testator, and a recent judge (not named) who, though struck with hydrocephale, yet performed his duties "with transcendent ability" to the very last. The whole report, in fact, is well worth reading by the student of medical jurisprudence. The writer ventures to think, from his limited observation of human nature, that the desire for vengeance is usually stronger with the fair sex than with their soi-disant lords and masters. Mrs. Swinfen was no exception to this rule. Flushed with victory she now entered the lists against her late counsel, the august chancellor himself, and sued Lord Chelmsford for damages for a "fraudulent" compromise against instructions. Swinfen v. Chelms The heir, who evidently had more confidence in the verdict already obtained than in the result of a fresh trial, went to chancery with a supplemental bill for a decree for a specific performance of the compromise (Swinfen v. Swinfen, 27 L. J. R. Eq. 35), and now a fresh actor appeared upon the scene, in the person of Kennedy, a provincial barrister prac-ford, L. J. N. S. Exch. 383. This however was a ticing at Birmingham, who had taken up the forlorn widow's cause, and who proved a champion very different from Thesiger. The Master of the Rolls, Romilly, in an able and exhaustive judgment, rejected the compromise, taking the same view as Crowder, that counsel had no power to give estates away at his own discretion. He instanced with approval a case within his own knowledge where a great advocate had in open court refused to consent to a compromise actually agreed to by his client, on the ground that the client did not understand the sacrifice he was making, and refusing the specific performance prayed, he ordered a new trial. This judgment was the first crumb of comfort that had fallen to the widow's lot, but was, of course, far from pleasing to the heir, who appealed -only to get an excoriation from the lord justices (Swinfen v. Swinfen, 27 L. J. R. Eq. 69), Knight Bruce observing that the heir's attempt was only a pis aller, and varying the Master of the Rolls' decision in the widow's favor, so far as to give her costs of the suit. The new trial accordingly came on at Stafford in March, 1858. The evidence of the letters remained, but a mass of other evidence was put in, all tending to show that the testator's mental faculties, if impaired at all, were not so damaged as to deprive him of testamentary competency. The judge summed up against the widow, but the jury were not influenced by his lordship, and returned a verdict establishing the will, a result due principally to the able advocacy and thorough mastery of the case displayed by Kennedy. The heir was not yet shaken off however. He went to the Master of the Rolls for a new trial (Swinfen v. Swinfen, 28 L. J. R. Eq. 849), but far from getting it the Master stated that had the verdict been otherwise he would have sent the case down again. In the course of argument Kennedy went far and wide for instances of physical imbecility combined with mental competency. Many eminent characters in history were referred to, amongst others the great Marlborough, who stricken with paralysis, his mouth awry, unable to articulate, was yet competent to make a most important codicil just before his death. Lord Eldon, the famous chancellor, Sir Herbert James Fust, who suffered from the very disease which affected the little too much, and the court unanimously dismissed her suit, and settled by its decision the powers and responsibilities of counsel. And here, if this were a novel, and not a statement of facts, would come the obvious and happy conclusion, viz.: the marriage of the plucky widow to her devoted advocate, and the usual notice in the Times, "St. George's, Hanover Square - Swinfen to Kennedy. No cards.” But unfortunately the affairs of mankind seldom end correctly. Mrs. Swinfen did not become Mrs. Kennedy, but she did become Mrs. Brown, and thereupon followed another great suit, viz.: the leading case of Kennedy v. Brown and Wife, 32 L. J. R., C. P. 137. Kennedy alleged that having given up his other practice, and devoted himself wholly to the advocacy of the widow's rights, both at the bar and by writings and pamphlets, "designed to render her cause popular," she had agreed in return to pay him a fee of £20,000 in the event of success, and for this sum he sued. Upon the argument English common lawyers became civilians for the nonce, and went deep into the mysteries of the "lex cineia," and the old usages of the Roman patrons and advocates. C. J. Erle presided, and delivered perhaps his finest judgment, settling what in fact had hardly before been seriously doubted, that an English barrister's fee is an honorarium, and cannot be made the subject of a legal claim. He was terribly hard on poor Kennedy, but as a specimen of judicial eloquence his deliverance can hardly be surpassed, and we cannot resist the temptation of quoting therefrom the following description of a model advocate: "We are aware that in the class of advocates, as in every other numerous class, there will be bad men taking the wages of evil and therewith also for the most part, the early blight that awaits upon the servants of evil. We are aware also that there will be many men of ordinary powers performing ordinary duties without praise or blame, but the advocate entitled to permanent success must unite high powers of intellect with high principles of duty. His faculties and acquirements are tested by a ceaseless competition, proportioned to the prize to be gained, that is, wealth and power and honor without, and active exercise for the best gifts of mind within. He is trusted with interests and privileges and powers almost to an unlimited degree. His client must * ** trust to him at times for fortune and character and life. The law trusts him with a privilege, in respect of liberty of speech, which is, in