464). I am not now called upon to consider the question whether the particular fund from which the relator derives his pension has characteristics which would prevent the application of the general rule. It is unnecessary to do so, as the charter section under construction is sweeping and applies to all pensions. The rule is applicable wherever the allowance is strictly a pension as that term has been construed in the law, and under that rule it seems that the legislature, being the granting authority, would have ample power to incorporate a provision in the act allowing the pension to the effect that it should terminate or become forfeited if the pensioner accepts another office. There is the remedy, if remedy be sought, but the end cannot be accomplished by a general act announcing a rule as to eligibility in conflict with the general provisions and the spirit and intent of the Constitution. So far as I have been able to discover the question here discussed has never been passed upon in this State and no specific authorities can be cited in its support. The numerous opinions, however, in the case of Rathbone v. Wirth (6 App. Div. 277, 150 N. Y. 45), and especially the unreported one of Mr. Justice Parker at Special Term, may be referred to with profit for underlying principles equally applicable to the case at bar. The relator is entitled to a writ.

the present discussion. The vital question is, assuming that this is a combination, will it be stopped. not whether it ought to be, but will it be?

When trusts were first "invented" the public looked upon them as horrible monsters designed to impoverish, if not to devour, the people. It was prophesied that every economic ill would come from them. Therefore, almost every lover of his people racked his brain to evolve some means or measure to prevent or suppress them, as every good citizen would endeavor to prevent or put down a pestilence. The great danger anticipated was the raising of prices, and thus forcing the consumer to pay outrageously for his necessaries. Laws were enacted in every State and by the federal government to exterminate combinations tending to raise prices. If a law was found weak, a stronger and more stringent one was put in its place, but all this bore no fruit that was gatherable. Then it was said that the danger was not so much with combinations tending to elevate prices as with those tending to reduce them, and thus freeze out competition. The legislative guns and cannons were trained on that sort of combinations, but still without any result. In the face of all this legislation, the most bitter, vitriolic and drastic that the law-makers could devise, trusts have multiplied and grown beyond the wildest dream of the "father of trusts," whoever he may be. To-day there is no place in this country where they find any real difficulty in doing

What can the governor of Minnesota do about the Northern Securities Company? Can the governor of Minnesota or any other State, or anybody else, prevent the completion of the plans of the Northern Securities Company in their present form or some other effecting the same results?

These questions have been asked of probably every important corporation lawyer in this city many times within the past month. It is alleged that the company was formed effectually to consummate a brilliant plan to combine competing railroads. Now, assuming that it was, are the laws now in existence adequate to prevent this? If not, will there be sufficient human ingenuity to frame new laws to meet the situation? And, if new laws are enacted that meet the necessities of the case, will they really prevent the combination? These are the riddles to be solved.

A distinction is sometimes sought to be drawn between "trusts," so-called, and enormous corporations combining competitors, but as far as the public is concerned this differentiation is merely a play on words. It is immaterial to the public whether the combination is doing business as a trust or under corporate form.

Whether trusts and combinations are or are not hurtful, or whether laws for their suppression should or should not be enacted, is not within the scope of

One might, from the foregoing, jump to the conclusion that the courts have come under the shadow

of corporate influence, and have favored trusts and combinations by failing to give judicial sanction to the legislative enactments, or by placing obstacles in the way of the enforcement of the legislative will but not so. In almost every State the pronouncements of the courts against trusts have been

radical, with decrees intended to be destructive. But the trusts seem to have found the judicial poison designed to accomplish their death, fattening food. In this State one of the early cases was the dissolution in 1890 by the Court of Appeals of the sugar trust. The court, in passing that solemn death sentence, said:

In this State there can be no partnership of separate and independent corporations, whether directly or indirectly, through the medium of a trust; no substantial consolidations which avoid and disregard the statutory provisions and restrictions, but manufacturing corporations must be and remain several as they were created, or one under the statute.

That decree, which was hailed with delight as the salvation of the people, unwittingly pointed the way to a vast corporation accomplishing the precise thing which the decree intended to render impossible. Out of the ashes in the urn in that judicial crematory there sprang a new and mighty corporation, and the sugar trust of 1901 can look at the sugar trust of 1890 as a man looks upon a boy.

