tion that frequently characterizes the treatment of members of the bar by some of our judges here. There are notable exceptions, and not a few of them, to this condition of affairs.

Mr. Justice Lawrence, of the Supreme Court, is a conspicuous exception to the judges referred to. No one could be more dignified on the bench than he, nor quicker to resent any unseemly familiarity, yet he is always courteous and gracious in his relations with counsel who are before him. He by common consent is considered our ideal chambers judge, and disposes of a motion calendar as the sun does of the first snow. He is quick to see the point of every contention, forms his opinion of its merits promptly, and disposes of it accordingly. He is tenacious of his own judicial opinion, but ever ready to listen patiently and attentively (an unusual quality in some of our judges) to the arguments of counsel who show careful preparation of the subject-matter.

Mr. David Dudley Field's American Bar Association report has been discussed very favorably by many of the lawyers here, and criticised by some. There are lawyers here so prejudiced against him and every thing he does that they would abandon reading the New Testament if they thought he had a hand in revising it. In spite of that class however there is a growing feeling in favor of codification, and the more familiar the members of our bar become with the proposed Civil Code the more disposed they are to believe that it will be the basis of the Civil Code of this State. In conversation with two distinguished lawyers the other evening at the bar association, who have previously been opposed to codification of the common law, they both admitted that careful study of the subject had induced them to change their opinions and favor a Code.

I was astonished to hear, a few days since, that there is not in the city of Brooklyn a single house of prostitution or gambling house known to the police. The district attorney's office is responsible for this almost phenomenal condition of affairs.

An amusing story is told of the late Emory A. Storrs. The distinguished advocate had a most treacherous memory in regard to his personal obligations, and the judgment records of the courts of Chicago are said to contain a very formidable list of the tradesmen with whom Mr. Storrs had defaulted contracts. On the occasion of the visit of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge to the City by the Lake, Mr. Storrs invited a large number of distinguished judges and lawyers to a dinner to meet him. The lay-out was elaborate, and the proprietor of the hotel where the dinner was served, being aware of Mr. Storrs' financial eccentricities, politely requested payment the day before the event was to occur, which was promptly accorded. A certain collection fiend in Chicago who once proposed taking the silver nails out of the coffin of a deceased debtor, had procured judgment for a client who had sold "purple and fine linen" to the host of the occasion, appeared at the feast with a deputy sheriff, and calmly but firmly levied on the diamond-backed terrapin, canvas-back duck, and other accessories of Bachanalian celebrations. Mr. Storrs, not in the least disturbed, called on some of the guests for a loan and raised the levy, at the same time remarking that it was the first time he ever heard of a lord's supper being attached for debt.

Last winter, while in the Capitol at Washington, he observed Mr. Logan standing against one of the columns of the Senate Chamber, the lapel of his coat thrown back, one leg thrown across the other in picturesque western style, and an assumed expression of intellectual activity on his face. Jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the cogitating statesman, he said, "Thinks he's thinkin'."

A number of distinguished counsel appeared before Judge Brown at Newburgh last Saturday for the purpose of settling the form of the proposed decree in the West Shore railroad foreclosure. After various changes had been proposed by counsel representing different interests, Mr. Henry H. Anderson remarked that he would like to hear what allowance the receivers would ask for. Judge Horace Russell responded that he expected the usual statutory compensation of 2% per cent. This would give the receivers over a quarter of a million of dollars. Mr. Anderson then inquired what allowance the counsel for the trustee would ask for. One of the amiable young gentlemen appearing for the trustee said they should demand $100,000 besides the taxable costs. After the general paralysis that seized all who heard the remark had passed away, Mr. Anderson asked him why he did not take the road.

The case of the young attorney Aaron Kahn who charged $60,000 for alleged services in the Hoyt will case which is now being summed up before the surrogate, and who, the evidence showed had conducted a pawnbroker's shop a few years before, was referred to after the adjournment by one of the lawyers presenwho said: "Why, Moses with all the ten tablets of the law at his fingers'ends could not command a fee like that." "Yes," responded one of his friends, "but Aaron can."

