before probate is made good by subsequent probate, | other, was insufficient to establish an attempt to "for it is sufficient if the probate appears upon the declaration.” In Thompson v. Reynolds, 7 B. & C. 123, the true doctrine was more distinctly explained. In that case upon an issue made by plea and replication whether the plaintiff was executor in manner and form as averred in his declaration, in which he actually made profert of his letters, he was allowed to recover, although the proof showed the letters were not granted until some months after the declaration was filed. equity also it has been held that proof of probate before the hearing is sufficient, although occurring during the litigation. Humphreys v. Humphreys, 3 P. | Wms. 349. And see Comber's case, 1 id. 768. Richards v. Pierce. Opinion by Campbell, J. In FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCE — INNOCENT VENDEE FROM ONE FRAUDULENTLY SELLING, PROTECTED. — F., who was indebted to V. to the amount of $1,000, sold him merchandise for $1,600, V. giving his own negotiable notes for the difference between the debt and the purchase-price. In an action by V. against a sheriff who had attached the goods at the suit of creditors of F., the court below ruled that if V. purchased in good faith in payment of an actual debt from F. to himself and gave to F., for the difference between the murder. So on an indictment under the same chapter for attempting to discharge loaded fire-arms at a person, it was held in Regina v. Lewis, 9 C. & P. 523, that some act must be shown to prove the person did attempt to discharge the fire-arms, and merely presenting them was not sufficient. Upon an indictment for attempting to discharge a pistol loaded with powder and ball with intent to murder, a witness testified, "the prisoner took out a small pistol and said: 'I will settle you,' or 'I will do you,' and either half or fullcocked the pistol, and pointed the muzzle at my brother," with his finger on the trigger; yet it was held the charge of felony could not be supported as it was not proved that the prisoner drew the trigger. Reg. v. St. George, id. 483 (38 E. C. L. R.). Parke, B., said: "Here a trigger was to be drawn and it is not drawn. It seems to me the object of this act was to punish proximate attempts, that is those attempts which immediately lead to the discharge of loaded fire-arms." It is true in People v. Bush, 4 Hill, 133, a conviction was sustained for an attempt to commit a felony, where the act proved was as remote from the crime intended to be perpetrated as the act proved is in the present case. That ruling, however, rests on a statute of New York which contains language not in debt and the price of the goods, his negotiable promis- the English act cited, nor in the Pennsylvania statute. It has the additional words, "and in such attempt shall do any act toward the commission of such offense." Pennsylvania Sup. Ct., Oct. 25, 1880. Stabler v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Opinion by Mercur, J. GRAND JURY OBJECTION TO COMPETENCY OF JUROR WHEN IT WILL AND WHEN IT WILL NOT LIE. sory notes, he got a good title as against creditors, even though F. may have sold with intent to defraud them. Held, that this was correct. Where a person buys for the sole purpose of obtaining payment of an honest debt the circumstance that the seller intends to hinder or defraud his creditors does not make the sale void. It must be made out that the buyer participated in the fraudulent intent. Hill v. Bowman, 35 Mich. 191; Loomis v. Smith, 37 id. 595; Jordan v. White, 38(1) The expression of an opinion that an accused perid. 253; State Bank v. Chapelle, 40 id. 447; Dudley v. Danforth. 61 N. Y. 626. The sale was an outside thing and it was either good or bad. It was not divisible so as to leave so much as the prior indebtedness represented, good, and so much as the notes represented, bad. As the notes were negotiable and given in time they might be enforced against the maker and there was ground for regarding them as payment. mann v. Van Buren. Opinion by Graves, J. CRIMINAL LAW. son is guilty, by a grand juror before he was sworn, appears never to have been a ground of challenge in the English courts. Some respectable authorities in this country hold that it is, but these generally hold that the exception must be taken before the grand jury is sworn. The common law requires grand jurors to be good and lawful freeholders and inhabitants of the Beur-county; and where that law prevails a disqualified grand juror may be challenged before indictment found. 