In 1892 the Supreme Court of Ohio, in dissolving the standard oil trust, said:

But it is notorious that the decree did not, as a matter of fact, dissolve that trust, and, besides, the present yearly dividends of the Standard Oil Company would make a very respectable percentage of the capital "stock" of the Standard Oil trust of 1892. The highest court of Texas forfeited the right of the Waters-Pierce Oil Company, the then local name of the Standard Oil Company of the Southwest, to do business in Texas, and that decision was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court. The Texas agents of the company were arrested, and they appealed in vain to the Supreme Court at Washington for relief. One would think that all this would have put an end to that mighty corporation, as far as Texas was concerned, but a new Standard Oil Company was organized under the laws of Texas, and is doing business in that State, and it is well known that the Standard Oil interests are most powerful in the newly discovered Texas oil fields.

In Illinois a great victory (?) was won for the people in the decree abolishing the whiskey trust. A new company was immediately formed to take its place, and I believe by the very men who brought about the proceedings which resulted in its dissolution, and the present whiskey trust is a much more powerful institution than the old one.

Quite recently corporate interests were driven into a cold perspiration by the sensational opinion of the Supreme Court of Illinois against the glucose trust (a corporation) because of the fear that no combination, under whatever form, could thereafter do business in that State; and yet even the glucose trust seems to be running along as well as ever, and every other trust in America is doing business in Illinois without a particle of real friction.

The Supreme Court of the United States "unsettled the market" for a few days by deciding in the Trans-Missouri Freight Association case that an agreement between interstate railroads for making rates contravened the federal law known as the Sherman act, and yet such agreements are in effect to-day to a greater extent than ever before.

These cases are only samples. The highest courts of nearly every State in the Union have rendered opinions against trusts and combinations in language that was eloquent of the wrongs of the people, and in almost every instance the decision was adverse to the combination. The federal courts have shown them no friendliness. The Supreme Court at Washington has been unsparing of them. But whether the case was in the State or federal court, there has always been the same net result — nothing.

inspired by the powerful appeal of the widow's lawyer, he said: "The judgment must be for the bank, but the record of the court will show that the plaintiff has the sympathy of the court." In the cases of trusts and corporations controlling combinations, the courts have always shown their "sympathy for the people" by rendering decrees against the trusts and combinations, but these decrees have uniformly turned out to be impossible of genuine enforcement. Therefore, if experience is to be our guide, it would seem that the objects sought to be accomplished by the Northern Securities Company will be attained-in one form or another.

HENRY WOLLMAN.

MEDICINE AND THE LAW.

It should be difficult for anyone to write drily on a subject of such varied fascination as forensic medicine, but to make the theme of vivid interest by word of mouth in the class-room may possibly be a more exacting task. Dr. Vivian Poore is to be credited with the double success of having produced a very good book which is at the same time an entirely delightful series of lectures. His Treatise on Medical Jurisprudence (Murray) is "based on lectures delivered at University College," and, if the professor's platform style in any way resembles his literary style, the students to whom these lectures were addressed must have been sorry when the last of them had been delivered. Racy is not the most usual epithet to apply to a book of medical jurisprudence, but it fits this one with an uncommon degree of precision. It is, in a word, while wholly practical and intended solely for students, such capital reading from the first page to the last, so taking, and so lighted up with wit, that it might easily secure a success not less popular than professional. This might shock Dr. Poore, but it would be his merited penalty for having proved to demonstration that a subject in its very essence technical - a subject involving, moreover, such things as murder, assault, sudden death, homicide, poisoning, and insanity may be so handled as to result in literature, and literature of the most genial description.

