq. 291; S. C., 40

Am. Rep. 625; Landers v. Watertown F. Ins. Co., 86 N. Y. 414; S. C., 40 Am. Rep. 554; Fireman's Ins. Co. v. Holt, 35 Ohio St. 189; S. C., 35 Am. Rep. 601; Allen v. Merch. M. Ins. Co., 30 La. Ann. 1386; S. C., 31 Am. Rep. 243; Hubbard v. Hartford F. Ins. Co., 33 Iowa, 325; S. C., 11 Am. Rep. 125; Thomas v. Builders' F. Ins. Co., 119 Mass. 121; S. C., 20 Am. Rep. 317, and note, 319; Lindley v. Union Ins. Co., 65 Me. 368; S. C., 20 Am. Rep. 701; Sutherland v. Old Dominion Ins. Co., 31 Gratt. 176; Gee v. Cheshire Co. M. F. Ins. Co., 55 N. H. 65; S. C., 20 Am. Rep. 171. The principal authority is against the decided weight of authority, but it is in accord with the rule in this State.

In the Matter of Jacobs the General Term of the Supreme Court, for the first department, have held that the act of our Legislature, passed last May, prohibiting in cities of over 500,000 inhabitants the manufacture of cigars in tenement houses, is unconstitutional. The decision is unanimous, Davis, P. J., delivering the principal opinion. He says: "It may be stated as a legal and political axiom, that since the great laboring masses of our country have little or no property but their labor, and the free right to employ it to their own best interest and advantage, it must be considered that the constitutional inhibition against all invasions of property, without due process of law, was as fully intended to embrace and protect that property as any of the accumulations it may have gained. It is not constitutionally competent therefore for the Legisture to deprive by any arbitrary enactment a laborer in any lawful avocation of his right to work and enjoy the fruits of his work, in his own residence and in his own way, except for the purposes of police or health regulations, as hereinafter considered. It is equally true also that when an artisan or laborer has rented a tenement for the residence of his family, with the right to carry on his trade or occupation therein, he has thereby acquired certain rights of property in the use and enjoyment of his tenement, of which he cannot be deprived without due process of law. An arbitrary law for the mere purposes of such deprivation is absolutely dead at its birth by force of the Constitution of the State. In this case the appellant while in the exercise of a perfectly lawful right to use and enjoy the property of his own labor by conducting a manufacture in the line of his avocation quietly and peaceably, in his 'own hired house,' suddenly finds his business declared a crime, and himself absolutely prohibited from carrying it on in his own house under severe criminal penalties, by an act of the Legislature which takes effect immediately. A careful study of the act has satisfied us that its aim was not 'to improve the public health by prohibiting the manufacture of cigars and preparation of tobacco in any form in tenement houses in certain cases, and regulating the use of tenement houses in certain cases,' as declared in the title, but to suppress and restrain such manufacture in the cases covered by

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