RECENT BANKRUPTCY DECISIONS. ATTACHMENT. Costs in attachment dissolved by bankruptcy.- The costs of an attachment which has been dissolved by bankruptcy may be paid out of the fund; unless that the attachment did not and could not operate to preserve the property for the general creditor. Ex parte Holmes, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 493. COMPOSITION. Mistake in, without fraud, does not vitiate: practice.A mistake, without fraud, made by the debtor in his statement of the amount due to a creditor, will not vitiate a composition. The true amount of a disputed claim may be proved by the creditor. The court may provide for an unliquidated claim in composition cases, as if the case were in bankruptcy, by permitting the prosecution of a pending action in the State court, or by ordering an inquiry in the matter at the bar of the bankruptcy court. Ex parte Trafton, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 507. ESTOPPEL. When person estopped by his own acts: practice. Where a person by his words or conduct willfully causes another to believe the existence of a certain state of things and induces him to act on that belief so as to alter his own previous position, the former is concluded from averring against the latter a different state of things as existing at the same time. If a party who took a bill of sale as security deliberately .proves a debt which assumes that he is the absolute owner of the goods, and persists in such false claim in an action by the assignee to recover the goods and attempts to support it by his own oath, he is estopped from claiming them as security. Instructions are entitled to a reasonable construction, and if correct when applied to the facts submitted to the jury, they will be sustained in an appellate court, even though, if standing alone or without any explanation, they would be incomplete in respect of some matter, sufficiently explained in the evidence. Willis v. Carpenter, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 521. FEES. Of marshal: disbursements.-The marshal is entitled to a fee of $2 for serving a copy of the petition as well as the order to show cause on the debtor in an involuntary case. The allowance of a commission for disbursements is not limited to disbursements for court expenses. The marshal is not entitled to a commission on the value of property for the seizure or custody thereof. In re Burnell Brothers, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 498. LIMITATION. 1. Under bankruptcy statute: when time commences to run. If an insolvent debtor conveys property to a creditor, to hold in trust to such uses as shall be designated before a certain time in any composition between the debtor and the other creditors, but if no composition is made before that time, then absolutely to his own use whereby the debt is to be discharged, the limitation runs only from the time so stipulated if no composition is made, for the title does not vest in the creditor, absolutely to his own use, until that time. Haskill v. Fry, assignee, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 525. • 2. When it begins to run on preferential deed.—Where the parties at the time of executing a preferential deed agree to conceal it from other creditors, and for that purpose keep it from record, the time begins to run only from the day on which it is filed for record. Ex change Nat. Bank of Columbus v. Harris, assignee, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 510. NOTARY. May acknowledge deed of trust in which he is interested. A notary is competent to acknowledge and certify a deed of trust although he is interested as one If a deed of trust is of the beneficiaries in the trust. actually delivered to the trustee with power to record it when he deems proper, it is valid as against the assignee, although it is not recorded until after the grantor's failure. Nat. Bank of Fredericksburg v. Conway, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 513. 79 66 WORDS CREDITOR," TRADESMAN." 1. Meaning of "creditors." —The word "creditors," in the section of the bankrupt act relating to composition, means all whose debts are provable in bankruptcy. Ex parte Trafton, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 507. 2. Meaning of "tradesman."-The meaning of the word "tradesman," in section 5110, is substantially the same as shopkeeper. Persons who buy and sell in a small way, merely by way of eking out their living, which is principally earned in other ways, are not tradesmen. As the word "tradesman" is in a section that is almost penal, it should be confined to those who belong to that class with some degree of permanency. In re Cote, 14 Nat. Bankr. Reg. 503. BOOK NOTICES. A selection of Leading Cases in Equity, with Notes. By Frederick Thomas White and Owen Davies Tudor, of the Middle Temple, Barristers at law. With Annotations containing References to American Cases. By J. I. Clarke Hare and H. B. Wallace. With Additional Notes and References to American Decisions. By J. I. Clarke Hare. Fourth American, from the Fourth London edition. In two Volumes. Philadelphia: T. & J. W. Johnson & Co., 1876. A MONG the attempts made in recent times to condense the case law of England into a convenient compass the most successful have been that of John William Smith, and that of White and Tudor, the one embracing the jurisprudence of the common law, and the other that of equity. The work of Mr. Smith was so well done that it adds, if that were possible, to the reputation for ability and learning which he acquired in the practice of his profession. Seemingly, a task that any one familiar with legal literature might perform acceptably, the selection and arrangement of leading cases requires ability and culture of the highest order, and he who can properly do a work of this character is competent to fill any