mote the health, comfort, safety or welfare of society. The strongest argument in this case seems to have been made upon the proposition that the law was sustainable on the ground that it operated in the prevention of cruelty to animals, the claim in this respect being that as the health and comfort of animals is one of the recognized subjects of legislative control, so likewise their health and comfort tend to promote the health, comfort and welfare of the community, and that the exercise of the power may be made to rest on broad humanitarian grounds. Much of the court's answer to this contention is worth repetition verbatim. "For centuries horses have been shod and we may take notice that during that period no cruelty has resulted from the act which has caused comment among men, or which has destroyed the usefulness of the animal, or in a substantial sense caused it pain or suffering. Indeed, it may be doubted whether more discomfort, pain and suffering have not been occasioned by the harness which it wears and by the food which it eats than by the shoes which it wears. Under such circumstances to attribute cruelty to animals by shoeing seems fanciful in the extreme. It may be said with as much foundation for the assertion that if the shoeing of horses can be considered as cruelty, so likewise can their harness, feeding, watering and cleaning be denominated as cruelty, for certainly as much suffering to the animal flows from such sources. To undertake the regulation of these subjects would inject into the body politic a paternalism which is repugnant to free institutions."

PROXIMATE CAUSE. (LIVE WIRE V. FALL FROM LADDER.)

PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT.

An exemplification of the ever-vexing question of proximate cause is afforded by

Elliott v. Allegheny County Light Co., 54 Atlantic Reporter 278, the facts in which render the case worthy of notice though the principle involved has been familiar since long before the time of its notorious application in the "Squib case." A painter, working on a ladder, fell from it, clutched at a live wire, was shocked thereby and brought suit against the electric light company which owned the wire, on the ground that his injuries were caused by defective insulation. The existence of the wire was held not to be in any sense the efficient responsible cause of the injury, the fall from the ladder being the proximate cause of all the injuries.

ILLINOIS SUPREME COURT.

In Gallagher v. People, 71 Northeastern Reporter 842, the State offered in evidence the record of a former conviction of defendant for the purpose of impeaching him as a witness, and his counsel thereupon offered to show that he had been pardoned, which the court refused to allow.

The Supreme Court said, "The ruling was clearly right. Formerly a person who had been convicted of any crime was incompetent to testify upon the trial of a criminal case, but that disability was removed by our statute, with the qualification that such conviction might be shown for the purpose of affecting his credibility. I Starr. & C. Ann. St. 1896, c. 38, div. 13. §6, p. 1397. Under the statute, the guilt or innocence of the defendant of the crime for which he has been convicted, his punishment, his term of service, etc., are wholly immaterial and incompetent. That he may have been pardoned proves nothing as to his credibility, and to permit evidence of that fact would simply be to introduce into the case a collateral issue"