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Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, 15$ Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of interest to the profession j also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anecdotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. HTHE first few months of the existence of a magazine are always an experimental stage. To please a host of readers of different tastes and desires is no easy task. One wishes one thing, and another prefers something very different. The Editor of the " Green Bag " has often felt that if he could only get a friendly word of advice or an expression of the likes and dislikes of those whom he is striving to please, his task would be greatly lightened. However, he has tried to do his best to entertain and amuse those to whom the magazine goes from month to month; and the expressions of opinion from his readers have been so uniformly kindly and encouraging that he feels that his labor has not been in vain, and that the " Green Bag " has proved a source of real entertainment to his legal brethren. The Editor, however, de sires to say right here, " If you don't find what you want, ask for it; and if it can be done, he will endeavor to conform to your desires." As we are drawing toward the close of our first volume, our readers may, perhaps, feel an interest in knowing what we propose to offer for their edification during the coming year. Upon the completion of the series of articles upon the Law Schools, we intend to commence a series upon the Courts, which will include the Supreme Court of the United States, illustrated with portraits of the past Chief-Justices and the present bench; the several United States Circuit Courts, with portraits of the present judges and eminent judges who have been connected with them in the past; the Supreme Courts of the different States, with portraits of the past ChiefJustices and the present bench of each. Besides these, other illustrated articles will from time to time appear, among which we hope to number a 66
series on the Bars of our principal cities, with por traits of leading lawyers connected therewith. The series of Causes Célèbres will be continued, and also the short biographical sketches, with full-page portraits. The other contents will be made up, as now, of short, bright, interesting articles upon legal subjects. The continued success of the magazine will de pend, to a great extent, upon the interest and hearty co-operation of its friends; and the Editor trusts that all those who can will send in short articles upon subjects of interest to the profession, and anything in the way of good stories or facetiae that they may run across.
For the material for the brief sketch of Jeremiah Mason in this number, we are largely indebted to an article written by Clement Hugh Hill, Esq., in the January number of the " American Law Re view," 1878. Our " anonymous " Philadelphia correspondent sends another communication which we are sure will be read with much interest. It is as follows : — Editor of the " Green Bag" — A copy of the September number of your " useless but entertaining magazine for lawyers " having been handed to a young lawyer of ability, — a near rela tive, by the way, of a most distinguished jurist and who at one time was in the cabinet of the nation, — and his attention having been called to the communi cation commenting deprecatingly upon the fact that so many lawyers gave more of their attention to the hunting up of court decisions than to examining and investigating the legal principles which underlie and produce them, astonished your correspondent by re plying that this was "an utilitarian age, — that it was the day of case lawyers," — and then going into an argument to show that the standard English works which have from the foundation of our country been used as text-books, both by the student and the prac titioner, are no longer desirable or useful for the American student. He seemed to regard a general knowledge of American decisions as all that was