3 Bac. Abr., Juries, A; 1 Chitty on Crim. Law, 309; United States v. Williams, 1 Dill. 492. In People v. Jewett, 3 Wend. 314, it is said. "There are causes of challenge to grand jurors, and these may be urged by those accused, whether in prison or out on recognizance, and it is even said that a person wholly disinterested may as amicus curia suggest that a grand juror is disqualified. But such objection, to be availing, must be made previous to the juror's being impanelled and sworn. In the case of United States v. Burr, before the Circuit Court of the United States at Richmond, Va., the prisoner was allowed to challenge graud jurors, on the ground that they had formed and expressed opinions of the prisoner's guilt. But the challenges were made before the grand jury was impanelled and sworn. Burr's trial by Robertson, 38. In Tucker's case, 8 Mass., the court said that Burr's case was solitary in allowing challenges to grand jurors, and a juror objected to by the amicus curia was sworn. In Commonwealth v. Smith, 9 Mass. 107, it was held that objections to the personal qualifications of a grand juror, or to the legality of the returns, cannot affect any indictments found by the jury after they have been received by the court and filed. In Musick v. People, 40 Ill. 268, it was held that if an expression of opinion by a grand juror were a ground of challenge, the objection must be taken before the juror is sworn. In Indiana, a person under prosecution for crime, and in custody or on bail, may challenge, for good cause, any person returned or placed on the grand jury. Hudson v. State, 1 Blackf. 317; Jones v. State, 2 id. 475; State v. Herndon, 5 id. 75; Hardin v. State, 22 ATTEMPT -SOLICITATION TO ANOTHER TO COMMIT CRIME, NOT. A Pennsylvania statute provides that, "if any person shall attempt to administer any poison or other destructive thing, or shall attempt to cut, or stab or wound, or shall shoot at any person, or shall by drawing a trigger, or in any other manner attempt to discharge any kind of loaded arms at any person, or shall attempt to drown, suffocate or strangle any person, with intent, in any of the cases aforesaid, to commit the crime of murder, he shall, although no bodily injury be effected, be guilty of felony. Defendant, who had ill-feeling against W., solicited N. to place poison in a spring belonging to W. so that W. and his family should be poisoned, and handed N. some poison, directing how it should be administered, and offering N. a reward. N. refused to have any thing to do with the matter and handed back the poison. Several days after he found the poison in his overcoat pocket. Held, that there was not sufficient on the part of N. to constitute an attempt to administer the poison. Mere soliciting one to do an act is not an attempt to do that act. Rex v. Butler, 6 C. & P. 368; Smith v. Commonwealth, 4 P. F. Smith, 209. In Kelly v. Commonwealth, 1 Grant, 484, it was held that acts were necessary to constitute an attempt. Under a similar statute in Regina v. Williams et al., 1 Car. & K. 589, it was held that the delivery of poison to an agent with directions to him to cause it to be administered to an Ind. 347; Mershom v. State, 51 id. 14. In Hardin v. State the court say that "no doubt challenges to the polls may be made where any of the jurors have not the necessary qualifications. These challenges, however, must be made before the jury are sworn and charged." In Pennsylvania, the defendants in the case of Commonwealth v. Clark, 2 Browne, 325, being in jail on a charge of homicide, were allowed to challenge grand jurors for favor, before the grand jury were sworn. In New Jersey, the court in the case of the State v. Rockafellow, 1 Halst. 332, held that it was a good plea in abatement to an indictment for rape that one of the grand jurors by whom the bill was found was not a freeholder as required by the statutes of that State. In State v. Richey, 5 Halst., a plea in abatement of the indictment, that two of the grand jurors who found it had expressed an opinion before they were sworn, was not sustained. See, also, United States v. White, 5 Cranch's C. C. 457; Boyington v. State, 2 Port. (Ala.) 100; State v. Easton, 30 Ohio St. 542. If a disqualification discovered after indictment found can be taken advantage of, it must be one that is pronounced such by the common law, or by the statute (if it be a matter of statute), and one that absolutely disqualifies, as alienage or the want of a freehold. (2) One of several defendants indicted by a grand jury pleaded in abatement that there were not twelve members of the grand jury who were in favor of finding a true bill against him, but that the foreman stated to them that they could not find a true bill against the others unless they included him, and that his name was included because the grand jurors thought it necessary in finding a true bill against the others. The State's attorney demurred to this plea. Held, that the court could not allow any evidence as to the proceedings within the grand jury room, which, by their oath, the jurors were to keep secret, and that the State's attorney had no authority by demurrer or otherwise to admit the plea. It was early decided that a grand juror should not be allowed to swear what was given in evidence before them, because he is sworn not to reveal the secrets of his companions. 