subsequent to the first were void; and that Mr. Tweed was not liable to conviction and punishment for misdemeanor under 2 R. S. 696, § 38, because a special provision had been made for the punishment with which he was charged. Several other interesting points are made in the case.

IN

NOTES OF CASES.

N Cork Distillers Co. v. Gt. Southern & Western Railway Co., Law Rep., 7 H. L. 269, the liability of a carrier of goods was considered. It appeared that distillers in Cork, who were under bond to the Crown to pay the duties on all spirits which they might be permitted to remove from one bonded warehouse to another, sold a quantity of whisky to S. & Co., spirit dealers in Limerick. The duty on the whisky had not been paid. The distillers obtained the regular permit for its removal, and delivered it to a railway company to carry it to Limerick. The delivery note described it as sent from Cork to "Custom Warehouse, Limerick, for Messrs. J. S. & Co." If it had been taken to the custom warehouse the consignees could not have obtained possession of it without having first paid the duty on it; but no special communications were made by the vendor to the carriers on the subject. But the consignees, J. S. & Co., demanded it at the railway station, and on paying the cost of transportation, obtained possession of it, thus escaping payment of the duty. The vendors having been compelled, under their excise bond, to pay the duty, brought an action against the carriers for the amount. Held, that this was a case of ordinary consignment; that the consignees had the right to demand the whisky from the carriers, and that the latter were not liable to make good the loss occasioned to the distillers by its delivery. This was a unanimous decision of the House of Lords. In respect to the duty of the carrier to deliver goods to the consignee, and his liability in case of wrong delivery, see McEntee v. N. Y. Steamboat Co., 6 Am. Rep. 28, and cases cited in note, p. 30.

On

An important question in the liability of common carriers was considered in Kent v. Midland Railway | Co., Law Rep., 10 Q. B. 1. Plaintiff purchased a ticket of defendant company from A. to C. the ticket was the condition that "the company does not hold itself responsible for any delay, detention, or loss or injury arising off its lines." The journey from A. to C. is on the defendant line to B., and thence by another line. Plaintiff delivered his baggage to defendant at A., and when the train arrived at B. a porter took the baggage from the train and put it on a truck, and after about twenty minutes wheeled the truck across to the platform of the succeeding line. The plaintiff saw the baggage on the platform, and this was the last seen of it. Held, that, assuming the plaintiff to be bound by the con

dition, the meaning of the phrase "off the company's lines" must be taken to be-not "off the lines of the railway" merely, but-out of "the custody of the company.' The plaintiff's baggage was shown to have been delivered to defendant, and it lay on them to show that they delivered it to the succeeding line, which they did not show, and the plaintiff was entitled to recover against the defendant for the loss. This was a well-considered case, all the judges of the Queen's Bench writing opinions, and the conclusion being unanimous. See Tulley v. Gt. Western Railway, L. R., 6 C. P. 44. In Chicago & Rock Island R. R. Co. v. Fahey, 53 Ill. 81 (4 Am. Rep. 587), it was held that where a person purchases a through ticket over several railroads, and procures a corresponding check for his baggage, and the baggage is afterward lost, the company on whose road it is lost is responsible therefor; but the evidence must show that it came to the hands of the company charged with the loss, and that it was lost by them. Redfield, in his "Law of Railways," vol. II, p. 42, says that where different railways, forming a continuous line, run their cars over the whole line, and sell tickets for the whole route and check baggage through, an action will lie against either company for the loss of baggage. Hart v. Rensselaer & Sar. R. R. Co., 8 N. Y. 37; but see Mytton v. Midland Railway Co., 4 H. & N. 615.

It

In United States v. Hughes et al., the revenue case to which we referred, ante, p. 134, the opinion of Judge Blatchford has been published in full. will be remembered that by section five of the act of June 22, 1874, the defendant, in a suit arising under the revenue laws, may be called upon to produce his books and papers, and if the defendant refuse to do so the allegations against him will be taken as confessed, unless his failure or refusal to produce the books and papers shall be explained to the satisfaction of the court. Judge Blatchford held this act to be unconstitutional and void so far as it applies to suits for penalties and forfeitures pending before its passage. The judge said: "It comes directly within the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in the cases of Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 277, and Ex parte Garland, id. 333. It is a law which, within the definition given by Judge Chase in Calder v. Bull, 3 Dallas, 386, 390, which is a leading case on the subject and has always been followed, requires less testimony and different testimony to authorize a recovery than was required when the offense was committed for which this suit is brought. It has always been held that the provisions of the constitution of the United States, art. 1, § 9, that no ex post facto law shall be passed by congress, and art. 1, § 10, that no State shall pass any ex post facto law, apply not merely to criminal laws and cases, but to cases for the recovery of penalties and forfeitures."

