firm Herbert Spencer's opinion of us, that while an association of lawyers was solicitous for the dignity of judges at Albany, and hoped to add to it by gowns, certain of the courts and many of officers of justice in their own city were engaged, and had been for years, in the practice of the most monstrous usurpations and wrongs upon the clients of those lawyers, upon the weak and defenseless widow and orphan, and upon the public generally, and without one word of protest being heard. In view of such things and the fact that liberty is not lost all at once, but by insensible gradations, the contemptible drapery and gown business, and all that it implies should be sufficient to make the "judicious grieve," especially, unless the movement to frock the judges of the country is soon brought to a halt. NEW YORK, April 27, 1884. G. S. P. S. SHOULD LAWYERS DECIDE THEIR OWN CASES? Editor of the Albany Law Journal: It is a self-evident truth that "no man should be judge in his own suit." Occasionally however we find in the action of our courts of justice gross violations of the principle upon which this axiom is based. For instance, a controversy arises between two citizens as to what the one claims to be an exorbitant charge made by the other for professional services as a lawyer. Now, while it is entirely legitimate in such cases to take the testimony of attorneys as to existing rates of charge, it strikes us that to actually refer the case to a lawyer "to hear and determine it," is very much like making a man a judge in his own case. While the referee thus appointed by the court is not the plaintiff himself, yet he is the professionial brother of the plaintiff, alike interested with him in raising high and keeping up the standard of compensation for all professional services rendered by any member of the confraternity. In all controversies at law the parties should be accorded the most impartial and unbiased tribunal for the determination of the case both as to its questions of law and its issues of fact. And it would seem to many logical minds that where the question to be determined is whether the bill of a lawyer or a physician is a reasonable or an exorbitant one, neither an attorney in the one case, nor a doctor of medicine in the other, should be made, by an appointment as referee, both judge and jury in his professional brother's case. VALUE OF INCHOATE DOWER RIGHTS. Editor of the Albany Law Journal: * The code (§ 1570) provides that where "a party to the action (partition) has an inchoate right of dower, or any other future right or estate, vested or contingent, the court must fix the proportional value of the right and estate, according to the principles of law applicable to annuities and survivorships," etc., and must direct the same to be paid over, etc. Rule 71 of the General Rules of Practice provides that if a tenant for life, or by the curtesy, or in DOWER "consents to accept a gross sum in lieu of such annual interest or income for life, the same shall be estimated according to the then value of an annuity of five per cent on the principal sum during the probable life of such person, according to the Portsmouth or Northampton tables." The above rule seems to provide for dower interests which are fixed, ascertained and vested, and not for those which are inchoate, contingent and undetermined. Section 1570 of the code does refer to the latter, and directs the court to fix the proportional value of the inchoate estate according to certain "principles" applicable to annuities. What are the "principles" applicable to inchoate dower rights, and how are they to be ascertained and calculated? The annuity table in the appendix to the Court Rules and the "examples " following it seem to refer exclusively to the ascertainment of the values of vested es tates. The husband is not a necessary party to a partition suit either by or against his wife, even though there be issue, and she can convey her lands without his consent or concurrence; but she is a very necessary party in a partition suit affecting his lands, and her hand and seal must be affixed to his deeds. Yet while the rule is careful to provide for curtesy, it is technically silent upon the subject of inchoate dower. Now the value of the wife's dower right ought certainly to be less than that of the widow. Take the case of a partition sale where there is a widow of sixty, with an actual unapportioned dower estate in one undivided moiety, and a wife of forty, whose living husband owns the other undivided moiety. Suppose the proceeds of sale of the whole property to be $30,000. If we adopt the annuity table appended to the rules as our guide, and calculate the value of both the wife's and the widow's dower interest in the given case simply according to the above table, we have the peculiar result that the widow, whose estate and rights are determined and vested, gets only $1,955 as the value of her dower, while the wife (who may possibly not survive her husband at all) is entitled to $2,676. Of course this is not the intention of the law; but I think it is the general practice of the profession to make the same calculation for wife and widow. In Jackson v. Edwards, 7 Paige, 386, 408, the rule for computing the present value of the wife's contingent right of dower during the life of her husband is stated to be to ascertain the present value of an annuity for her life in the third of the proceeds of the estate, and from this