12 Vin. Abr., B., art. 5, 20, Evidence H. 4; State v. Fassett, 16 Coun. 465. It was also decided at an early day that the clerk of a grand jury could not be compelled to testify what took place before that body. 12 Vin. Abr. 38, Evidence B. And the principle which would prevent disclosure by a grand juror must extend to all persons required by law to be present; for such persons are equally interested in the administration of the penal law. 1 Greenl. Ev., § 288. They are not permitted to disclose who agreed to find the bill of indictment, or who did not agree; nor to detail the evidence on which the accusation was founded. Sykes v. Dunbar, Selw. N. P. 815 (1059); Huidekoper v. Cotton, 3 Watts, 56. And in Regina v. Marsh, 6 Ad. & El. 236, which was an indictment for a misdemeanor, the court refused to receive the affidavit of a grand juror as to the number of grand jurors who concurred in finding the bill. See, also, Regina v. Russell, 1 Car. & Marsh. 247; State v. Baker, 20 Mo. 338. Connecticut Supreme Court of Errors, May term, 1879. State of Connecticut v. Hamlin. Opinion by Hovey, J. (To appear in 47 Conn. Rep.) both. We note the following: Matter of Leszinsky, p. 9.--A statute provides for a pecuniary penalty, for a fine, and for imprisonment. A civil judgment for the penalty does not bar a criminal prosecution for the fiue or imprisonment. United States v. Buffalo Park, p. 189.-A racing park association are not liable to taxation as conducting a "public exhibition of feats of horsemanship," or a "show." Robinson v. Mutual Benefit Life Ins. Co., p. 194.-A policy procured by a husband on his own life for his wife's benefit is assignable by both. U. S. v. Bennett, p. 338.-The celebrated conviction for mailing obscene matter. Matter of Gallagher, p. 410.-A municipal permit, revocable at pleasure, to occupy a market stand, is property passing to an assignee in bankruptcy. Grace v. American Central Ins. Co., p. 433.—A sub-insurance broker, who procures an insurance, is the agent of the insured for the purpose of notification of the cancelling of the policy, under a provision, that any person, other than the insured, who procures the insurance to be taken, shall be deemed the agent of the insured and not of the insurer, "under any circumstances whatever, or in any transaction relating to this insurance." The Southern Home, p. 447.-A vessel is not liable for the consequences of not keeping a look-out, when the omission is caused by the disabling of the crew by the yellow fever. The Niagara, p. 516.-A vessel carried fine table salt in sacks, and powdered arsenic in casks; the casks became broken, and the arsenic penetrated some of the sacks and was distributed throughout the vessel; the sacks were indiscriminately discharged; nothing but an analysis could determine whether any of the salt was fit for consumption; held, that the vessel was liable for the difference in value of all the salt, as sound, and what it produced for fertilizing purposes. The Fidelity, p. 569.-A steam-tug, belonging to and used by a city in performance of municipal duties, is not liable to seizure in a suit for damages inflicted by the tug while actually engaged in the performance of such duties. INDEX OF AMERICAN DECISIONS. Index to the American Decisions and the Editor's Notes thereto, with a table of the Cases re-reported Volumes one to twenty, inclusive. 1760-1830. By A.¡C. Freeman. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co. 1880. Pp. 563. This is a very important accessory to the excellent series which it accompanies. We have so often expressed our sense of the usefulness of the American Decisions that it would be superfluous now to enlarge on the subject. This volume is a gift, and a very generous and timely gift, to the subscribers. It seems, and we have no doubt is, well executed in every particular. THOMPSON'S LIABILITY OF OFFICERS AND AGENTS OF CORPORATIONS. The Liability of Directors and other Officers and agents of Corporations. Illustrated by leading cases and notes. By Seymour D. Thompson. St. Louis: Wm. H. Stevenson, 1880. Pp. xxxix, 722. From the rapidity with which this author has been pouring forth law books this year, it might be suspected that the quality would not keep pace with the quantity. But of this we discover no indication. We can see no marks of padding, inaccuracy, or want of consideration. In Mr. Thompson's recent election to the bench the profession