אן

MEN'S RIGHTS.

the newspapers, in society, in the lecture-room, in congress, in courts, and in the sewing circles, a good deal is said about women's rights. We have heretofore written something incidentally on this subject in its legal aspects. Of course we have little or nothing to say about women's right to vote, or wear trowsers, or "speak in meeting," or to do a great many other things which lovely woman yearns to do, and which her heartless tyrant man says she shall not do. But we have a warm interest in preventing her from utterly running over and extinguishing us men in the courts, and in respect to purely legal rights.

We find our text for the present remarks in two recent occurrences chronicled in the current newspapers. The first is rather the more serious because its results seem the more imminent. If we can believe our eyes and the western newspapers, a bill has been introduced into the legislature of Tennessee, aimed against "old bachelors." It declares that bachelorism (like infancy, we suppose) is a privilege, and that every male inhabitant of the State over thirty years of age, being of sound mind, and good bodily health, remaining unmarried after the 1st day of May, 1875, shall pay a tax of $10 annually. The bill further imposes it as a duty upon the State assessors to obtain for such purposes of taxation, a full descriptive list of all bachelors, giving age, complexion, height, and color of hair and eyes. The moneys collected by such tax are to be applied to the support of the common schools. Now, we confess there are some things about this proposed bill which we don't understand. If all men of thirty must be married, what difference can their height, complexion, or color of hair or eyes make. If the State were by force to marry the unyielding to suitable mates, these particulars might be important in an esthetic view in order to proper pairing. But we do not see that any distinction is made between offenders. The short and the tall, the sanguine, the brunette and the blonde, all are involved in the same hard fate, marry, pay, or run away. Again, why such ardent haste? Why must this be done by the 1st of May proximo? Is the State treasury in need of a material contribution at that precise time, or has there been a general lapse of virtue on the part of Tennessee's fair, for the repair of which a strict and early day is necessary? But assuming that this later conjecture is incredible, is not the shortness of the day an imputation against the maidenly reserve and reluctance incident to well-regulated young women? Is it possible that Tennessee's virgins are so anxious to put on the marriage yoke that they can, in this wholesale and camp-meeting manner, be wooed, won and married in the short space of six weeks? How can the necessary, the indispensable wedding garments

be made ready in that scant time, even by the most sympathetic and willing mother-in-law? There is something wrong here, surely. We don't believe this legislator knows what he is talking about. And then the object to which the proposed tax is to be devoted, why to the common school fund? It may be intended as a sarcasm, but otherwise it is certainly very inappropriate. The same or a better purpose might have been answered by giving the proceeds to the idiot or insane asylums. We doubt the expediency, if not the constitutionality, of such double penalties. Once we had a law in this State, imposing as a penalty for murder imprisonment at hard labor for one year, and then hanging. This was declared unlawful. If the State were going to hang the offender, it was deemed unwise to injure his health by confinement, or run the risk of his working himself to death before hand. On some similar reasoning we are by no means certain that this feature of the proposed law is not obnoxious to legal criticism. But after all, is there not a singular lack of policy in this law? We take it that the object of the law is to make people marry, rather than to raise money; in any other view the law would be an intolerable and gratuitous insult to the yeomanry of Tennessee. If we are correct in our conjecture, then this is certainly the wrong way to effect the purpose. To marry is the last thing that a spirited man will be forced to do, except under peculiar and extremely exceptional circumstances. Even if a man were affianced, we suspect that in many instances he would break his engagement rather than be dragooned or hurried into fulfillment. And then to sensitive bachelor minds, the indignity of being put on a footing with undesirable and superfluous animals, like dogs, and taxed as if they were nuisances, will certainly not operate to increase the number of marriages. All things considered, to use the language of the immortal Chatham, slightly modified, "if we were a Tennesseean, as we are a New Yorker, and were a bachelor, as we are a Benedick, we would never rush into the enemy's arms, never, never, never," but would calmly pay our $10, or more likely "go west."

The second matter is not so alarming in itself, but in its possible consequences may be equally disastrous. A Mr. Aborns, who resides where California's sunny fountains roll down their golden sands, has "advertised" his wife, who has left his bed and board without just cause or provocation. Hereupon Mrs. Aborns issues a "card," demanding what right Mr. A. has to advertise her. She asserts that she has been married to him ten years, and she ciphers up the number of meals she has cooked; and the number of times she has set the table, cleared the table, washed the dishes, cleaned and swept the house, milked the cows, fed the poultry; the amount of butter she has made; also the number of children she has borne. She acknowledges that her husband is a

The

for the girl's singing at Marybone, and be secured against the non-performance of that contract. girl was notoriously kept by Sir Francis, in his house, and publicly rode out on his horses, attended by his servants. Lord Mansfield was in doubt, at first, whether if there really had been a conspiracy, the girl's parents were not engaged in it, and compelled them to make affidavits. These affidavits, and all the others, his lordship took "home to revise and consider," over night, and next morning delivered his judgment, by which he granted the information prayed, against all the defendants, including, we blush to relate, the attorney! As to the transfer of the girl to Sir Francis, he says it was clearly for the purpose alleged; "No man can avoid seeing all this, let him wink ever so much." As to the attorney, he says: "Though I never heard any imputation upon him before, yet, in this instance, he has certainly acted inconsistently with the duty of his profession, and that chastity of character which it is incumbent upon an attorney always to support;" that the attorney "could not imagine that she really bound herself to Sir Francis to be taught music by him, but must undoubtedly have been conscious of the true purpose for which the deeds and writings were calculated."

