its accomplished editor. "The Critic" will be an instructive and entertaining companion to lawyers who care for books that are not bound in sheep, and we believe there are many such lawyers. " The Critic" is to be somewhat illustrated in future.
DEGRADING OFFICES. — Mr. William Morris, of England, poet, manufacturer of wall-papers, and so cialist, says that the offices of Judge and Prime Min ister are "degrading." Mr. Morris is a singular compound of culture and combativeness. His poetry and papers are very different from his politics. He writes beautiful smooth verses of the Chaucerian spirit, and he makes the sweetest wall-papers and stuffs, but his politics are extremely levelling and ultrademocratic, not to say ferocious. We believe he re gards property as a crime. We hope he systemati cally gives away the profits of his manufactures in verse, papers, and stuffs. Perhaps he does. We do not know. Hut to be consistent he ought to do so. If he were not so good a poet as he is, we should be apt to agree that property derived from poetry is a crime. That is the spirit in which we regard much of Swinburne and Browning, and all of Ella Wheeler Wilcox, and in which we regard the compensation which we receive from this magazine for our legal verses; and so we regularly devote it to a certain charitable object, which said charity begins at home. It is not our province to defend Prime Ministers. Hut we do not see how Mr. Morris can seriously re gard the judicial office as degrading. We have always had an impression that it is an elevating and enno bling office, and that a good judge — and most judges are good — is the nearest approach to divinity. But we begin to feel timorous of our opinion. We really should like to know the basis of Mr. Morris's belief. Poets are such practical and worldly-wise persons that he must have some reason for it, satisfactory to himself at least; and he owes it to the legal protes,sion to expound it, so that if it is sound they may slum the bench. CRINOLINE. — The bill proposed in the New York Legislature prohibiting the wearing of crinoline or hoop skirts has been referred to the committee on commerce and navigation. We should have preferred a reference to the committee on grievances. But the laughter and ridicule with which the threatened fashion is hailed, and the protests of the fair victims themselves, will not postpone the dreaded day. They will all rush to the dressmakers to be converted into guys as soon as the edict is issued Why is it that women are so eager to deform themselves? They are never willing to allow an approach to Nature's lair proportions, but are always humping or inflating themselves. If Nature had inflicted on their bodies
permanently the deformities which they assume iu dress at the dictates of fashion, they would submit to the most painful surgical operations, without anaes thetics, to be rid of them. Imagine a hump on the body like a bustle, or humps on the shoulders such as are now in vogue in dress! And now the poor crea tures must look like balloons or be out of the style Probably with crinoline will come in its ancient ac companiment of the •'waterfall," a sort of rat's nest of false hair at the back of the head. There is one way, and only one, in which the men can defeat this aeronautic movement, — let them refuse to pay for more than say twenty yards of material for a gown, and let the courts pronounce any excess above that quantity not a necessary. (We know what we are talking about, — we paid for thirty-six yards once ') Old Abinger said, " Let the wedding-dresses be struck off! " So let our courts say, "No crinoline!" And let the men refuse to get up and give their seats to women in the cars if they wear the accursed thing. We have thought about making it a cause for divorce, but we reserve that for a last resort. There is a case on record where a husband got a divorce because his wife struck him with her bustle! It is said that Ben Franklin wrote a tract entitled " Hooped Petticoats Arraigned and Condemned by the Sight of Nature and the Law of God."
SHAFTESBURY. — One of the most interesting re cent biographical sketches is that of the Earl of Shaftesbury, author of the writ of babeas corpus, by Hon. Alexander Martin, in the current number of the " Michigan Law Journal." The most that the young lawyer ever hears of this daring and indomit able man is Dryden's satirical lines on him in "Ab salom and Achitopel. He was not a very admirable character nor much of a lord chancellor, but the Anglo-Saxon people owe him a great debt of grati tude for drafting and carrying through this measure. Mr. Martin relates the following incident: — "It is more than traditionary that the third reading in the house of lords was carried by a mistake in the tally, Bishop Hurnet, who is a partial historian of Shaftesburv's life, says : ' Lords Grey and Norris were named to be tellers. Lord Norris, being л man subject to vapors, was not at all times attentive to what lie was doing So, a very fat lord coming in, Lord Grey counted him' for ten, as a jest at first; but seeing Lord Norris had not observed it, he went on with his misreckoning of ten; so it was re ported to the house, and declared that they who were for the bill were the majority, though it indeed went on the other side.' After the majority in it« favor had been announced from the chancellor's seat, Shaftesbury, per ceiving a commotion among the opponents of it, as from a surprise at the result, immediately took the floor, and spoke on some other matter for nearly an hour, conclud ing with a motion relating to the matter of which he had