have lost one of their best authors. The present work is on the same plan as those on Negligence and Carriers, which we regard as among the most useful of recent treatises, and it seems to be equally excellent. It grows out of and supplements his Liability of Stockholders, and the line of study involved in the preparation of that excellent work must have given the author a large advantage in the preparation of this. There are six chapters, as follows. per sonal liability of contracting agents of corporations or contracts made for their principals; liability of promoters; liability of directors; statutory liability of directors; personal liability of presidents, cashiers, and other executive officers of corporations; liability of sureties on the bonds of officers of corporations. Of the 33 leading cases reported, 11 are English, 1 from Canada, 5 from Massachusetts, 5 from New York, 3 from New Hampshire, 3 from Pennsylvania, 2 from Maine, and 1 from each of the States of Rhode Island, Michigan and Florida. The book has au appendix of statutory and constitutional provisions. The book is well printed; indeed, St. Louis publishers now stand in the front rank. CORRESPONDENCE. JUDGE DAVIS. Editor of the Albany Law Journal: Its fearlessness and independence combined with its undoubted ability have given to your JOURNAL its commanding influence, and it therefore becomes every faithful friend to insure that its influence is exerted in the right direction. True manliness demands defense as well as attack. It is often easier to condemn than to commend I think, and would like to convince you, that you erred in your attack upon Judge Davis. While we have such pigmies on the bench, let not our Samson be shorn, unles he threatens the temple of justice. If he does, off with his locks and out with his eyes; bind him and blind him. If he does not, if the temple is not in danger, let him alone; his personal conduct is comparatively unimportant. [Our learned friend misapprehends the ground of our animadversion. We did not deny the right of a judge to comment on the testimony, conduct, or demeanor of a witness, although we intimated that we thought the right was often abused. What we endeavored to rebuke was the moral lecture read by the judge to a witness, who, it was not pretended, had committed any crime, or who had not told the exact truth, and whose action thus condemned by the judge was outside the domain of the law, and a mere matter of political conduct. We notice that the leading independent newspapers take the same view as ourselves. We do not object to Samson on the bench, but we advise him to eschew that strong man's favorite weapon. - ED. Alb. L. J.] Judgment affirmed with costs-Loeb v. Hellman; The Eaton, Cole & Burnham Co. v. Avery; Peckham v. Van Wagener; Bergen v. Uhrbahn; The National Bank of Newburgh v. Bigler.—Judgment reversed and new trial granted, costs to abide event - Hilton v. Vanderbilt.- - Judgment of General Term reversed and that of Special Term affirmed with leave to defendants to answer on payment of costs - Marie v. Garrison.— Order of General Term reversed, and that of Special Term affirmed with costs-Ranney v. Peyser. Order of General Term reversed, and judgment on verdict affirmed with costs-Painton v. The Northern Central Railway Co.—Orders of General Term and Special Term reversed without costs- Geib v. Topping. The following decisions were handed down Wednesday, Dec. 1, 1880: The spirit of your article is summed up in its closing word, busybody." This involves a question of right, not of taste. • De gustibus non disputandum." Were it otherwise, a law journal has higher aims than discussions of taste. Nor is the question limited to Judge Davis alone. It is a grave question for the profession, bench and bar alike. A busybody is a meddler, one Judgment affirmed, with costs-Canaday v. Krum; who interferes in matters with which he has no legiti-Zimmerman v. Erhard; Jones v. Benedict; Harris v. mate concern. In applying that opprobrious epithet to Judge Davis in your remarks upon the Philp trial, I contend that you were positively and unqualifiedly in error. The following propositions must be conceded, and if conceded, demonstrate that fact: Judge Davis, as chief justice of the Supreme Court in the First Department, lawfully sat as committing magistrate in the Philp case. The illustrious example of Chief Justice Mansfield in a similar case, cited by Judge Davis, is in point. As such magistrate, where the prosecution refused to accept a waiver of examination, it was his sworn duty to take the testimony of the witnesses for the prosecution and defense. In rendering his decision he had the right to give a written opinion stating the conclusions at which he had arrived. In that opinion he might review the