sum so ascertained to deduct the value of a similar annuity depending upon the joint lives of herself and her husband, and the difference between these two sums will be the present value of her contingent right of dower. Now by what table or mode of calculation are we to arrive at the value of an annuity depending upon joint lives? The references in Jackson v. Edwards are to McKean's "Prac. Life Tables," and Hendry's "Annuity Tables." The latter work I have not been able to find, and the tables in the former are in English money, and are too complicated for the average practitioner. Of course an actuary could easily make the calculation required in any given case; but would it not be well to have a table applicable to survivorships and joint lives, with illustrative examples, in the next revision of the rules? J. C. LEVI. NEW YORK, April 26, 1884. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. HIGH ON EXTRAORDINARY LEGAL REMEDIES-SECOND EDITION. A Treatise on Extraordinary Legal Remedies, embracing Mandamus, Quo Warranto and Prohibition. By James L. High. Second edition. Chicago; Callaghan & Co., 1884. Pp. xliv, and 737. We noticed on a previous occasion (10 Alb. L. J. 173) the first edition of this work. Since that time the profession have become familiar with it and other treatises on kindred subjects by the same author, and have given them such approval that we could not, were we inclined, fail to commend the present edition. The preparation of this edition was induced by the fact that since the first appeared nearly eight hundred decisions have been published upon the topics of which it treats. These have been embodied in the text, and while the plan and structure of the work remain unchanged, such additions or modifications have been made as to adapt it to the existing state of the law. COLEBROOKE ON COLLATERAL SECURITIES. A Treatise on the Law of Collateral Securities as applied to Negotiable, Quasi-Negotiable, and Non-Negotiable Choses in Action. By Wm. Colebrooke. Chicago; Callaghan & Co., 1883. Pp. lx, and 646. This volume contains an apparently exhaustive treatise upon a narrow, but in modern times a very important branch of commercial jurisprudence. This branch has heretofore been referred to in the textbooks as included in the law relating to pledge, that being a division of the law of failment. But other questions than those involved in the pledge of corporeal personal property arise from the use of collateral securities, and a separate work is required for their proper consideration. Such a work is here attempted and we think with success. The natural division of the subject is adopted, the three classes of securities, namely, negotiable, quasi-negotiable, and non-negotiable instruments, being separately treated. That the courts are frequently called upon to consider the subject of collateral securities is shown by the circumstance that over four thousand cases directly relating to it are here cited. The book is well printed and bound. LAW OF THE PRODUCE EXCHANGE. The Board of Trade and the Produce Exchange, their History, Methods and Law. For the use of the legal profession, commission merchants, brokers and business men generally. By Lewis H. Bisbee and John C. Simonds. Chicago; Callaghan & Co., 1884. Pp. xxxviii, 435. The subject of this volume is of growing importance in our commercial life, and presents a new field for the legal author, and in this volume the "sincere desire for honest and thorough work" has found its fulfillment. What Dos Passos and Biddle have done for the Stock Exchange, the authors of this work, with no less ability have done in their chosen field. Appended are the rules of the Chicago Board of Trade. and rules and regulations of the several branches of the New York Produce Exchange. The mechanical execution is good. Newman, appellant, v. David Fish and another, admr's, respondents; Jacob New, by guardian, etc., respondent, v. James McKechnie and another, appellant; Wm. H. Robinson, respondent, v. National Bank of New Berne appellant; Daniel J. McCarthy, appellant, v. Mayor, etc., of New York, respondents; Thomas H. Bowles, infant, respondent, v. Frederick Haberman, appellant; People, respondents, v. Mutual Trust Co., appellant; James W. Murphy, an infant, respondent, v. John C. Orr and others, appellants.- -Judgment and conviction affirmed-People v. Louis D'Argencour, appellant. Order affirmed and judgment absolute rendered for plaintiff on the stipulation with costs-Marie Hussner, adm'x, respondent, v. Brooklyn City Bailroad Company. Judgment affirmed - People v. Stephen Raymond; People v. Charles H. Weed.Order affirmed, and judgment absolute ordered against the appellant with costs. Entered as decided April 14, 1884-John H. Platt, appellant, v. Edward R. Jones, respondent.-Order affirmed, with costs to the respondent to be paid and by the appellant out of any moneys in his hands, as receiver-People v. City Bank of Rochester.