practice, bounded only by his own sense of duty, and he may have to speak on subjects concerning the deepest interests of social life, and the innermost feelings of the human soul. * If an advo cate with these qualities stands by the client in the time of his utmost need, regardless alike of popular clamor and powerful interest, speaking with a boldness which a sense of duty can alone recommend, we say the service of such an advocate is beyond all price to the client, and such men are the guarantees to communities of their dearest rights, and the words of such men carry a wholesome spirit to all who are influenced by them. Such is the system of advocacy intended by the law; requiring the remuneration to be by gratuity." And he then proceeds with little difficulty to show, from a long course of precedent, that such an action as the present could not lie. After this nothing was left for Kennedy but ruin, to which he added disgrace, by certain unsavory statements made in the bitterness of despair. He was disbarred, and died broken-hearted, perhaps the only instance of a lawyer who saved his client and ruined himself. As for Mrs. Swinfen, she may, for all the writer knows, still be living full of years and honors at Swinfen Hall, but if so, she is the sole survivor of the dramatis persone in the "Swinfen cases." Thesiger, Cockburn, Romilly, Knight Bruce, Erle, and all the other erst famous advocates and judges who figured in this long litigation, have now passed to a world where, it is to be presumed, briefs and special retainers are unknown, and new trials are not allowed. THE AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, COURTLANDT PARKER, THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS, 1884. To help to make the Nation one is an evident result to be expected from the complete success of this Association, even if it was not avowed by its original framers. The bar have, all know, the most to do with suggesting, and ordinarily a very large share, directly or indirectly, in the framing of statute law. Familiar communion among them tends to harmonize opinions and action, and do away with those variances, if not conflict, in the institutions, legal customs, laws and polity of the different States, which so powerfully interfere with the oneness of the whole people. And as I suppose, with direct intent to aid in the most desirable result, more than simply to give information which may profit us as practitioners, was the provision of our Constitution which I am now called upon to obey, that your president at each yearly meeting shall communicate"the noteworthy changes in statute law, in the various States and by Congress which have occurred since the last meeting." Climate, early settlement, and various other circumstances affecting locality have grouped the States of this Union in such a way as to create shades of difference not in the degree, but in the character, of their civilization. The citizen upon the Pacific coast cannot help but differ somewhat from his brother in the far habits of thought, ir universally held opinions and geneast. The sons of New England are not the same in eral character with those who belong to the middle States, and they are even farther removed from the dwellers in the far south. The southern Atlantic States contain a population in many respects different from that of Texas, Arkansas, and even Mississippi, Teunescalled when Ohio was still a western State, is very dif see and Kentucky. The western man, who was so ferent in his individualities from all that I have mentioned. And as you approach the Rocky mountains and the Pacific the character of the general western man changes, the boundaries of each State seeming to have something to do with creating diversity of thought, and of mental and moral being among our citizens. There seems to be something in mere boundary everywhere, which makes men on either side differ from each other; this is especially perceptible in the Old World, and very remarkable in Great Britain. and Englishman! And yet they live largely under the How different the Scotchman, Irishman, Welshman, very same laws, and have but one Parliament. Much more remarkable is the difference apparently created merely by shire or county lines in England itself, so that there are found there over twenty dialects-dia lects such that it is difficult for the residents of one county to be understood in another, though all professing to speak the English tongue. We in America have no differences so strongly marked as those we find still existing in the two small islands forming Great Britain. But there are differences nevertheless between the inhabitants of different sections. Hence in performing the task allotted to me I shall not mention the States alphabetically, nor according to seniority of settlement, but shall note their statutory changes according to the grand geographical divisions existing by common consent. ern, middle, southern and western States. I shall remark upon them in this order. We have east An advancing public sentiment tiring of the too often recurrence of legislative machinery has very much lightened the labors of your present president, while the slowness of printers and other causes have nevertheless made his task quite sufficiently hard. There are now no less than twenty States whose Legislatures hold only biennial sessions. Such is the case in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire among the eastern States; in Delaware among the middle; in Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebrasba, Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, Nevada among the western; in Tennessee, West Virginia, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Arkansas among the southern and south-western. From none of these have I any report at this time to make. The Louisiana Legislature is now, or lately was, in