Perhaps the most noted case in which Mr. Townsend was ever engaged was that of the veiled murderess, Henrietta Robinson, in Troy, about thirty years ago, in which he gained his early fame. The defense was the somewhat novel one of insanity, and though it did not save her from conviction by a jury, the ingenious counsel succeeded finally in saving her from the rope to spend the rest of her wretched existence in penal servitude. It was in connection with this case that an incident occurred which shows that Mr. Townsend, while greatly enjoying jokes and home thrusts at the expense of others, is, like the generality of men, inclined to the hunter's opinion that it is great fun to hunt grizzly bears, but it becomes another matter when the grizzly hunts you.' The day after the Robinson trial ended the late Peter F. Daw, of Cohoes, a gentleman whose powers of wit and repartee were of a Douglas Jerrold nature, was riding in one of Gil Cook's stages from Troy to Lansingburgh. As it passed the Fulton market Mr. Townsend and another gentleman entered the stage, engaged in earnest conversation on the dominant topic, in which Martin I. was doing all the talking. I tell you that that woman is insane,' said he in his loud dogmatic manner. 'I know she is insane. What do you think she said to me after I sat down from making that address to the jury, that took me two days to deliver and five nights

to prepare? She said: Mr. Townsend, if I had two such lawyers as you I would be convicted certain.'' The woman is sane,' was the sententious remark of Mr. Daw, who had till this point been a silent listener, as if thinking aloud. The passengers roared with shouts of laughter, amid which Martin I. brought his journey to an end, and hurried out of the stage."

The moment I read the story I pronounced it a falsehood of the first magnitude, not only untrue, but impossible. I felt that my old friend would never have laid himself open in that manner. I knew that you never invited such an obvious, not to say necessary repartee, as that put in the mouth of Mr. Daw.

Secretary Manning is said to be largely interested in the Argus, and is also said to be opposed to the Republican theory of civil service reform, viz., that all the Republicans should be kept in office for the next four years, because they have kept all the Democrats out for the last twenty-five years. It was clear to me that the object of the publication was to prejudice the president against you. Mr. Cleveland wcuid no doubt conclude that a man who permitted such a joke to be perpetrated at his expense was totally unfit for a high Federal office. Fearing this result, I have, without consultation with you, written to President Cleveland. I have called his attention to this baseless slander, and have also made the following detailed statement, for the truth of which I have pledged my veracity as a man and my honor as a Democrat:

1. That you never got into " a stage passing the Fulton market."

2. That there is no such place as the "Fulton market" in either Troy or Lansingburgh.

3. That there never was any line of stages "from Troy to Lansingburgh " owned by "Gil Cook" or anybody else.

4. That if there was such a line of stages, you never rode on them, but always hired a barouche.

5. That you were never engaged on either side in the Robinson murder case.

6. That if you were engaged in that case, you were for the prosecution.

7. That you never engaged in a conversation in which you "did all the talking." Here I called the attention of the president to the point that if you "did all the talking," it would not be, strictly speaking, a conversation.

8. That the "late Peter F. Daw" resembled "Douglas Jerrold " very much as I resemble Shakespeare. 9. That there never was any such person as Peter F. Daw-"late" or early.

10. That you never delivered a speech in your life that lasted only two days.

11. That you never spent as much time as would be comprised in the "five nights," in preparing all your cases since you have been in practice.

12. That your voice is "low and sweet, an excellent thing in "-a district attorney, and that you never speak in a "loud, dogmatic manner.'

13. That Mrs. Robinson never made the remark which the Argus says you repeated in the stage.

14. That if she did make it, she was speaking of her other counsel.

15. That if she did say it to you, you were never guilty of telling it.

16. That Mr. Daw never said that "the woman was sane."

17. That if he did, the other passengers did not hear it.

18. That when the passengers heard it they did not "roar with shouts of laughter," but sat in gloomy silence, and wiped the tears from their eyes.

19. That you did not "hurry out of the stage," but kept your seat, and rode all the way to Lansinburgh with your face "set like a flint." I asserted, in the

most positive manner, that however accurate the story might be in other respects, it was entirely false in the nineteen particulars to which I have referred.

I also ventured to assure the president that you are delighted with his administration, and propose to support him this fall, according to the latest" mugwump" idea-by voting for Davenport. If my antidote has arrived in time to counteract the poison of the Argus, I think you are reasonably safe for the present.

I make no charge for this important service. If, as the prisoner is said to have remarked to the jury in a certain celebrated case, fellows like you and me can't "stand by each other," what hope is there for the country? Sanguinely yours,

ESEK COWEN.

OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY OF THE UNITED STATES, )
FOR THE NORTHERN DIST. OF NEW YORK.
TROY, N. Y., Oct. 2, 1885.

ESEK COWEN:
Dear sir-A thousand thanks for your kindness in
vindicating me from the aspersions of the Albany
Argus, growing out of the alleged interview with the
Cohoes Daw (?"Jack"). Cleveland must have been
set "eternally right" by your letter to him. I was in-
jured by the Argus article not only among the high
authorities of the democratic party at Washington,
but with my neighbors at home, and to relieve me
from the stigma sought to be stamped upon me by
that malicious and injurious paper, I propose to print
and publish your vindication of me broadcast before I
sleep.

With lasting gratitude, I am, as ever, yours, MARTIN I. TOWNSEND. -Troy Daily Times.

CORRESPONDENCE.

MUSIC IN COURT.

Editor of the Albany Law Journal:

The incident mentioned in your last Saturday's JOURNAL of the playing in court the music of the air: "It's English, you know," to determine the question of infringement of copyright, is not without precedent. In Tyler's Life of Judge Taney, p. 312-3, it is told that in a case involving a similar question as to the song, "The Old Arm Chair," Judge Taney allowed (under objection) a professional singer to be sworn and to sing the two songs, over which the parties were contending, to the jury and as evidence.

Yours truly,

NEW YORK, September 28, 1885.

THE

R. D. BENEDICT.

COURT OF APPEALS DECISIONS.

HE following decisions were handed down Tuesday, Oct 6, 1885:

Judgment reversed and complaint dismissed with costs-Michael Gilman, administrator, respondent, v. Henry McArdle, appellant.-Judgment reversed,new trial granted, costs to abide the event-Hebrew Free School Association of New York, respondent, v. Mayor, etc., appellant; Board of Supervisors of Seneca County, appellants, v. Walter H. Allen et al., respondents; James Goodfellow, appellant, v. Mayor, etc., respondent; William N. Tebo, appellant, v. William Robinson, respondent; Frederick Zoeller, appellaut, v. Julia A. Riley, administratrix, etc., respondent (two causes); Frederick Weyerhauser and another,

respondents, v. R. Graham Dun and others, appellants; Henry Winchell, appellant, v. Stephen Winchell and another, respondents.-Order reversed, and temporary injunction dissolved, with costs of appeal to General Term and to this court-F. W. J. Hurst, respondent, v. New York Produce Exchange and another, appellants.-Order of General Term reversed, that of Court of Oyer and Terminer affirmed except in so far as it remands the relator to the custody of the sheriff, the term of his imprisonment, having ended with the session of the Legislature -William Keeler, sheriff, etc., appellant, v. People, ex rel. William McDonald, respondent.Judgment reversed, new trial granted, costs to abide the event--Philip Corkings, appellant, v. State.-Judgment reversed and complaint dismissed-William Zorntlein, respondent, v. George Adam Bram et al., appellants. Judgment affirmed with costs-William Barker and another, respondents, v. New York National Exchange Bank, appellant; George H. Power, appellant, v. Village of Athens, respondent; George Crawford, respondent, v. West Side Bank, appellant; Jane E. Thompson, respondent, v. Hiram Whitmarsh, appellant; Henry W. Hubbell, appellant, v. Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, respondent; Henry R. Pierson, receiver, appellant, v. Richard A. McCurdy, respondent; Hieronymus Brennich, appellant, v. Sarah Weselman, respondent; Grant R. Schley, respondent, v. Robert L. Fryer, appellant; William Fullerton and another, appellants, v. National Burglar and Thief Insurance Company, respondent; Charles Nelson, respondent, v. Village of Canisteo, appellant; James C. Fargo, president, etc., respondent, v. William Milburn and others, appellants; William W. Wood, respondent, v. Charles L. Knapp, appellant; William Watson, appellant, v. James W. Smith, respondent; John Turner, respondent, v. William W. Kowenhoven, appellant; William Corning, respondent, v. Nathan Pond, assignee, etc., appellant; John