evidence, state the facts proved and his conclusions of law. In reviewing the evidence, he had the right to refer to any particular witness, collate the evidence given by other witnesses on the same subject, and state his convictions respecting the accuracy or truthfulness of such witness, although he was not the accused. The books are full of similar cases. Jury trials constantly witness such procedure. Errors in such statements neither demonstrate nor emphasize an improper interference of the judiciary. Such errors are protected in the doctrine of judicial irresponsibility. If the foregoing propositions are sound in law, then Judge Davis, in making comments upon a witness in the Philp investigation, did what he had a right to do, and acted judicially, and not as one concerning himself about other men's matters. Tumbridge; Kinghorn v. Wright; Gotendorf v. Goldschmidt; Callmeyer v. The Mayor, etc., of New York; Co.-Judgment reversed and new trial granted, costs Wooley v. The Grand Street and Newtown Railroad to abide event-The St. Nicholas Insurance Company v. The Merchants' Mutual Fire and Marine Insurance Company; Clark v. McCann.―Judgment reversed and demurrer overruled, with leave to defendant to answer on payment of costs-Horn v. The Town of New Lots.Ŏrder reversed and judgment modified by deducting therefrom the additional allowance, and as so modified, affirmed without costs to either party in this court-Weaver v. Ely. NOTES. The American Law Register for November has an article on Voidable and Void Judgments, by Frederick J. Brown; the case of Corporation of London v. Riggs, concerning right of way by necessity, with note by Edmund H. Bennett; the case of Cotton v. Gregory, concerning fraudulent delivery of escrow, with note by M. D. Ewell.The current number of Abbott's New Cases contains a note on special public officers as agents of the State or municipality. Mr. Hall's excellent treatise on International Law, which we noticed at page 238, is published by Macmillan & Co., New York, and is sold in Albany by E. Ellis & Co.-We have received a communication on jury trial, which we should like to publish, if only for the reason that the writer does not agree with our views, but it is anonymous, and we never publish anonymous communications.-Mr. John T. Wheelwright, a rising young lawyer of Boston, says of chief-justice Gray, "his head rises above the region of perpetual hair." The Albany Law Journal. ALBANY, DECEMBER 11, 1880. CURRENT TOPICS. THE Secretary of State, the Comptroller, and the State Reporter, constituting the board empowered to award the contract for publishing the Court of Appeals Reports of this State, have awarded the contract for three years to Weed, Parsons & Co., publishers of this JOURNAL, at the price of $1 per volume when delivered over their counter, and $1.30 when delivered by mail or express, delivery to be prepaid. The board adopted the sensible resolution not to award the contract at a price less than the fair cost, and thus got rid of the abuses and annoyances which have attended the late contract. The new publishers certainly will not grow rich out of the contract; indeed, the price will barely cover expenses; but the public may be sure that the contract will be cheerfully, faithfully, and promptly fulfilled. The reports are ridiculously cheap at this price, and by far the cheapest in the world. Two dollars a volume would be about a fair price. These reports really ought to be published by the State. As it now stands, the series is owned by three different publishers, always "by the ears," and unwilling to sell to one another, so that it is a difficult and annoying matter to obtain a complete set. We barely alluded last week to the fine mare's nest discovered by Mr. Richard Grant White, namely, that education leads to pauperism and crime. We suppose Mr. White himself, being one of the best educated men in our country, has only been saved from the poor-house or the penitentiary by dint of arduous straining and holding back. But let us glance at Mr. White's statistics. The six New England States in 1860 had a native white population of 2,666,000, of which only 8,543 adults could not read and write; a proportion of 1 to 312. In Delaware, Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, there were at the same time 3,182,000 native white inhabitants, of whom about 263,000 could not read and write; a proportion of 1 to 12. In the New England prisons at the same time, there were 2,459 criminals, and in those of the six Southern States only 477. New England culture, therefore, furnished 1 native white criminal to every 1,084 inhabitants, while the ignorance of the Southern States produced only 1 to every 6,670; a disproportion of more than 6 to 1. At the same time New England had 1 publicly supported pauper to 178 inhabitants, while the six Southern States had but 1 to 345. Now this looks prima facie, as if a little learning were a dangerous thing. But Mr. White's basis of reasoning is delusive. Crime and pauperism are always most prevalent where population is the densest, as in our large cities, both North and South. In New England there are about 50 people to a square mile, while in the six States named above there are only about 33. MassachuVOL. 