session; too lately however to afford any report. In Maine an adjourned session has been busy passing into laws a revision of their general law made by a designated commissioner. Biennial sessions of Legislatures seem exceedingly popular among the members of this association, and it is supposed the bar generally. The member of the General Council for one State writes that its Legislature convenes only in biennial session, and that since the last meeting of the association the State has been mercifully spared from any change in the existing law, as well as from the enactment of any new statutes." Others express the same feeling, though with less pious unction. Nor can one help sympathizing with it, and hoping that one day all of the thirty-eight commonwealths now existing in our wide domain may rest at least one winter or two from "noteworthy statutory changes." The idea of yearly legislative sessions came to us doubtless from our motherland. There it had its origin in just apprehension of executive power. The Parliament was annual, because it was the assembly of the people coming to assert their rights, and unwilling to trust the crown with more than yearly supplies. Through the Parliament the people spoke to rulers not of their making, and .whose interests were or might be in opposition to their own. In this country, certainly in our State governments, there is not the slightest danger of executive oppression. The executive is as much or more the creation of the people than any other officers. Annual Legislatures are both unnecessary and a nuisance. Perhaps it may be said that because plainly unnecessary they must be a nuisance. For an inferior law, thoroughly understood, is often better than a better one which has to be learned, construed and applied. Beginning with the most north-eastern of the States of the Union, I repeat that an adjourned, not a regular, session of the Legislature of Maine was held last August for the purpose of acting upon the report of a commissioner for the revision of the entire body of the State statutes. The revised statutes were enacted to "take effect and become law on the first day of January, one thousand eight hundred and eighty-four." "This revision," I use the language of a member of the association in a volunteer report made at the suggestion of our esteemed and watchful secretary, and for which both have my thanks, "was made under a resolution of March 8, 1881, making it the duty of the commissioner, Hon. Charles B. Goddard, to revise, collate, arrange and consolidate all the general and public laws now in force, and such as shall be enacted at the present session of the Legislature, preserving unchanged the order and arrangement of the present Revised Code, and retaining the phraseology thereof, except so far as it may be necessary to vary it by incorporating existing laws therewith." This revision, it will be seen, absolutely negatives the existence thereby of any noteworthy changes in the statute law of Maine, and any mention of it might therefore have rightly been omitted from this address. But in such revision every lawyer takes the greatest interest. Of Codes the practitioner is apt to be afraid. Even such a revision, which authorizes verbal alteration, however guarded, gives him a slight shiver in view of possibilities. It is a comfort to learn that the work has apparently been performed carefully and skillfully, and it is confidently hoped that it will not be found to give occasion for doubt or uncertainty in its practical application. In New Hampshire and Vermont, as already stated, there has been no legislative session since 1882. In Connecticut I find the following noticeable acts: The 75th meridian of Greenwich is made the standard of time for this State. The late regulation by railroad companies fixing a standard of time through their routes is one which ought to be followed by Legislatures so as to be made general as nearly as possible throughout the Union. The location of public reservoirs of water and cemeteries within half a mile of each other is forbidden unless by permission of the Superior Court of the county. Forsaken cemeteries may, by another law, be put under the charge of the selectmen of the town. In the trial of any capital case, or case involving imprisonment for life, the court may, in its discretion, keep the jury together during trial. This, we believe, is a return in Connecticut to the rule of the common law. The blank indorsement of a promissory note, whether or not negotiable, by a person neither its maker nor payee, before or after the indorsement of such note by the payee, shall hereafter import the con tract of an ordinary indorsement of negotiable paper, as between such indorser and the payee or subsequent holders of such paper. This settles by statute a point long mooted in the courts, and does away with much dangerous parol evidence. There is a valuable act in relation to the registration of births, marriages and deaths, a subject much neglected, yet of very great public and private importance in the detection and prevention of crime, as also civilly. Another act authorizes official court stenographers, and regulates their duties. It may be observed, that while advisable as far as it goes, this act omits some things in which the system it adopts might be improved. Court stenographers should give testimony, if possible, not by question and answer, but in narrative form; except where the report of the question is desired at the moment by either party. As at present generally adopted, stenographic testimony is prolix and fatiguing. And then it should be the rule everywhere, as it is now in some States, that an advocate, when examining a witness, should stand. Elsewise the system abbreviates the proceedings very little. One provision of this act, that "during the trial of a case witnesses shall not be interrupted except