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against loss or damage by fire, then, it is also violated by the other party purchasing such indemnity. If the one party is guilty of violation of law, the other must be also. If the insurance company is to be held liable at all, it must be held liable by virtue of the terms of the policy which constitutes the contract. In no case has it been held liable for the amount of the policy as a penalty for violating the law. The amount recoverable is determined by the amount of loss or damage to the property embraced in the contract of indemnity. But, if the the insurance company is to be held estopped from pleading no liability on its part under the contract so entered into between the two parties upon the ground that it cannot take advantage of its violation of the law, upon what legal or logical principle can the assured's plea of no liability under the same contract for procuring indemnity in violation of the law be sustained? If the assured is not liable on his premium note or under the provisions of the policy, then, there is no consideration to support the contract as against the insurance company. The two holdings are logically and absolutely inconsistent. They are irreconcilable.

It has been held by the courts and is considered sound law, that a contract if valid where made is valid everywhere, and will be enforced by the courts, even in a State where the contract would be held to be void, if made in such State. It has been held that a note void in the State of Rhode Island, if executed in that State on Sunday, is valid, and will be enforced by the courts of that State if executed on Sunday in the State of Connecticut, and valid under the laws of the latter State. So in regard to a note that provides for the payment of a rate of interest that is usurious under the laws of a State in which its collection is sought to be enforced, if not in violation of the laws for that reason in a state where it was executed. A contract has been held to have been executed or consummated when either the acceptance of the proposition is placed in the postoffice or when the contract itself has been placed in the postoffice addressed by the one party to the other, with the necessary postage stamps affixed to insure its carriage by mail.

In the case of Lamb, assignee of Winnesheik Ins. Co. vs. Bowser, Judge Gresham, as District Judge, held that the maker of the premium note was liable, and the collection of the note could be enforced when application for the insurance and the premium note had been sent from Indiana to the insurance company at its office in Freeport, Ill., and there accepted by the company and the policy sent by mail to Bowser, in Indiana, upon the principle that the Winnesheik Insurance Co. had the right to transact business in the State

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of Illinois, and that the contract was executed when the policy was placed in the post-office; and if valid in this State, then it must be heid to be valid in the State of Indiana; and if binding upon one party by reason of its validity, it was binding upon the other.

Judge Gresham was affirmed by Judge Drummond, upon appeal from the U. S. District Court to the U. S. Circuit Court; and Judge Drummond, in his opinion affirming Judge Gresham, uses the strong and significant language, that a person has a right to purchase his insurance of indemnity against loss or damage by fire wherever he chooses, and it was a question in his mind whether or not the law could rightfully prohibit him from purchasing such insurance or indemnity where he pleased.

Lamb, dr. vs. Bowser, 7 Biss.

Yet the Supreme Court in Wisconsin has held that a contract of insurance so executed in the State of Illinois was taken out from under lex loci contractus if the subject of insurance was an interest in realty, and therefore fell under the provisions of the valued policy law of that State, and that the contract fell under lex rei sitae.

As respectable a court as the U. S. Supreme Court has held upon the application of lex rei sitae, that "the laws of the State where the land is situated control its descent, its devise, alienation and transfer, and therefore the construction of instruments intending to convey it."

As I have already stated, a contract of insurance is simply an agreement by the insurer to indemnify the assured against loss or damage by fire. It does not affect in any manner the acquisition or alienation of an interest in realty.

The Supreme Court of Michigan has also declared that where a policy was executed in manner above stated in the city of Milwaukee and sent by mail to the assured in the State of Michigan on property located in that State, that it would not enforce the collection of assessments upon liability in the policy or under liability of premium notes, notwithstanding the lex loci contractus, because there was evidently an intent to evade the laws of that State prohibiting insurance companies organized under the laws of other States from doing business except in compliance with the requirements of that State.

Even the Supreme Court of the prohibition State of Iowa has enforced the collection of contracts for the sale of intoxicating liquors. Under the law of the State of Iowa the sale of intoxicating liquors is prohibited except in manner and under restrictions prescribed; and all contracts; "sales, transfers, conveyances, mortgages, liens, attachments,

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pledges, and securities of every kind, which either in whole or in part shall have been made for or on account of intoxicating liquors sold in violation of this law shall be utterly null and void against all persons in all cases, and no rights shall be acquired thereby, and no action of any kind shall be maintained in any court in this State for intoxicating liquor or the value thereof," etc., and all payments for liquor sold in violation of the law may be recovered.

An order for liquors was given in Iowa by a citizen of that State to a traveling salesman of a Chicago firm, and sent by the salesman to his principals to be filled, if they concluded to do so. The order was accepted and filled, and upon refusal by the Iowa man to pay, the Supreme Court of that State held the contract was made in the State of Illinois, and was therefore valid, and enforced it.

We therefore see in the application by the courts of the different States of lex loci contractus discrimination is alone made against contracts of insurance or indemnity. Insurance contracts alone do not fall within the application of that law.

The Federal Courts do not so hold.

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COPYRIGHT LAW,

L. L. BOND, OF CHICAGO.

Under the ancient system of making books by the employment of scribes, copyright law had no existence, so that in regard to this branch of the law we have no ancient and forgotten lore, while there is much in its incipient stages that is dark and uncertain.

Our Copyright Law follows and is modeled after that of England, and we are therefore remitted back to that country, largely, for any historical view of the subject. It will be understood that the art of printing preceded any development of the law in the direction of making or multiplying copies.

Printing was introduced in England in 1471. There are some contentions between 1471 and 1468, but for our purposes either date is sufficient. Copies of books then began to multiply, but outside of the censorship of State and Church there was no regulation in regard to multiplying copies of the same book until 1558. This regulation was by orders of the crown, or by decretal orders of the star chamber. In 1558 a public register was provided in which authors could register their books, and the courts prohibited others from copying any book so registered. Under Charles II (1662) the Stationers Company was chartered, and the matter of registration was turned over to this company, and its licenses to print were protected by statute. This appears to be the first legislation on the subject. At this time the crown reserved the right to publish the bible and all books derived therefrom, such as psalters, books of common prayer, etc., all almanacs, law reports, statutes and Latin grammars. These reserved rights were farmed out by the crown by letters patent, as in many other cases. These letters patent were mainly confined to the universities at Cambridge and Oxford, and the rights of these universities to publish these books, or such others as were exclusively given to them, does not seem to have ever been seriously questioned.