M. Canda and another, respondents, v. Jacob Wick,

Jr., appellant; Thomas Luce, respondent, v. Julius D. Alexander and another, appellants; Herman Simmonds and another, respondents, v. Isaac H. Moses and another, appellants; John W. Browning, appellant, v. Oliver W. Marvin, respondent; Thomas Ahrenberg and others, respondents, v. James A. Wright and others, appellants; Henry H. Nellis, appellant, v. George H. Nellis, respondent; Edwin F. Tooker, respondent, V. Joseph Winston, appellant.Order of General and Special Terms reversed and record remitted for the purpose of a re-hearing upon the issue made by the traverse, with costs of all the courts to abide the event-People, ex rel. Morris Frey, appellant, v. Warden, etc., respondent. ment of General Term modified so as to reverse that part of the surrogate's decree which awards costs against the appellant, and as modified affirmed, without costs in this court to either party-In reGuardian

Judg

versed and motion granted, with costs-Joseph Falker, appellant, v. New York, West Shore & Buffalo Ry. - -Order affirmed and judgment absolute ordered for the defendant on the stipulation, with costs-J. Warren S. Day, appellant, v. Emelie Nason and another.—Judgment and order affirmed, with costs -John F. Briggs and another, appellants, v. Henry Hilton and another, respondents.-Order of Common Pleas reversed; judgment of Marine Court affirmed, with costs-Third Ave. R. Co., respondent, v. Jacob Ebling and another, appellants.-Order of General Term reversed and judgment entered on the report of the referee affirmed. with costs-Myron Pardee, appellant, v. Samuel C. Kanady, respondent.——— Order of General Term affirmed, and judgment absolute ordered against the plaintiff on the stipulation, with costs-James Hughes, respondent, v. Sun Mutual Ins. Co., appellant; Catherine Kane, appellant, v. Carlos Cortesy and another, respondents.- -Orders of General and Special Terms reversed and matter remitted to the Special Term for further proceedings, upon the same or new evidence in accordance with the rules of law as laid down in the opinion, and the appellant to recover from the respondent costs of the appeals to the General Term and to this court-In re Accounting of Charles White, assignee, etc.—Judg ment affirmed as to part affected by defendant's appeal, and reversed on plaintiff's appeal, and case remitted to the Supreme Court for further proceedings to ascertain what articles are covered by the lien of the mortgage-Stratford P. Davidson, trustee, respondent, v. Westchester Gas Light Co. and others, appellants.

NOTES.

It is certainly greatly to be regretted that the chief

justice of the Supreme Court of the United States should have been allowed to leave this country without receiving from the legal profession collectively any mark of respect. Chief Justice Waite is not only a lawyer of great eminence, but is the head of a court unrivalled in the world for the dignity of its jurisdiction, which extends not merely to the decision of

questions between citizens, but also to controlling the action of the Legislature itself; and also probably unequalled for the extreme care and labor systematically bestowed by the judges on the cases coming before them. It is rather absurd to lay the blame of the shabby treatment of our distinguished visitor on the time of year at which his visit occurred. Chief Justice Waite was in England in the early summer, and was present in the Royal Courts on the 4th of July, so that there was ample time to have organized a banquet before the long vacation. Probably every one waited for the benchers of the Inns of Court to take the

plication of the Mayor of New York to acquire land for parks, etc.; In re assignment of Edwin W. Holbrook and others.-Order of General Term reversed, that of commissioners affirmed with costs-People, ex rel. Robert L. Kent, respondent, v. Board of Fire Commissioners, appellant.-Judgment modified so as to exclude from the sale thereby directed the franchises, privileges and liberties of the corporation defendant, and as so modified affirmed with corts-Daniel Lord, Jr., trustee, etc., respondent, v. Yonkers Fuel Gas Co.-Order of General Term reversed; order of Special Term affirmed with costs-Charles E. Fleming, etc., respondents, v. Elbert L. Burnham and others, impleaded, respondents, and Simon Sternberger and another, executors, appellants.-Order re

respects, those personages certainly understand the art of dining. But they made no sign, and the opportunity was let slip, very much, as we think, to the discredit of our profession in the matter of hospitality.-Solicitors' Journal.

The chief justice of the United States has been in London for a few days, having been the guest of Lord Bramwell, Lord Fitzgerald, Baron Huddleston, and others. Such an announcement as this raises mixed feelings. In the first place it is painful to reflect that we have been unable to give this high and honored personage a meet official welcome; in the second place it is melancholy that he should have seen our legal machinery at its most scandalous season-that is to say-in the middle of the long vacation.-Law Times.

The Albany

Albany Law
Law Journal.

THET

ALBANY, OCTOBER 17, 1885.

CURRENT TOPICS.