for the purpose of having notes of their testimony taken by the stenographer," if enforced, will be apt to burden the case with immaterial or unlawful testimony, for no one's benefit that I can see except the stenographer's. With the notice of one other act, we leave the good State of Connecticut. It relates to the subject of perpetuities, and provides that "no estate in fee simple, fee tail, or any life estate shall be given by deed or will to any person but such as are at the time of the delivery of such deed, or the death of the testator, in being, or to their immediate issue or descendants; and every estate given in fee tail shall be an absolute estate in fee simple to the issue of the first donee in tail." The protection by the State of unprotected children seems an established doctrine in Connecticut as well as in other States in New England. An act of April, 1884, provides that children under sixteen shall not be retained in almshouses if temporary homes have been obtained for them, and no child under sixteen shall be committed as vicious, truant or incorrigible to any jail, almshouse or workhouse. Such go either to industrial schools or to temporary homes institutions supported by public tax in each county. It is impossible not to admire the object of this legislation. Its practical merits require more information than we have been able to attain. The laws of Connecticut cover 469 printed pages. The session lasted about three months. The result would seem to be hardiy an economical achievement, and certainly does not afford an argument against biennial sessions. There is a constitutional amendment before the people, not for biennial sessions, but only for biennial elections. Rhode Island has had two sessions of her Legislature during the present year-one in January and the other in May. We note the following acts: One, an amendment to the law for the suppression of intemperance, forbidding any action for the value of liquor drunk upon the seller's premises; another forbidding license to any person within 400 feet of any public school. These are feeble efforts indeed, but in a right direction. Another act makes it the duty of school committees to make provisions for the instruction of the pupils in all public schools "in physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the effect of alcoholic stimulants and narcotics on the human system." The protection of abandoned or ill-treated children, or children trained to evil conduct, is a topic favored in this bill. The courts of probate are given jurisdiction to inquire in such cases, aud to assign the custody of such children under the age of 17 to the Rhode Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, who are authorized to assign them to be kept and cared for by certain benevolent societies named in the act. Interest in such friendless creatures would seem to be an almost crowning advance of civilization. That the State is in earnest on this subject appears from a later act, which enacts that the State Board of Education shall constitute the board of control of a State home and school for dependent and neglected children, which the statute proceeds to establish and regulate. "It is declared to be the object of this act," we quote its words, "to provide for neglected and dependent children, not recognized as vicious or criminal, such influences as will lead toward an honest, intelligent and self supporting manhood and womanhood, the State so far as possible holding to them the parental relation," and fifteen thousand dollars was appropriated to buy a suitable location for the State Home and School. “An ounce of prevention is worth a pouud of cure." Therefore is education the cheap defense of nations, and therefore is this theme most praiseworthy. Who can tell how many neglected and dependent children, children entirely abandoned, or treated with gross and habitual cruelty by parents and other custodians, or habitually suffering for food or clothing through their neglect, or compelled by wicked parents or custodians to lie, steal or otherwise impose on mankind-how many such children in after life throng our gaols or daugle on the gallows? ists upon this globe. It may be tinctured, as some think, with self-complacency, but it is self-complacency not without extenuation, if not justification. Stability, satisfaction with the law as it stands, and a desire to improve their future by making the State the guardian of unprotected youth, are the apparent characteristics of the legislation of New England. We turn to the next southern division of the Union, the middle States. The session of the New York Legislature for 1884 began on the 1st day of January and only closed on the 16th of May. Its governor has been detained at Albany to a late date considering various acts which his signature might make laws. New York, the State combining, we suppose, a greater variety of interests than any other, and whose laws have been most generally copied, I think, by sister States, has passed many public acts, most of them purely of local character, but some interesting generally. One of the earliest acts of the session created a commission to examine into and report upon the practical operation of the contract system for the employment of convicts in State prisons. This commission was to continue till March 1, 1884. A few days after, whether in consequence of a report I cannot say, another act forbade any new contracts to be made. She has established as standard time the 75th meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, by which all courts and public offices and all legal and official proceedings shall be hereafter regulated. An act in relation to trusts provides that whenever a sale, conveyance or other act of trustees is in coutravention of a trust expressed in the instrument creating the estate, it shall be void; but the Supreme