has since received; which of its uses have, in the course of time, become obsolete, and which still survive; what new uses have since arisen, by what processes and when; (2) to illustrate these facts by a series of quotations ranging from the first known occurrence to the latest, or down to the present day, the word being thus made to exhibit its own history and meaning; and (3) to treat the etymology of each word strictly on the basis of historical fact, and in accordance with the methods and results of philological science." The first vol ume, which deals with the letters A and B only, contain 31,254 words in 1,240 pages. In John son's Dictionary, A and B occupied 127 pages.
The Dallas Bar Association is to be congratu lated on its flourishing financial condition. We give the report of its treasurer, Judge Philip Lindsley, or rather that portion relating to the finances. It certainly is good enough to be preserved. "My last report as treasurer showed there had been received and disbursed by me, for the four years preceding that date, the sum of two dollars and fifty cents. "During my last term of office of some three years, which expires to-day, I have not received nor dis bursed a single cent. Consequently, my final report to you, as treasurer, upon the finances of the associa tion, is necessarily brief. "The original membership fee, as fixed by our by laws, was five dollars. No member ever paid this but the first president, Colonel Leake; and when soon after, by .a change in your by-laws, the membership fee was fixed at two dollars and a half, Colonel Leake promptly called upon the treasurer to refund him the half of what he had paid. Colonel Leake will do me the justice to say that I never told this on him until he had solemnly announced that he would not be a candidate for re-election. No single member has ever yet paid the fee of $2.50. I feel it due to my self to state this, because it is also due from each member of the association but one. Estimating our original membership at about one hundred, the ori ginal fees yet unpaid amount to two hundred and fifty dollars. Add interest thereto for seven years at three per cent per month, the prevailing rate of in terest at the time the contract was made, and you have the neat sum of eight hundred and eighty dol lars in the aggregate, or ninety dollars for each member, ready at any time to be paid into the treas ury, whenever it is in need of money. I may, I trust, be allowed to indulge in some pride in leaving the financial affairs of your association in so healthy a condition."
The anomalies to which our system of appeals sometimes give rise are illustrated by Judge Sey mour D. Thompson, of St. Louis, in a recent ac count of a Missouri case, where a man described as a phenomenal criminal is said to have had three trials, four appeals, and one writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States on the usual Federal question. That great court, by a majority of five to four, reversed the decision of the Su preme Court of Missouri, reversing at the same time an intermediate appellate Court and the trial Court, and rendering a decision which actually presented the spectacle of five judges overruling thirteen upon a question which all of them had considered. The result was that this scoundrel, after putting the State of Missouri to untold ex pense, received the rites of the Church and died outside the jail like a decent Christian. The decision of the Supreme Court in the Mat ter of Zeph (50 Hun, 523), that civil death is not enough to justify the issue of letters of adminis tration, probably puts a quietus upon the ancient common-law doctrine of civil death. Since the unfortunate convict is no longer dead for the pur pose of preventing him from inheriting property, or being served with process, or testifying as a wit ness, or having letters issued upon his estate, it seems almost uncivil to call him dead in any sense. If he is, he is "a pretty lively corpse." — Daily Register.
Recent Deaths
Sidney Bartlett, LL.D., the oldest member and acknowledged leader of the Suffolk Bar, died at his residence in Boston on March 6. Mr. Bartlett was born in Plymouth, Feb. 13, 1799, and was therefore a little over ninety years of age at the time of his death. We hope in our April number to give our read ers a sketch of the life of this remarkable member of the legal profession, accompanied by an excel lent portrait. Hon. C. W. Goddard died at Portland, Me., on March 9. He was born in 1825 in Portland, graduated from Bowdoin College in 1844, and from the Harvard Law School in 1846. He was the first attorney of Androscoggin County, and