It is not my intention to talk text-book at you," says Dr. Poore in his introductory lecture, and this gives the keynote to the spirit of the series. The treatment is free and colloquial throughout, but at every step the student is placed in possession of the facts he ought to know in the general practice of

medicine and law, and the full and effective use that is made of illustrative cases should assist to fix essential details in the memory. Take, as an instance of Dr. Poore's method, his advice to the man of medicine on giving evidence in a court of law. Medicine is "hedged about by very long words, and the use of jargon has become a mischievous habit with most of us." Always ready to tell a story against himself in illustration of his point, Dr. Poore goes on to say that in his house surgeon days he had to give evidence in a case in which a man had been knocked down by an engine. "I described the various wounds the man had, and amongst others, one going from the commisure of the eyelids backwards, and I said that after he was admitted he suffered from traumatic delirium. The newspapers next day reported that the man was 'a connoisseur of the eyelids' and had aromatic delirium." The bench itself will sometimes make short work of a pedantic medical witness. "You mean, I suppose," said a judge to one of these, "that the man had a black eye?"

Witness - Yes.

Judge Then why don't you say so at once? Be dry in the witness box, says Dr. Poore to the young practitioner; avoid the adjective, the adverb, and the metaphor. I Say that the wound was so many inches long; that the man may have lost six ounces of blood. It is much better than saying 'he had a frightful wound' and 'enormous hemorrhage.'" If the medical expert in the witness box is forced to speak of what has passed in the sick room, "I think," says Dr. Poore, "it is a wise course to make it appear to the public that you divulge these professional secrets under judicial compulsion. I have taken that course more than once myself." Should the expert quote authorities? He may, says Dr. Poore, but he had better not. "You must remember that you may have an authority quoted at you." If called as a skilled witness, do not go unless you are really and practically conversant with the facts concerning which you go to testify." A specialist in medicine, for example, who had long abandoned general practice, should avoid appearing as witness in a case requiring very intimate knowledge of midwifery. "Solicitors' actions" are generally to be shunned by doctors; and Dr. Poore, who is seldom at a loss for an apt and humorous illustration, tells two stories in point, both of them personal experiences. His account of an early adventure in which he was attempted to be made a partner with "four criminals who were engaged in a conspiracy," including a sporting solicitor with a straw in his mouth, à barrister with burst boots and a black eye, a proprietor of a homoeopathic dispensary who em

ployed sandwich men to invite clients, and a fatherly medical gentleman who was prepared to stick at nothing in the way of testimony, is not only one of the happiest things in the book, but a practical warning to young doctors into the bargain.

Another chapter or lecture packed with shrewd counsel is that on "Persons Found Dead." It is an important department of the subject; for the police generally and very properly summon first to the scene the nearest medical practitioner. To the doctor thus fetched Dr. Poore says: "Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut." The post mortem will probably be the next step in the business, and this, if there be anything suspicious in the affair, demands the utmost care and skill on the doctor's part. London, and possibly most of the large provincial towns, are nowadays fairly well provided with public mortuaries and coroners' post mortem rooms, but, if the examination has to be made in an out-of-the-way place in the country, "you must take every single thing with you which is likely to be necessary. I had almost said you must take the water and towels, and a bit of soap to wash yourself with. You can never rely upon getting anything." If possible, also take with you a fellow expert, and let your notes be written in such a manner that there may be no fear of their Here is a useful hint respectfailing you in court.

ing the search for signs of external injuries: "I would remind you that sometimes these external injuries are hardly noticed. For instance, a stab with a stiletto under a pendulous breast may pass unnoticed if it is not looked for, and there are cases where sharp instruments have been put up the nostrils. There is a record of a case in which death resulted from the end of a clay pipe being driven up the nostril and through the ethmoid. That is a thing which requires to be hunted for, as it may easily escape notice."

In making a post mortem for a coroner, it is obligatory on the doctor's part to examine all three cavities of the body - the thorax, abdomen, and the head. This was a fact learned by Dr. Poore when he was house surgeon. A man who had fallen from a railway engine was admitted to the hospital smashed. The post mortem revealed ample causes of death, and there, says Dr. Poore, was an end of the matter until I was called one afternoon to give evidence to the coroner." The defense was that the man had fallen off his engine, whereupon the coroner immediately asked Dr. Poore," What was the condition of the brain?" He had to admit that he had not opened the brain, and it is a good case in point.