Court are given authority to confer power to mort Another good act associates medical examiners with coroners, and regulates the conduct of both. Another enables town councils to prohibit burials in thickly-gage when necessary to preserve or improve the espopulated districts. I think I have mentioned every act of importance passed at these two sessions. Is not such legislation, good as it may be, very costly? I mean not merely pecuniarily, but in view of the insecurity and excite ment with which legislative sessions are accompanied. A careful search through the 300 pages of the Laws and Resolves passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts during its session of 1884 discovers scarcely any statutes of a public nature worthy being stated to this association. There is an act which seeks to introduce civil service reform in relation to the appointment of State and municipal officers. There are likewise two acts in relation to children: that is, minors under eighteen; one forbidding the exaction from them of more than 60 hours of labor per week in any mercantile establishment; another punishing fathers for unreasonable neglect in providing for them. And attention may well be given to the act, almost the first of the sessiou, making appropriations for sundry charitable expenses, showing that the State contributes nearly half a million per annum for such purposes as the demands of a State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity, including the needs of in-door poor and out-door poor, for State paupers in the lunatic hospitals and asylums of the Commonwealth, for State paupers in the State almshouse, indigent and neglected children, infant asylums for the support of infants having no known settlement in the Commonwealth, outside foundlings, Indian State paupers, and special pupils in the Massachusetts School for the Feeble, and for the inspection of milk, food and drugs. I accept this absence of all noteworthy changes in her statute law as evidence of its general perfection in that ancient and honorable Commonwealth of Massachusetts; a Commonwealth in which the civilization of New Englaud is intensified; a civilization as nearly approaching theoretical perfection, let me add, as ex tate. An amendment of the Penal Code declares that a child of seven and under twelve years is presumed incapable of crime, but the presumption may be removed by proof. It also severely defines and punishes abduction; makes keepers of concert saloons and the like guilty of misdemeanor if they admit in, or permit in them "any child actually or apparently under sixteen, unless accompanied by its parent or guardian;" declares children under sixteen who beg, or gather or pick rags, or collect cigar stumps, bones or refuse from markets; or who have no home, or are in a state of want or suffering, or who are destitute of the means of support, being an orphan, or living or having lived with a parent or guardian who has been sentenced for crime; or who frequent or are in the company of reputed thieves or prostitutes, or in houses of such ill character, or where liquor, wine or ale is sold; or are found playing any game of chance or skill in or near such places, to be vagrants, and authorizes their commitment to charitable or reformatory institutions. It likewise makes criminal the employment of children actually or apparently under sixteen (or the putting out to such employment) as rope or wire walker, gymnast or acrobat, or in begging, peddling or singing or playing instruments, or in any indecent or immoral exhibition or practice, or any thing dangerous to a child's life, limb, health or morals. It also prohibits as criminal the making, selling or giving away the weapons known as sling-shot, billy, sand-club or metal knuckles, or, without consent of a magistrate, giving or selling any pistol or firearm to any person under eighteen. It also makes attempting, or having with intent, to use the enumerated weapons, or a dagger, dirk or dangerous knife, a crime. An amendment of the criminal proceedings allows the compromise of any misdemeanor for which the persons injured have a civil action, except it was committed by or upon an officer of justice while in execu tion of his office, or riotously, or with intent to commit a felony. An act, let me say, which seems very dangerous. The practice in reviewing,criminal matters has been changed by this Legislature. Writs of error and certiorari in criminal actions and proceedings of a crimi ual nature, as they have heretofore existed, are abolished; and hereafter the only mode of reviewing a judgment or order in such cases is by appeal. The scope of forgery is greatly enlarged by another amendment to the Penal Code. It declares that a person who either being an employee falsifies, or unlawfully and corruptly alters, erases, obliterates or destroys any accounts, book of accounts, record or other writing belonging to or in the business of his employer, whether corporate or individual, or who with intent to defraud shall falsely make, or aid in the making or counterfeiting any letter, telegram, report, or other written communication, paper or instrument by which any other person shall be in any manner injured in his good name, standing, position or general reputation, or who shall alter or connive at altering any such false writing or telegram, by the altering of which the sentiments, opinions, conduct, character, prospects, interests or rights of another person shall be misrepresented or otherwise injuriously affected, is guilty of forgery in the third degree. having a population of 500,000 or over shall hereafter be placed under the surface of the streets, lanes and avenues of said city; that every corporation or person owning or controlling such wires and cables, including what is known as telegraph poles, and other appurtenances thereto, shall, before November 1, 