-Motion to correct decision. Decision of motion suspended to enable the attorney for the respondent to serve proposed form of judgment based on the facts appearing in the record on the attorneys for the appellants, with liberty to the latter to propose amendments, the proposed judgment and amendments to be submitted to Judge Finch within twenty daysHerman Veeder and others v. William Mudgett (fifteen appeals). THE NOTES. HE American Law Review for March-April has the following leading articles: Effect of withholding, suppressing and manufacturing evidence in civil cases, by John D. Lawson; Post-office department as a common carrier, by Temple Bodley; Courts of Chancery in America-colonial period, by Solon D.Wilson; Payments for corporate shares in property instead of money, by Leonard A. Jones; Judgment liens in the Federal courts, by Warren Watson. The "Notes" continue to be very entertaining. The Review pays us two rather indifferent compliments; it says: “We enjoy reading the Albany almost as much as the Central'; and that we are “too respectable a publication to be caught in such company as many of the reports which we have here catalogued "— i. e., the New York judicial reports. The Review also says that the editor of this journal is "of mature age." That is true, and we are not sensitive about it, but we warn the Review not to say such a thing of our accomplished brother, the editor of the Chicago Legal News. The book notices of the Review are among the best we have ever read. -The American Law Register for April has a leading article on Drunkenness as an excuse for crime, by John D. Lawson, and the following cases in full: Goodhart v. Hyatt (Eng.), on right to enter on another's land to repair water pipes, with note by Edmund H. Bennett; Wood v. Detroit City Ry. Co.(Mich.), on contributory negligence of one driving on street railway track, with note by M. D. Ewell; Arrowsmith v. Hormening (Ohio), on time when statute takes effect, with note by W. W. Thornton. The Albany Law Journal. W ALBANY, MAY 10, 1884. CURRENT TOPICS. E hope the ante-mortem probate bill pending in our Legislature will not prevail. It is a very impolitic and unnecessary measure. A Michigan Circuit judge, writing to the New York Tribune, says of the similar act in that State, that it is impolitic, "first, because the proceedings necessary to establish a will during the testator's life cause strife and dissension, stirring up bitter hatred between parents and children, husbands and wives, and so are contrary to public policy; second, because in Michigan, by special statute, husband and wife are precluded from testifying for or against each other without consent, and so the very best evidence is unnecessarily excluded. If that rule of evidence does not apply in contested will cases, then so much the worse, for we shall have the unseemly spectacle of husband and wife revealing the family skeletons and resorting, very likely, to violence afterward to be avenged for the disclosure." Prominent lawyers in Philadelphia have also avowed themselves opposed to such a measure. Judge Penrose, of the Orphan's Court, says: "This law might perhaps shorten these contests, because the examiners would have the benefit of the testator's own testimony. Even as to that point there is an uncertainty. I think that an investigation in the nature of a proceeding in lunacy could easily be drawn out over months and years. The ante-mortem probation would, of course, be regarded as final. What then? A will is ambulatory until the maker of it die. A man might want to change his will a dozen times after it had been probated. Would not the register or the surrogate come to regard him as a nuisance? Then as to publicity. A testator ought to be required to give notice of the disposition of his property to all who have an interest in his estate. To omit that would be opening the door to gross fraud. Yet see how this publicity would affect the testator's peace of mind. He would run the risk of having his life made miserable by the relatives to whom he had given nothing or had not given what they regarded as enough. Then again publicity would be placing a premium on murder. Suppose a man bad induced another to make a will in his favor, or had been favored without his bringing it about, might he not sometime believe it to be to his interest to have the testator's death hastened? I do not say that the thing I suggest would happen frequently, but once would be once too often. Antemortem probation, to my mind, would never do." And Register Rex says: Suppose a man make a will and his mental soundness be tested. His relatives would be much averse to precipitating an unseemly contest during his life-time. They would be forced into silence. Yet they all have a right to VOL. 29 No. 19, If they be informed of the contents of the will. We hope our legislature will abolish imprisonment for debt. It is a relic of barbarism almost as vile as slavery. The law as it now stands is an abomination, intrinsically, and because under it in certain cases perpetual imprisonment is possible. Matter of Brady, 69 N. Y. 215; Coffin v. Gourley, 20 Another objection, which was forcibly Hun, 308. pointed out in a recent hearing before the judiciary committee of the Assembly, is that a creditor residing in a community where imprisonment for debt does not prevail may come here and enforce this harsh remedy against his debtor resident here, when he could not resort to it at home. The best thing to do with this law is to reform it altogether. Let caveat venditor be the rule. The Central Law Journal seems to be "perking up." It says: "Our Albany cotemporary says: 'Mr. Leonard A. Jones, the well-known legal author, is preparing an Index of Periodical Legal Literature, and is desirous of obtaining the names of unsigned leading articles in this journal. The contributors of such articles will confer a favor by sending their names to Mr. Jones, 209 Washington street, Boston, Mass.' We