22.- No. 24. setts has 157, while Georgia has 18, North Carolina 19, South Carolina 20. This is the first delusion. The second is Mr. White's assumed elimination of the effect of "foreign-born immigration upon the criminal record of the United States." He cannot eliminate it. Among his native-born white population are a great number of children of immigrants, which are really a foreign element. The proportion of foreigners to natives in New England was 1 to 7, while in the six Southern States it was not more than 1 to 25. The third delusion is the argument derived from the population of the poor-houses and prisons. The apparent advantage on the side of the South springs simply from the unquestionable fact that in those States paupers were not supported nor criminals punished in any proportion approaching that which prevailed in New England. So much for Mr. White's statistics and his argument. It is quite probable that a new estimate, founded on the present census, might show much more favorably for New England and education. Let Mr. White try his hand on fresh materials, and bring in New York for the North, and embrace Texas among the Southern States, and we think the cause of education would look up. In the mean time Mr. White ought not to say a word against the education of New England, which furnishes him so many readers and so much patronage, nor try to inculcate the idea that his works are more popular among the criminal than among the virtuous classes. We are somewhat relieved by learning that Dr. Hammond thinks that insanity is gradually becoming milder, and that he attributes this to popular education. -- Mr. Bergh does not believe much in prison libraries, prison schools, or prison preaching. If Mr. Bergh is to be taken at his own word he is much tenderer of dumb beasts than of mankind. This is the natural result of turning the sympathies for a great many years into a single channel. One cannot reasonably be expected to make it his sole business to defend animals from the cruelty of men, and to have much spare sympathy for men. So Mr. Bergh says, "if a man cannot live without murdering somebody, he must be got out of the way — I say kill him." He would abolish all the penitentiaries, and substitute the whipping-post. He admires the bastinado. "As for the criminal, when he leaves prison, my advice to him is to profit by the punishment, and go away off somewhere where nobody knows him, and build up for himself a new name. It is utterly out of the question for him to rise to be a respectable citizen in the place where his crime was committed. He cannot do it. It's a sad fact, Mr. President, but it is true. You cannot change human nature." This is the humane gentleman whose heart bleeds for a belabored jackass, and who goes into hysterical weeping over a pig scalded rather than stuck. Put Mr. White and Mr. Bergh together in charge of public affairs, and we should have a rare world. By all means let us abolish common schools and set up the whipping-post, and give the criminal to understand that he can never redeem himself. This will encourage the others. First, Mr. White to promote ignorance, and then Mr. Bergh to wale the ignorant for not knowing better than to sin. If one wishes to see the hardest-hearted man on earth let him look at a professional humanitarian; and if one would see a man who has no faith in education for the common people, let him look at him who has gotten so much more than his share that he regards learning as the monopoly of himself and a few others. Truly, our wise men are talking a great deal of nonsense just now. Our readers will be greatly interested in the memoir of Lord Chief Justice Cockburn in another column. The writer has exceptional advantages for speaking of the great judge, having known him for 40 years, and having witnessed some of his greatest forensic successes. There must be two opinions, however, about Chief Justice Cockburn's conduct on the Tichborne trial, and about his domestic virtues. It is our opinion, derived from reading and listening to witnesses, that Mr. Kenealy had quite as much to suffer from the judge as the judge had to bear from him. Nor do we believe that "evil should be to him who thinks evil" of the chief justice's irregular domestic life. There is altogether too much truckling to and condonation of such