HE New Jersey Law Journal censures us for criticising the recent inaction of the Court of Chancery of that State in a certain case as "childish helplessness." What we said was based on the Journal's statement of the case, and if that statement had been correct, those words could not well have been deemed too "harsh" to characterize it.

That a suitor's rights could be trifled away by the inability of a court to receive evidence to explain an ambiguous stipulation of his counsel, would be a state of things that would justify much harsher words, and indeed our words were not much harsher than the Journal's own comments. The Journal bas now discovered that it was wrong in its understanding of the facts, and retracts its own censure, but still takes us to task, as if in speaking of "the childish helplessness of a court of chancery in a matter of practice," we were laying down a general proposition, and not simply a particular one, based on the alleged facts of the case alluded to. The Journal makes the assertion that the practice of the Court of Chancery is much simpler than our code practice. Our brother is unfortunately ignorant, we suppose, of our code practice, and we are unfortunately quite well acquainted with the chancery practice. The latter is rather better than the common-law practice, although about as elastic," and therefore uncertain. But a system of law in which the temple of justice has two doors and two altars, and unless the suppliant enters at the proper door and puts up his prayers at the proper altar, he gets kicked out; in which like a tennisball he is knocked from court to court, sometimes both courts declaring they will have nothing to do with him; in which law is not always equity, but there is a superior article for certain hard cases, and equity is a better justice than law (and costs more accordingly); it is this idea which has rendered chancery a hated word, and has finally caused men to rise up against it and cast it out in nearly all communities, even in England. The idea that law is any thing but the supremest equity in any and all cases, is most preposterous and ridiculous. There is no use in our New Jersey's brother hugging his mud idol to his bosom any longer. Chancery must go, and laws must be codified, and although ours has long been the voice of one crying in the wilderness, yet now we begin to see the signs of fruition. Even New Jersey will be snatched from the Yellowstone park of common law and chancery.

The melancholy and piteous death of Justice Westbrook has deprived the State of one of its most intelligent and useful and industrious servants. He was one of the brightest men who have adorned VOL. 32-No. 16.

our bench. Very few have done so much hard work as he, and on the whole so satisfactorily. Very few have been called on to adjudicate so many novel and difficult questions growing out of modern business and the strifes and rivalries of commerce. Undoubtedly he had faults and made mistakes. We did not hesitate to speak of them in his life-time, and shall not now. His very worst fault, it seems to us, was his indifference to public opinion. A judge ought to be as sensitive to the vagaries of public opinion as a woman. Justice Westbrook was not; conscious of rectitude, he was too regardless of appearances, and it was this characteristic that laid him at the mercy of a scandalous and reckless libeller like the New York Times. He probably had lived down all that ridiculous and sorry scandal, but it probably made its mark on his soul. He was also too apt to take too much work, and too apt to be hasty in consequence. But we reiterate, few in our day have done so much and so well. Personally he was a most agreeable companion and a good friend. His private life was of shining purity; his speech and habits were unimpeachable; his domestic relations were of the most loyal and devoted; he was of simple and earnest religious faith; his example as a citizen and as a man is worthy of emulation. One characteristic in particular which we have always admired in him was his almost fanatical adherence to the "temperance cause "not that we have always agreed with him in this-but he had the courage to espouse and the constancy to stand by this rather unpopular cause. Still higher than this, he was an outspoken and untiring patriot in those days when that quality was not particularly prominent in the political party to which he belonged. We admire the uncomplaining silence with which he bore the late aspersions against him, and the unruffled dignity with which he kept on in his important duties. We admire the manner of his death; although it was peculiarly sad to die away from home and alone, yet he died in the performance of duty, as it were with his judicial gown upon him, in earnest discharge of what was given him to do. We valued him as a warm, personal friend, and yet we know he thought the more of us for our plain speaking about him. He has gone to the Supreme Court, not of law, but of Equity, where his faults will be leniently judged, and his remarkable virtues will shine like the morning star.

Truth:

The New York Evening Post of the 5th inst. reprints the following paragraph from London accorded to Lord Coleridge and his companions in "Considering the warm reception that was America two years ago, it is any thing but creditable to the representatives of English law that Chief Justice Waite should have been allowed to spend over two months in this country and leave without a single public recognition of his visit. The compliments paid to Lord Coleridge were really paid to the whole of the legal profession in England, and the commonest courtesy, one would think, re