believe that Mr. Jones is desirous of obtaining the names of the contributors of the articles, not of the articles themselves. Score one for our Albany cotemporary's bad grammar. Any contributors to the Central Law Journal of articles, notes to cases, correspondence, etc., will please send their names to Mr. Jones." There seems to be no fault with our “grammar." There is merely an apparent omission of the words, "the writers of." Besides, if our paragraph was obscure, the same obscurity is chargeable to the last sentence of the Central's paragraph. To what does "their names" refer to the contributors or to the articles, etc? The Hub man should remember that he that taketh up the pen shall perish by the pen. Moreover, a cultured Boston man should not use the word cotemporary. But we are glad to note this indication of his attentive reading of this journal. A contin uance therein will be a liberal education to him. We It will be news to most of our readers that the late eminent novelist, Charles Reade, was a lawyer by education, having been called to the bar in 1843, He felt however that his proper call was to literature, and in this he achieved marked success. doubt however that posterity will rank him among the great novelists. In his latter days he exhibited a furious and ungovernable temper in controversy, and this, with several astonishing instances of plagiarism, has led us to suspect that his wits were not quite well regulated. Whenever he stole a passage however he seemed perfectly able to protect his possession by force and abuse. teen to one. The London Spectator, in an article on crime in America, says: "That except when public feeling is really roused, or good citizens crowd into the jury-box, the chances in favor of a murderer escaping the scaffold are in many States more than sixLast year, for example, more than 1,500 convictions for murder were recorded in the Union, and only ninety-three criminals were hanged. The penalty of death may be said to be informally abolished, and, as invariably happens when that is the case, murders have multiplied till a general sense of insecurity has penetrated downward even to the classes living by labor. The details are almost incredible, but Mr. Mulhall, in his 'Dictionary of Statistics,' shows that murder is more than three times as common in the Union as in England, France or Germany. We give the figures. Murder is a cause of death: The Senate failed to pass the Civil Code for want of a quorum. The bill received fifteen votes in favor to eleven opposed. Mr. Ellsworth declared the bill a statute and not a code. And yet the Throop bill, conceded to be a statute, and covering part of the same ground, was passed. Mr. Lansing exhibited very bad taste in speaking of the bill as a mere glorification of the codifier. He should at least recognize the fact that the codifier has merely discharged an official duty. It looks now as if the enemics of the bill had temporarily succeeded by dilatory tactics. They may gratify their personal animosities and their own pride of opinion by this course, but the cause of codification will live long after they and their petty interests are forgotten. Senators may write this sentence down in their tablets: The people are determined to have written laws, which they can read for themselves, without paying senators and other lawyers to interpret for them. IN NOTES OF CASES. 'N Price v. People, 109 Ill. 109, a conviction of one of several for burglary was set aside on the ground that the evidence showed that he was acting as a detective. The court observed in the prevailing opinion: "Waiving all controverted questions, the undisputed facts as appears from the foregoing are, that the accused on the day of the attempted robbery went deliberately to a constable of the town in which he lived, and told him all about the contemplated crime, giving the true names of the parties, and telling him when and where it was to take place, and the name of the intended victim; that the attempt was made at the very time and place, and by the parties stated by him, and that on the following morning he in like manner went to a justice of the peace and told him all about what had been done, and furnished him with the true names of the parties implicated, by means of which on the same day they were brought to trial, and were subsequently convicted of the crime. That a sane person, really guilty of committing so grave a crime as the one imputed to the accused, would thus act, is so inconsistent with all human experience as not to warrant the conviction of any one under the circumstances shown. The accused is a mere youth, only some nineteen years of age at the time of this transaction, and the fact that some of his conduct subsequent to the occur rence tends rather to strengthen the view taken by negligence of a competent surgeon in treating the the jury, as is conceded, yet that may well have re-injury. The court said: "There is evidence tendsulted from his youth and inexperience. But as to ing to show that had this broken arm received ordithe exculpating facts above stated, we see no ra- nary care and ordinary professional skill, the parts tional solution of them, and none that is satisfactory would have united with little or no permanent injury, has been suggested by counsel for the people which and on this hypothesis alone appellant insists that the would seem to warrant the conviction." Scott, J., matter of this