position in the profession of the law. There are enough persons who can gather together law cases and append notes referring to decisions upon the same general subject, and these cases and notes, when printed on good paper in a well-bound book, may appear to the cursory observer as good a selection and as excellently annotated as the work of Mr. Smith. But the student or the practitioner who has occasion to make use of such works soon discovers the difference, and distinguishes the master from the incompetent imitator. Mr. Smith, however, confined his researches, to a great extent, to the common law reports, leaving almost untouched the decisions of the courts of equity, which, even in his | day, possessed an importance constantly increasing, and which since the merging of law with equity have become, if any thing, a more essential part of our legal system than those of the common law courts. The work of White and Tudor did for equity what that of the other had done for law, and it is a matter of gratification that these gentlemen were thoroughly capable to do what they undertook. The American editions of both Smith and White and Tudor have been edited by the same persons, and the satisfaction which their work has given is indicated by the fact that no other edition of these works usually appears in American libraries. The present edition of White and Tudor, the fourth both in England and America, has many additions in the way of notes and references, the English editors having added about two hundred pages, and Mr. Hare, editor, about three hundred to the previous edition. The work now fills, instead of two, four large books, though the original division of volumes is maintained. The first two books, which make volume I, are paged consecutively through both, and contain 1,388 pages, and the last two, paged in the same manner, constituting volume II, contain 2,175 pages. In such an area of closely printed matter there can be placed a vast amount of legal precedent, and, in fact, about all the equity law of England and America is to be found more or less fully stated here. The work of the American editor is done fully as well as it was in earlier editions, and we doubt not that the present issue will meet with the same favor shown to the former ones. The volumes are well printed and bound; are well indexed, and contain tables of cases cited, those cited in the American notes being separated from those cited in English notes. The Virginia Law Journal, January, 1877. George L. Christian and Frank W. Christian, Editors. Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph & English, 1877. This is a new arrival in the field of legal journalism, and it will be a welcome one if the promise of the initial number is kept. This number contains 62 clearly printed pages. Twenty pages are given to an essay An American Phase of Twyne's Case. The closing essay, "Notes on Current European Law, No. 4," by W. D. Hammond, LL. D., continues a very instructive discussion of the laws of the different nations upon subjects that come under the cognizance of all, and must claim the attention of all who are interested in the study of private international law and of those topics akin to it. The book notices are, as usual, well written and fair in the estimate of the volumes mentioned therein. CORRESPONDENCE. AN OMITTED FRAGMENT OF JUDGE NEILSON'S ARTICLE. To the Editor of the Albany Law Journal: SIR-To make room for the valuable letter of Professor Washburn in your last number as to Rufus Choate, I found it necessary to strike out some portions of my article. I send you one of the fragments containing matters historical, and, to most readers, familiar, yet, perhaps, proper in support of the opinion that persons on trial for crime should be represented by counsel. After stating that Erskine, in terms and by example, denied the right of counsel to withhold his services," this followed: But, coming nearer home, in 1770, some British soldiers were to be tried in Boston for murder. The circumstances were such as to excite, and justly, popular horror and indignation. Josiah Quincy, Junior, then young at the bar, came forward to defend them. He suffered, for the time, great reproach. But a letter of remonstrance from his venerable father, evidently written in great distress, must have given him deeper concern. He answered that letter in affectionate terms, but earnestly stated the principle which governed his conduct, and went forward firmly in the upon the topic "Res Judicata," and the remaining discharge of his duty in the case. pages, except two or three, to the report of decisions. There are nine decisions in full, one from the United States Supreme Court, and the remainder from the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. It is the latter feature in connection with the leading essay that promises to give this serial a permanent value. The editors are pronounced by the judges of the highest court of Virginia to be able lawyers, and thoroughly competent to conduct such an undertaking. The contributing staff embraces the foremost lawyers of Virginia, many of whom have a national reputation, and we expect to see from time to time able and interesting articles from their peus. We therefore greet with a welcome our new contemporary. The Southern Law Review, January, 1877. Published quarterly. St. Louis: G. I. Jones & Co., 1877. The current number of this ably conducted magazine contains seven essays on legal topics, all of them of value and interest. Hon. U. M. Rose contributes a fourth paper on Controversies of Modern Continental Jurists. Mr. John Proffat follows with an article upon Estoppel by Conduct Affecting Title. Next comes a fourth paper upon the Dartmouth College Causes and the Supreme Court of the United States. The following essay is by A. C. Freman, Esq., and considers the question of the