Rex v. Beardmore, vol. 1, p. 792, was a motion for an attachment against an under-sheriff for remitting part of a sentence. One John Shebbeare had been condemned to "be set in and upon the pillory," but it appeared that the defendant only stood upon the platform of the pillory, unconfined and at his ease, attended by a servant in livery, both servant and livery being hired for the occasion, holding an umbrella over his head all the time; that his head, hands, neck, or arms were not at all confined or put into the holes of the pillory, but he sometimes put his hands in the holes in order to rest himself. It appeared, too, that the defendant attended as undersheriff, "with his wand," and that "he treated the criminal with great complaisance in taking him to and from the pillory." Many affidavits were produced to show that the defendant stood in the manner which had prevailed for thirty or forty years in Middlesex, and that ever since one or two persons who had been locked down in the pillory were killed, it had been customary not to fasten their heads in the middle hole, but only to compel them to stand with the head and face showing through that hole, and their hands in the other holes. Defendant's counsel contended that the sentence of quartering traitors and burning their bowels is never strictly executed, 66 nor the punishment of burning in the hand, which is constantly and notoriously done in the face, and with the knowledge of the judges themselves, with a cold iron." We think this last quoted sentence is as pure a specimen of a bull as we have ever seen. If, for face, we read presence,

which is evidently what was meant, we get rid of the idea that it could have been imagined more lenient to brand a man in the face than on the hand, and of the still more terrific idea that the punishment was transferred, for the sake of mercy, from the hand of the offender to the face of his judges; but we do not get rid of the implied miracle of burning a man "with a cold iron." We think Mr. Reporter Burrow must have come from the west side of the channel. Lord Mansfield found fault with the defensive affidavits, and remarked: "So many affidavits, so studiously and artfully penned, to be safely sworn in one sense and read in another, are an aggravation." Justice Dennison concurred, and said: "It cannot be pretended that standing erect upon the pillory, is being set in it." Now, if we had been of counsel for the defendant, we should have cited an ancient and conclusive authority, to wit, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, where Launce, describing what he has undergone for his ungrateful cur, says: "I have stood on the pillory for geese he hath killed." If that wouldn't have settled the matter we don't know what would. The court, however, went against the defendant, saying the criminal was 66 a gross offender, an infamous libeller of the king and government," and fined the defendant £50, and ordered him to be imprisoned for two months and until the fine should be paid. The court seemed to lay stress on the umbrella, and we, ourselves, think that was a refinement of mercy, to say nothing of the servant in livery. On the whole, we think this case well adapted to the meridian of Blackwell's Island, and to the study of the custodians of the person of that eminent ex-statesman Mr. Tweed. Perhaps, however, they will despise its lessons, for it is exceedingly doubtful whether Lord Mansfield has survived, in any point of view, to sit on the general term bench of the first judicial department.

Another case in the same direction is Rex v. Bootie, vol. 1, p. 864. The defendant, a constable, was convicted of a misdemeanor in allowing Margaret Prince, a loose, idle, lewd, and disorderly person, who had been arrested by one of the nightwatch for walking the streets "to pick up men," to escape out of his custody before she could be taken before a justice of the peace. This was a motion in arrest of judgment founded on some quibbles about the indictment. Lord Mansfield and Justice Dennison did not come into court till near the end of the motion; "they, therefore, remained silent;" but the other judges thought that the defendant had been rightly served for letting Margaret go to "deceive more men.

We shall look into Burrow again.

In the last financial year the pensions for judicial services in Great Britain amounted to £58,681 38. 3d., and in Ireland to £17,258 188. 3d.

FINANCIAL LAW.

DUTY OF HOLDER OF BANK CHECK.