false joint should have been, at least however, dissented, observing: "It is admitted the hypothetically, excluded from the jury. We unaccused went to the house of the prosecuting wit- derstand the law on this subject to be that plaintiff ness with others, whose avowed purpose was to rob cannot hold defendant answerable for any injury him of his money. That he might have done with caused, even in part, by the fault of plaintiff in no criminal intent. But he went much farther. It failing to use ordinary care or ordinary judgment, is proven he entered the house where the burglary or for any injury not resulting from the fault of dewas to be committed, with one who carried a drawn fendant, but caused by some new intervening cause pistol that he knew was loaded with a deadly not incident to the injury caused by defendant's charge, that he presented it in the face of the prose wrong. Thus in this case if it be conceded that cuting witness, and demanded his life or his the false joint, under proper care and skill, would money,' and that accused aided him in his wicked not have resulted from the breaking of the arm purpose by his presence, and by exhibiting an un- alone, but was brought about by the subsequent loaded pistol, and by the use of threatening lan- separation of the parts after they had been propguage calculated to intimidate the witness and his erly set, and before nature had formed a firm union, wife, both of whom were old persons, and alone then if this subsequent separation of the parts had in their house in the night time. But for the un- been caused by an assault and battery by a stranger, usual bravery exhibited by the prosecuting witness or some foreign cause with which appellant had no and his wife, the attempt to rob them might have connection, and which was not in its nature incibeen, and no doubt would have been, successful, dent to a broken arm, plainly appellant ought not and that result would have been accomplished in to be held to answer for the false joint, but if appart, at least, by the acts of the accused. It might pellee exercised ordinary care to keep the parts tobe admitted the accused went to the house with no gether, and used ordinary care in the selection of original felonious intent, yet as has been seen, he surgeons and doctors, and nurses if needed, and emstood by and aided another while he was attempt-ployed those of ordinary skill and care in their proing to commit a felony. That made him a princi- | fession, and still by some unskillful or negligent pal in the wrongful act. It was unlawful for him act of such nurses, or doctors or surgeons, the parts to aid in the perpetration of a crime under the pre- became separated, and the false joint was the result, tense he was acting as a detective. His presence in appellant if responsible for the breaking of the arm, the house with pistol in hand, whether loaded or ought to answer for the injury in the false joint. unloaded, was a cause of terror to the parties as- The appellee, when injured, was bound by law to sailed, and as effectually aided the man who was use ordinary care to render the injury no greater attempting to rob them as though the intention of than necessary. It was therefore his duty to emthe accused had from the beginning been felonious. ploy such surgeons and nurses as ordinary prudence It is no answer to this view of the case to say that in his situation required, and to use ordinary judghe notified the officers to be present and make ar- ment and care in doing so, and to select only such rests. When he ascertained there were no officers as were of at least ordinary skill and care in their or others present to make arrests he ought to have profession. But the law does not make him an instopped before entering the house, and given the surer in such case that such surgeons or doctors, or alarm elsewhere. This he did not do, nor is it nurses, will be guilty of no negligence, error in shown he was prevented from doing it by intimida- judgment, or want of care. The liability to mistion or otherwise, but on the contrary he actually takes in curing is incident to a broken arm, and participated in the attempted crime. The effect of where such mistakes occur (the injured party using his presence upon the witness and his wife was the ordinary care) the injury resulting from such missame as if he was, in very fact, one of the 'James takes is properly regarded as part of the immediate boys,' as he declared he was. The law will tolerate and direct damages resulting from the breaking of no such conduct. It would be to establish a most the arm." pernicious doctrine to hold that a person might participate in the commission of a felony, and obtain immunity from punishment on the ground he was a mere detective or spy upon the conduct of others." Craig and Walker, JJ., also dissented, and so do we. In Pullman Palace Car Co. v. Bluhm, 109 Ill. 20, it was held that one whose negligence causes a personal injury is not excused from liability by the In Duffy v. City of Dubuque, Iowa Supreme Court, April 9, 1884, 18 N. W. Rep. 900, it was held that one who steps partly off a city street to get a drink of water from a hydrant on an adjacent lot is still legitimately using the street, and the city is liable for an injury to him by its neglect to take proper care of the street. The court said: "The position of counsel for appellant is that to entitle plaintiff to recover he must have been using the street at |