1885, have the same removed from the surface of such city; and if they do not the local governments are bidden to do it for them. It further forbids any city to grant any exclusive privilege or franchise under the act. Verily, this is a step in advance. The forest of ugly poles and the network of innumerable wires which meet us at every turn are to disappear. Well done, New York! Now go a little further. Make the law applicable everywhere, and not only to cities having 500,000 people. Let it be the law of the whole State; let it be followed throughout the Union. And by-andby let us hope to see another law also everywhere operative, which shall forbid any railroad crossing a street or ordinary travel-road upon the level, and so rid us of that great nuisance under which the whole land groans. The broken limbs and the lives annually sacrificed through this cause are dreadfully numerous. Why has not the time come for this blood to cry from the ground and persuade us to adopt what all Europe has from the beginning established as the rule? The New Jersey Legislature began its session Janu Another amendment makes trading in obscene liter-ary 8, and it ended, to the gratification of all concerned, ature or pictures, or making or exhibiting them a misdemeanor. An act in relation to the rights and liabilities of married women provides that a married woman may contract to the same extent, with like effect, and in the same form as if unmarried, and she and her separate estate shall be liable thereon, whether such con. tract relates to her separate business or estate or other wise, and in no case shall a charge upon her separate estate be necessary; but the act shall not affect or apply to any contract that shall be made between hus band and wife. This law would seem to demolish the last vestige of the old common law respecting husband and wife. Baron and feme, feme sole and feme couvert pass off into the land of quaint and obsolete tradition. Whether the institution called "home" is not to go too, there being no longer any "baron," and the "feme" being so much of a business partner, is perhaps one of the questions of the future. But, "Verily we are the people, and wisdom will die with us." There is an admirable act (ch. 439) "for the better protection of life and property upon the railroads," entitled "An act to promote the safer and better management of steam railroads," requiring safety switches, warning signals at every bridge crossing tracks, so as to protect employees; flagmen or gates wherever directed by the Supreme or County Court; automatic couplers; the stoppage of locomotives whose tracks cross each other before proceeding; automatic air brakes or other form of safety power brakes; and that all passenger cars shall carry an axe, sledge-hammer, crowbar and handsaw. And there is an additional section requiring baggage-masters, or other persons whose duty it is to handle and remove baggage, to do so carefully, providing that if he willfully or recklessly injure or destroy any trunk, valise, box, bag, package, or parcel, while loading, unloading, transporting, delivering or storing the same, or if any railroad company shall knowingly keep in its employment any such willful or reckless fellow there shall be a penalty of $50, one-half to be paid to the complainant. Blessings on the projector of this law! There is hope for the traveller yet. One more act deserves especial notice. It provides that all telegraph, telephonic and electric light wires and cables used in any incorporated city in the State about April 15. It is hard to say whether any of its acts are "noteworthy" beyond the limits of the State itself. I mention such as seem most so. An act was passed providing that the receipt in writing for money paid by any executor, administrator, with the bill annexed, or trustee in the exercise of a trust or power, shall be a full discharge, and that the receiver shall not need to see to the application of payments made. Another abolished and made penal the contracting for the labor of inmates of the State prison. The effect of this "change" will not soon be seen, as existing contracts have yet some time to run. But whether it be financially or otherwise expedient is a matter of some doubt. Prison discipline requires labor. Sentences impose hard labor, which is the legal synonym for incarceration in the State prison. How well the State itself can manage as a manufacturing and mercantile corporation remains to be seen. A later act directs how the inmates of State prisons are to be employed. They are to be employed, as far as practicable in the judgment of managers, at work upon goods used in such institutions as are under State control, and all prisoners or persons not employed for said purpose shall be employed on what is known as the "piece-price plan," as the managing authorities of such prison may be able to arrange for with parties desiring such labor; or they shall be employed under what is known as the "public account system." How "arrauging with parties desiring such labor" is to be distinguished from contracting for labor, will be for some learned judge some day to find out. Another act regulates lettings in cases where no definite term is fixed, and the rent is payable monthly. I hardly think it can be thought to have been skillfully drawn. It provides that "in any letting where no term is agreed upon, and the rent is payable monthly, so long as the tenant pays the rent as agreed, it shall be unlawful for the landlord to dispossess the tenant before the first day of April succeeding the commencement of such letting, without giving the tenant three months notice in writing to quit; provided however, that in case such tenant shall be so disorderly as to destroy the peace and quiet of the other tenants living in said house, or the neighborhood, or shall willfully destroy, damage, or injure the |