faults in great men. It is bad enough for a king or a prince to keep mistresses and breed bastards, but these things in a judge are monstrous, not to be excused or winked at. No man, however great, can be a law unto himself, and he who enforces the law, should keep it. The domestic virtue of Lord Eldon "smells sweet and blossoms in the dust," when contrasted with the lawless and defiant domestic con duct of Lord Chancellor Thurlow and Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, and if the talents and virtues of the latter are worthy of admiration, their vices are surely proper matter of warning and rebuke. It is probable that several vacancies will soon occur in the Federal Supreme Court. The health of Justices Clifford and Hunt is such that they will probably never sit in court again, and it is rumored that Justices Swayne and Strong will soon resign. This will leave places to be filled which are now occupied by residents of Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. The remainder of the court consists of Chief Justice Waite, of Ohio; Mr. Justice Bradley, of New Jersey; Mr. Justice Harlan, of Kentucky; Mr. Justice Miller, of Iowa; Mr. Justice Field, of California. It is to be hoped that in the new appointments some regard will be had to geographical distribution. The proper South is now without any representative on this bench. She certainly ought to have one, if not two. New England, New York and Pennsylvania will of course expect the successors of their respective representatives to be taken from the same localities. Probably Ohio will have the resignation of Mr. Justice Swayne we earnestly hope it will be supplied from one of the Southern Atlantic or Gulf States. This is due to that region. We are confident that there are lawyers there fit for the office, and we dare say some one of them could be induced to accept it. In our own State the president would have ample materials for selection. ExSecretary Bristow, or ex-Judge Dillon, would shed luster on the post, being both in the prime of their mental and physical powers, and having exceptional gifts and attainments for this elevated judicial station. We say this without personal acquaintance with either of these gentlemen, and upon the assumption that a Republican would naturally be selected to succeed Mr. Justice Hunt. It would be a graceful act to appoint a Democrat in place of Mr. Justice Clifford, and the court would be none the worse even if it were more equally divided in political opinion than at present. A movement has been organized by the Municipal Society of the city of New York for the reduction of the expenses of the judiciary and law department in that city. These expenses now amount to $1,250,000 annually, and it is sought to reduce them to $800,000 or $850,000. This is a much needed reform. We see no reason for paying the higher judges in that city $15,000 a year, while judges of the same rank outside the city, and even the judges of the Court of Appeals, get only half as much. The police justices in the city have $6,000 a year, or as much as cabinet officers. There can be no doubt that the judges in the city are most extravagantly paid. It is proposed, however, to reduce the salaries of the Supreme Court judges only to $10,000, or the same that the judges of the Federal Supreme Court receive; and those of the judges of the Superior Court and Court of Common Pleas to $8,000, while those of the police justices are to be reduced only to $5,000. It was stated in the meeting that a judge of the Superior Court has been suffering from softening of the brain, and has not done a day's work in two years, but has drawn his salary. If this is correct, this is an abuse. Why do not those stalwart reformers, the Bar Association, take hold of these matters? It was stated in the meeting of the Municipal Society that "they don't touch delicate matters over there." Has the asso ciation degenerated since the days of the "ring" judges? It is a great deal better for the bench to have a healthy fear of the bar, than for the bar to be slavishly afraid of the bench; and if the lawyers in New York will lay hold of this abuse by concert, the judges will not be able, even if inclined, to molest them. The Municipal Society has our hearty sympathy and concurrence in this matter, while to the Bar Association we look with - curiosity. NOTES OF CASES. [N Atlantic State Bank v. Savely, a decision of our the like expectation, but it ought not to be gratified. Court of Appeals, reported ante, 453, a principle IN Aldi B, Let her be content with the chief justiceship, the presidency for two successive terms, and the secretaryship of the treasury. If a vacancy occurs by is laid down which will be important to National as well as State banks, namely, that such banks may |