IN Stevens v. Park, 7 Chicago Leg. News, 204, a case

decided in the Supreme Court of Illinois, the question discussed was this: Does the burden rest on the holder of a bank check of showing that no damage had accrued to the drawer by his omission to give notice of the non-payment of the check? Schofield, J., who delivered the opinion, said:

"It was held in Howes v. Austin, 35 Ill. 396, and M. & F. Ins. Co. v. Fisher et al., 30 id. 403, cited in appellee's brief, that, as between the holder and the drawer, a demand at any time before suit brought is sufficient, unless it appears that the drawee has failed, or the drawer has, in some other manner, sustained injury by the delay; but in neither of those cases was it decided, nor was the question before the court, upon whom the burden of making proof is, in the first instance, cast. In Willets v. Paine, 43 Ill. 433, it was, however, expressly held, the burden is on the holder to show that no loss accrued to the drawer through his delay in giving notice of the non-payment of the check. "The acceptance of the check by the holder was not an absolute payment of the drawer's debt; it was, however, a conditional payment. Story on Bills, § 419; Smith v. Miller, 43 N. Y. 173. It was presumptively drawn on a previous deposit of funds, and was an absolute appropriation of so much in the hands of the bank, to remain there until called for. Story on Promissory Notes, $489; Little v. The Phenix Bank, 2 Hill, 427; Cruger v. Armstrong, 3 Johns. Cases. 5; Conroy v. Warren, id. 259 Although the holder of the check did not, by the mere act of delay, lose this right of recourse on the drawer, still it was his duty to present the check for payment within a reasonable time, and give notice to the drawer of its dishonor within a like reasonable time; and if he failed to do so, the delay was at his peril. Story on Promissory Notes, § 492. By his omission he assumed the burden of showing that the failure to obtain payment of the check was through no fault of his, and necessarily that no damage had accrued to the drawer by his delay. Story on Promissory Notes, § 498; Chitty on Bills (8th Am. ed.), 355; 2 Greeenleaf's Evidence, § 795; Cruger v. Armstrong, Conroy v. Warren, Little v. Phenix Bank, and Smith v. Miller, ubi supra; Hoyt v. Seely, 18 Conn. 353; Daniels v. Kyle, 1 Ga. 304."

JURISDICTION OF THE UNITED STATES COURTS.

THE

TEXT OF THE ACT OF 1875.

HE following is the text of an act passed by the late Congress, and which received the president's signature on March 3d:

Be it enacted, etc., That the Circuit Courts of the United States shall have original cognizance, concurrent with the courts of the several States, of all suits of a civil nature at common law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of $500, and arising under the constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority, or in which the United States are plaintiffs or petitioners, or in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different States, or a controversy between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, a controversy between citizens of a State and

foreign States, citizens or subjects; and shall have exclusive cognizance of all crimes and offenses cognizable under the authority of the United States, except as otherwise provided by law, and concurrent jurisdiction with the District Courts of the crimes and offenses cognizable therein. But no person shall be arrested in one district for trial in another in any civil action before a Circuit or District Court. And no civil suit shall be brought before either of said courts against any person by any original process or proceeding in any other district than that whereof he is an inhabitant, or in which he shall be found at the time of serving such process or commencing such proceeding, except as hereinafter provided; nor shall any Circuit or District Court have no cognizance of any suit founded on contract in favor of an assignee, unless a suit might have been prosecuted in such court to recover thereon if no assignment had been made, except in cases of promissory notes, negotiable by the law merchant and bills of exchange; and the Circuit Courts shall also have appellate jurisdiction from the District Courts, under the regulations and prescriptions prescribed by law.'

SEC. 2. That any suit of a civil nature, at law or equity, now pending or hereafter brought in any State court where the motion in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of $500, and arising under the constitution or laws of the United States, or treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority, or in which the United States shall be plaintiff or petitioner, or in which there shall be a controversy between citizens of different States, or a controversy between citizens of the same State, claiming land under grants of different States, or a controversy between citizens of a State and a foreign State, citizens or subjects, either party may remove said suit into the Circuit Court of the United States for the proper district. And when, in any suit mentioned in this section, there shall be a controversy which is wholly between citizens of different States, and which can be fully determined as between them, then either one or more of the plaintiffs or defendants actually interested in such controversy may remove said suit into the Circuit Court of the United States for the proper district.

SEC. 3. That whenever either party, or any one or more of the plaintiffs or defendants entitled to remove any suit mentioned in the next preceding section, shall desire to remove such suit from a State court to the Circuit Court of the United States, he or they may make and file a petition in such suit in such State court before or at the term at which said cause could first be tried, and before the trial thereof for the removal of such suit into the Circuit Court to be held in the district where such suit is pending, and shall make and file therewith a bond, with good and sufficient surety, for his or their entering in such Circuit Court, on the first day of its then next session, a copy of the record in such suit, and for paying all costs that may be awarded by the said court, if said court shall hold that such suit was wrongfully or improperly removed thereto, and also for their appearing and entering special bail in such suit, if special bail was originally requisite therein; it shall then be the duty of the State court to accept said petition and bond, and proceed no further in such suit, and any bail that may have been originally taken shall be discharged; and the said copy being entered as aforesaid in said Circuit Court of the United States, the cause shall then proceed in the