to the winning of cases; and to attain that end, the lawyers use less elaborate periods and more homely words, the better to reach the understanding of the jury that is trying the case. I have not been farther West; but I should ima gine the farther you go the less regard would be found manifested for the strict forms and theories of the law, but much more grandiloquence in the legal arguments. The reason for the difference, I think, is that the far West is a new country, where, as in all new places, more attention is paid to show, and but little to substance. In the portions of the country fairly represented by St. Paul, the newness is worn off, and there is a great press of business on account of the organization and development made necessary by the rapid settle ment of the country. The law business, especially, is thriving and urgent of settlement, partly because the law is the arbiter of nearly all of man's relations with his fellow-man, and also partly on account of the amount of friction unavoidably produced by the rapid amalgamation of such discordant elements. In the East the organization is completed; and while there is some change constantly being made necessary by the activity of the age and country, still it is small compared to the West, with the exception of a few metropolitan cities. There they have more time to attend to the elegances of language and strict forms of law. A comparison of legal calendars of the different sections would illustrate the force of my statement more than any words. England's verbosity and formality, although lately very much modified, are grounded in history. The people are as they are, because their fathers and grandfathers were so. Their terms and formula; are the same as were used two, three, and in some in stances five hundred years ago. This is a subject well worthy of expansion and elaboration; but our space cannot expand, and we must leave this pleasant occupation for some future time. John McKeaN. An esteemed "contributor" to the "Green Bag " writes from Detroit as follows : Editor of the " Green Bag " : The very excellent portrait and pen-picture of Judge Black, in the last issue of the " Green Bag," is a lesson to the bar in all States. It re veals many side-lights of a character that thousands admired in life and thousands feared to contend with. Such lives are splendid object-lessons for young men, and teach us one striking truth, — that intensity of belief may become a hardened habit of thought, and painful to bear if harbored too long with out relaxing. As a singular opposite, we shall see a
most rare and forgiving judge, always great and al ways gentle, described by Judge Brown when he gives the likeness of the late Justice Campbell. The history of the bar is nearly all biographical. It is dense with great characters, and full of wonder ful events. No one attains great rank without de serving it, — without earning it, without struggling for it. Of the two men mentioned, one spent a life of careful devotion to a single State, and the other sailed on a broader sea; yet time will make them both immortal. As Black resembled Ryan, the great Northwestern peer of Carpenter, whom men often speak of; so Campbell resembled Kent, whom thousands read of. A contrast of mental and physical natures, a contrast of characters. "The char acter of a people is known by the men they crown." J. W. Donovan.
LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. Owing to a laudable desire to make the study of the law more palatable to the public, and to entice them to acquire more knowledge of its principles and the forms of legal procedure, in olden times attractive titles were given to books which treated of such dry subjects. Thus, about the year 1500, a work was published which was likely to arrest the attention of the gay gallants of the age. It was written by Martial D'Auvergne, and called " Declarations, Proceedings, and Decrees of Love, pronounced in the Court and at the Bar of Cupid, in the case of different disputes heard before that Magistrate." When opened it proved to be a very learned treatise upon law, but applied to fictitious and amusing cases, as the following headings of some of the " decrees " sufficiently indicate: — "5th. Process between two lovers wooing the same lady. "1 8th. Concerning a kiss taken by force by a lover, against which the lady appealed. "20th. An action brought by a lover against his mistress to compel her to tike down a cage contain ing a quail which kept up a continual noise whenever it saw him at the door of the lady." The following law was passed in Virginia in 1662 : — "Whereas many babbling women slander and scandalize their neighbors, for which their poor hus
