except the hearing of complaints from disappointed suitors and vindictive spinsters who will willingly pay the fee demanded in advance for the sake of showing up their faithless sweethearts.
The bill, recently introduced in the Massachu setts Legislature, allowing towns the same rights and privileges in " great ponds " which is accorded to the larger cities, is said to be the work of the prohibitionists in anticipation of the passage of the proposed prohibitory Constitutional Amendment.
Wager of Battle still seems to be in vogue in some of our Southern courts, if the following re port clipped from the " Boston Transcript " is to be relied upon : — "During the argument of a petit larceny case be fore Justice of the Peace Nixon, at Hoxie, Kansas, J. L. Patterson and William Langley, both muscular law yers, became involved in a dispute as to their relative fighting powers. The two exchanged words and taunts for some time : then each bared his muscular arm and called on the justice to decide the dispute. Justice Nixon, who is a lover of the manly art, de cided that the only way in which the affair could be settled was with bare knuckles, and declared his wil lingness to adjourn the case for a time to allow the attorneys to settle the dispute. The two accepted the proposition and adjourned to a large hall. About all the men in the place gathered to see the fight. Patterson and Langley stripped to their undershirts, and, with the justice as referee, squared off at each other in regular pugilistic style. Suddenly Patter son's right shot out, and a moment later Langley was sprawling on the floor. This unnerved the doughty lawyer, and picking up his things he left the hall. Langley arose a moment later, but was not bent on fighting; and the battle was declared a draw."
Complaint is often made that jurors usurp the prerogative of judges and undertake to pass upon the law as well as the facts. But has it ever oc curred to those who make this complaint, that judges sometimes undertake to instruct the jury upon the facts as well as the law? If the bench forgets its duty in this respect, there is less reason for surprise that juries do likewise.
"Selected Pleas of the Crown." — The Selden Society are republishing, under this title, cer
tain manorial court rolls, — those of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. This will give our Amer ican lawyers and judges of super-conservative ten dencies material to draw from when an absolutely new question of law comes up for decision. They may find in these mouldy archives what some judge said in a foreign language on some more or less analogous subject, at a time when roast beef was a rarity on the tables of the aristocracy of England, and when England itself contained but a million of inhabitants. What do our readers think of this verdict, which, according to a contemporary, was delivered at the present Oxford Assizes, Coleridge (C-J. ) presiding, on the trial of the case of Cornish v. The Accident Insurance Company? We are of opinion that in consequence of his lordship's summing up, we are compelled to find that the plaintiff lost his life by incurring obvious risk, but we are of opin ion that he met his death by ordinary misadven ture. — Pump Court. The variation of age in judges of the United King dom is considerable. The oldest judge in England is Mr. Justice Manisty, of the Queen's Bench Di vision, aged eighty-one; the youngest, Mr. Justice Charles, of the Court of Appeal, aged fifty. In Scotland the oldest of the Lords of Session is Lord Glencorse, Lord Justice-General, aged seventynine; the youngest, Lord Wellwood, aged fifty. In Ireland the Hon. J. Eitz Henry Townsend, of the Court of Admiralty, aged seventy-eight, is the oldest judge; and Mr. Justice Gibson, of the Queen's Bench Division, aged forty-four, is the youngest. — The Legal News (Montreal). s The devil is a land-owner by legal right in Fin land. A man of evil repute died, and bequeathed all his property to the devil. ( The lawyers are in great anxiety about the matter. — Boston Budget.
Speaking of the pleasantries o(* the reports and text-books, a contemporary remarks that the met aphors which are to be found therein are at once amusing and beautiful. One such,', for example, occurs in Bright v. Legerton, 2 D. F. & J. 607, where it is remarked with respect to the emblem of Time, who is depicted as carrying' a scythe and