Enforcement of Judgments against Bankrupts. Hon. F. F. Heard gives a chapter in Legal Bibliography, and Hon. James O. Pierce treats upon But, coming yet nearer home, in 1741, what has been known as the "Negro Plot," a supposed conspiracy to burn the city of New York and massacre the inhabitants, threw the city into a state of great excitement. It appears that, of the persons arrested on suspicion and tried, twenty-two were hanged, eleven burned and fifty transported. The attorney-general, assisted by several counsel, conducted the prosecution; the prisoners had no counsel. It was afterward discovered that the whole thing was a mere delusion. Chandler, Bancroft and other writers give it that character. In 1735 Zenger, who had criticised the policy of the government, was proceeded against by information for having published seditious libels, and was tried before the Supreme Court in the city of New York. Two members of the New York bar, who appeared for him, raised some question as to the jurisdiction of the court, and their names were stricken from the roll of attorneys. Other lawyers, intimidated, did not come forward. Zenger's friends brought Andrew Hamilton, then about eighty years of age, from Philadelphia, and the defense was conducted by him. The subject involved was the liberty of the press. Hamilton presented the theory years afterward advocated and enforced by Erskine in England. The question was whether the defendant had the right to prove the truth of his publication, and also whether the jury were to pass upon the guilt of the defendant, the motive and intent, as matter of fact. The publication was admitted, but the jury found the defendant not guilty, "in the teeth," it is said, of the instructions of the Chief Justice. It is obvious that if the victims charged with conspiracy in the "Negro Plot" had been defended by counsel their lives might have been saved; that if Zenger had not been thus defended he would have been condemned. While we take pride in the fact that thus early a principle now so well recognized as essential to the liberty of the citizen, to the dissemination of information, to the correction of public abuses, was, in an important case, presented, and, as a new experience in Colonial times, accepted, by the jury and by the people, it is proper to remember that the credit for that achievement was due to the Philadelphia bar thus represented on that trial. THE "BATES EXTRADITION." J. N. To the Editor of the Albany Law Journal: THE Maine Legislature is now considering a bill making pool-selling a State prison offense. It is also proposed to make liable to all the penalties of the present lottery law all those who engage in raffles at church and other fairs, making illegal grab-bags, guesscakes and the like. A bill prohibiting the manufacture of wine in the State is also pending. The London Echo reminds the English critics, who are giving the United States gratuitous advice on the subject of the Geneva award, that their government has recently been compelled to admit that the Americans were right as to the extradition of criminals under the treaty of 1842, and that it will be quite as well for Englishmen to hold their tongues. It recognizes the fact that the American government had to keep a large force at sea in pursuit of the Alabama and her consorts, and reasons that if it was as expensive an operation as the keeping of the British fleet in Besika Bay has proved to The volumes of Illinois Reports, between the nineteenth and thirty-first, inclusive, have been for years out of print. Messrs. N. L. Freeman and William L. Gross, of Springfield, Ill., have undertaken a new edition thereof, and also of Beecher's Breese. They will rereport the cases-preparing new head-notes and statements of fact- and will add notes and references. Mr. Freeman has been for years the State Reporter of Illinois, and Mr. Gross is the editor of a valuable edition of the Illinois Statutes, so that they are fitted by experience as well as ability to do acceptably the work they have in hand. They will undoubtedly add greatly to the value of the original reports. Judgments affirmed, with costs- Hoffman v. Union Ferry Co.; Crawford v. Everton; Billings v. The Mr. Jules de Gastyne, in the Parisian journal Le Mayor; Vanschaick v. Niagara Ins. Co.; Vanderlip v. Nain Jaune, gives a very remarkable story of circumKeyser; Tucker v. O'Brien; Stewart v. Patrick; Lewin stantial evidence in a Spanish criminal case, the names e. Redfield. Judgment reversed and new trial of the actors in which are unfortunately suppressed. granted, costs to abide events - Nash v. Manufacturers According to the chronicler, a quarrel arose between and Traders' Bank; Nash v. White's Bank of Buffalo; two gentlemen at a Madrid theatre, apropos of a pinch Tyler v. Brock; Marcus v. St. Louis Mutual Life Ins. of snuff offered by one or the other, and causing the Co.; Trustees of East Hampton v. Kirk. Order latter to sneeze in the donor's face. Words passed, granting new trial reversed, and judgment sustained ending in a challenge. One of them left and went to on report of referee affirmed, with costs - Foster v. buy a pair of pistols, and then hurried to say farewell Persch.