Dr. Poore recommends the young practitioner —

or any practitioner not to let a stranger be present at a post mortem examination, and, as usual, he has the anecdote pat which makes his reason good. In the famous case- one will never have done quoting this case! - of the murder of Cook by Palmer, the doctor of Rugeley, the murderer himself was present at the post mortem. "As the stomach was being opened, Palmer jogged against the medical man who was collecting the contents of the stomach, and spilled some of them." It might have been an accident, but it was in fact Palmer's first attempt to escape the halter; for it was proved at the trial that he had offered to the postboy of the carriage in which the contents of the stomach were to be transmitted to the analyist, a bribe of £5 to come to grief in a convenient ditch. The obvious moral is, keep out of the post mortem room a possible adversary unknown, and use your judgment."

The exhaustive chapter on the "Legal Relations of the Insane" (as intricate a problem, perhaps, as medical jurisprudence is concerned with) might be cited as a further example of Dr. Poore's skill in that kind of exposition in which the master of his subject gets home to the intelligence of the beginner; leaving nothing unsaid, but always gripping his hearer with an instance, and never sticking at a story that shall compel the essential fact to be remembered. In the domain of forensic medicine, Dr. Poore might say with Macaulay, in that hackneyed instance which something is always freshening, "I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history." He does not, in truth, descend below that level, any more than Macaulay did; but, by eschewing the "jargon' he condemns, and making his theme alive at every turn, he has produced a book which is as entertaining as it is completely useful.- Law Times (London).

THE HONOR OF THE PROFESSION.

The legal profession has many claims to honor and dignity. Its antiquity and learning would alone be sufficient, apart from the lustre conferred on it by a long line of distinguished men. In every department of public life those who have had a legal training take foremost place; and so far has this been so, that by many the surest way to rank and position in the State is deemed to be through the dcors of the profession. Such facts, however, do not go to the root of the matter, which is found in the nature of law itself. By the term laws." says Blackstone, "it is intended to denote the rules of human action or conduct; that is to say, the precepts by which man, a creature endowed with both reason and free will, is commanded to make use of

those faculties in the general regulation of his behavior." If law is indeed the science of human action and conduct, clearly man can engage in no higher or more honorable effort than the endeavor to rightly understand that science, to practice himself its precepts, and to aid in the due administration of its rules. No one can be indifferent to this science, for (again to quote Blackstone), “it is incumbent upon every man to be acquainted with those laws at least with which he is immediately concerned, lest he incur the censure, as well as the inconvenience, of living in society without knowing the obligations which it lays him under; and a knowledge of the law is still more incumbent upon men of rank and education, who are under duties both to the public and to themselves, and cannot discharge such duties without some degree of knowledge in the laws." These are old-world phrases, but they have much force; and in their insistence on the duty, they at the same time imply the honor due to those who successfully perform it. The names of illustrious men who have well earned this honor will occur to most lawyers.

It is strange, then, that in spite of the honorable nature of the calling, in spite of the number of those who have in the profession deserved the praise and respect of men, the name of "lawyer" should in its general acceptation be mainly suggestive of narrowness, strife, want of business knowledge, selfishness, and indifference to the rights of others. That this acceptation is general there is unfortunately no lack of evidence. With innumerable writers, and in ordinary conversation, the mention of a lawyer is often the opportunity for some scathing remark, some satire or abuse. Even at the present day, notwithstanding the personal respect which many have for individual lawyers, and making allowance for the exaggeration of attempts at humor in their anecdotes, the general attitude of the public towards those who practice the law, in either branch of the profession, is far from favorable. Everywhere the feeling exists, either latent or expressed, that lawyers as a body have for their main objects professionally the encouragement of litigation, the hedging round of ordinary dealings between man and man with numberless restrictions and difficulties, the endeavor to evade the law for the advantage of particular individuals; all with the ultimate view of benefiting themselves pecuniarily at the expense of their clients or the public. The needful and characteristic exactness and care of a lawyer, his habit of looking all round a subject before committing himself to an opinion, his close examination of phrases to ascertain their actual meaning, are all, even in private life, but further evidence to the lay mind of his aloofness from practical affairs, his pedantry, and his fondness for the splitting of hairs. Even when recognizing the personal uprightness of his own legal adviser, and acknowledging the care and thought which have been bestowed on his own case, a client will not seldom be found treating these