-Judgment removing commissioners from to a lady friend before making his way to the selected office and setting aside their proceedings reversed, battle ground. While doing so, a sneak thief peneand the appeal from the other judgments and parts of trated to the room and was about to make away with judgments dismissed - People ex rel. Corwin v. Wal- the gentleman's overcoat, which hung against the ter; People ex rel. Stockwell v. Walter; People ex wall. At that precise moment the woman opened the rel. Mentz v. Walter; People ex rel. Hess v. Walter. ❘ door, perceived the robber and gave the alarm, where upon the robber, with one of the pistols in question, fired upon her, and she fell fatally wounded. The firearm, recently discharged and still smoking, was found opposite her. No one had seen the thief enter or go out, though the shot had been heard. The gunsmith who had sold the pistols fully identified them, and said that the purchaser had asked him to load them carefully on buying them, and it was only after the greatest difficulty that the unfortunate victim of circumstantial evidence was enabled, if not exactly to prove his innocence, at least to cause sufficient doubt in the minds of the jury to justify a verdict of what the Scotch would call "not proven." A case recently before the Exchequer Division is calculated to excite the gloomiest foreboding as to the ultimate fate of the defendants if they should persist❘ in the course they have hitherto pursued. The action was brought under Lord Campbell's act by the wife of a person killed in a railway accident, as his personal representative, to recover damages on behalf of herself and children. At the first trial, which took place at Norwich, the jury gave £3,000 damages. The railway company moved for and obtained a rule nisi for a new trial, on the ground that the damages were excessive. The court made this rule absolute for a new trial. unless the plaintiff would consent to take £1,000. The plaintiff seems to have thought that she had better take her chance with a fresh jury. The second trial took place before Mr. Secondary de Jersey and a London jury. Perhaps the defendants thought that they had had enough of Norwich juries. The event amply justified the confidence which the plaintiff, as a British female, reposed in the British jury, for the second trial resulted in a verdict for the plaintiff for £4,300. The defendants refused to be satisfied with this result, and recently moved a second time for a new trial, and the court has granted a rule nisi. How long is this process to go on? The jury, in the nature of things, must have the last word; and if they think it their duty to return ever-increasing damages, and the judges in their turn refuse to give way, the imagination refuses to contemplate the result. Suppose, after the lapse of many years, the judges should at last give way, the descendants of the children of the plaintiff may suddenly come into a colossal fortune, and about that time the railway company may possibly cease to pay any dividends to its shareholders for some years. Let us hope that more moderate counsels will prevail. Solicitors' Journal. There is an authentic story of a case about the hire of a hearse, which a waggish reporter reported under the head of "mortis causa conveyance." A Scotch journal remarks, that to prepare an index is, by no means, an amusing occupation; but to glance over one often is. It examples one of the Scotch Reports, where is to be found this remarkable entry: "Blasphemous publication-see Bible." The Canada Law Journal, for December last, divides the honors with the Scotch reporter; for in an index in that issue appears the following remarkable piece of information; "Devil-see Church of England." Central Law Journal. —— In the House of Lords on the 13th inst. Lord Derby, Foreign Secretary, in reply to a question by Earl Granville, gave details regarding the extradition controversy. He said the difficulty arose because America intimated that she would try Lawrence, who was extradited, for another offense than the one named under the treaty, if the first failed. America communicated in August that she never intended to try Lawrence for a second offense. The British government, therefore, while maintaining the construction it adopted, felt that there was no reason for longer suspending the operation of the treaty. The surrender of Brent, the Louisville forger, was unconditional because conditions were not required, arrangements continuing as before. Negotiations are now pending for a new treaty. The New York Herald says that the Germans have more and better works on legislation and jurisprudence than are possessed by the English. We do not believe such to be the fact.- Serjeant's Inn, Fleet street, and Serjeant's Inn, Chancery lane, are to be sold under the hammer. Since the time when serjeants-at-law were deprived by royal warrant of their exclusive right of audience in the old Court of Common Pleas, this distinct class of legal practitioners has gradually disappeared, and the Judicature Acts may be said to have given the coup de grace to their separate existence. The inns of the serjeants are, therefore, no longer of use to those few lawyers who are still entitled to wear the coif. It is now more than likelyso we understand that the Common Pleas' offices will have to be moved before the new law courts are sufficiently advanced toward completion to admit of such offices being removed thither. PUBLISHERS' DEPARTMENT. HE Hon. William Beach Lawrence speaks as fol Tows of the American Reports: John D. Parsons, Jr.: DEAR SIR.-I can unhesitatingly recommend the American Reports to the profession, both in this country and in England, where the adjudications of our highest tribunals are scarcely less respected than in the United States. No private library can possess itself of the adjudications of the thirty-seven States of the Union, to say nothing of those of the territories; yet without the principal decisions of the State courts, we should have a very imperfect knowledge of American jurisprudence. The bringing together within a compass accessible to the profession, of the leading decisions of those tribunals which, in matters reaching the ordinary transactions of life, have a co-ordinate jurisdiction with our highest Federal courts, is a great desideratum; and I can, with pleasure, bear witness to the able manner in which, under your supervision, the American Reports have been edited. I am, dear sir, yours respectfully, W. B. LAWRENCE. OCHRE POINT, NEWPORT, R. I., May 30, 1876. AMONG the many pleasant words spoken of the LAW JOURNAL, by its subscribers, is the following from a well-known lawyer: Messrs. Weed, Parsons & Co.: Inclosed I send you $5, my subscription to the ALBANY LAW JOURNAL, for the year; to me the most valuable paper of any kind that I take. The only trouble about it is that it arrives on Sunday morning, and I invariably yield to the temptation to look over it before going to church, for which I hope I may be forgiven at a proper time. HENRY KYD DOUGLASS. ALL communications intended for publication in the LAW JOURNAL should be addressed to the editor, and the name of the writer should be given, though not necessarily for publication. Communications on business matters should be addressed to the publishers. The Albany Law Journal. THE ALBANY, FEBRUARY 24, 1877. CURRENT TOPICS. Bar Association of New York city is endeavoring to do its duty toward the public, by proceeding against members of the profession, in and out of the association, who have been guilty of acts deserving censure. The case of a late member of the association, whose misdeeds were more than usually glaring, has been presented to the Supreme Court, and a prosecution has been instituted and carried on against a lawyer accused of irregularity of practice in the Surrogate's Court, the association appropriating $500 for counsel for this purpose. Besides this, the executive committee of the association has been directed to investigate the whole matter of professional wrong-doing, and to employ counsel to aid the Supreme Court of the First District in its efforts to remedy the evil. The association is, also, looking after the compensation of county clerk and register in New York city, and has appointed a cominittee to procure legislation providing that these officers shall be paid hereafter salaries, and not fees. In all movements, such as these, the association will have the sympathy and support of the bar everywhere. The inadvertent granting of an order by a justice of the Supreme Court in the First District, a few days since, has been the occasion of considerable newspaper criticism upon the practice of the judiciary in respect to such matters. The order in question was made in an action instituted by a stockholder and bondholder of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company against such company, to compel an accounting by its officers and managers, and for the appointment of a receiver, and directed the company to show cause, upon nine days' notice, why a receiver should not be appointed. The order was, however, revoked the next day after it was granted, and by the same judge. The daily papers state that the reasons assigned by the judge for granting the order was, that he understood that he was merely signing a notice of a motion in an ordinary case, and gave his signature merely pro forma, without an examination of the papers, and he is thereupon severely denounced therefor. According to these critics of judicial action a judge has no right to sign any order unless VOL. 15.- No. 8. he knows, personally, what it contains; in other words, he should read through and understand every paper he signs. If this should be undertaken, the numbers of the judiciary would have to be greatly increased. As it is, the judges, especially in the first and second departments, are overworked, and the necessity of reading every order granted would increase these labors fourfold. And this would not be enough. In order to act with a full knowledge of the cases presented to him, a judge must needs make himself familiar with the papers upon which each order asked is founded. This would open an illimitable field of labor, and yet, examine as far as he might, there would be left some things upon which he would have to take the word of the attorney who moved for the order asked. The fact is, that very little real injustice results from the system now in vogue. Even in the case in question, the only order granted was one to show cause, and the facts set forth in the complaint, and specifically sworn to, were such as to entitle the plaintiff to that order. The circumstance that the statements might be contradicted or explained aliunde has no bearing upon the question of the propriety of the action of the judge. That there should be some means whereby judges can be preserved from error in the way of granting improper orders is unquestionable. It is said that in England the judges have clerks, whose duty it is to look over the motions and arguments submitted for decision, and prepare a statement of the facts in and of the precedents bearing upon each case, leaving to the judge only the judicial labor of applying the law to the special case. Some such plan might be of advantage here, and would cut off all possibility of improper orders. There might be an objection to it, however, upon the ground that the clerk would, in many cases, be the real judge, but as, at present, the attorney for the moving party exercises that function, the change would give no reason for complaint to the public or to litigants. The question whether one of the States of the Union is a government, in the sense in which that term is used in ordinary conversation, has often been discussed by politicians and legislators, and has even come into our Federal and State courts, but we hardly expected that it would arise in a court of another country. Yet it did do so in the English case of Cadett v. Earle, which was decided by the Master of the Rolls on the 22d ult. A testator had in his will directed his executors to appropriate a sum of money for a certain object, and gave them power to invest the same "in, or upon any of the government securities of the government of the United States of America, or of the government of France, or of any foreign government." The question |