of the wife, the wife should receive reasonable ali mony. The court said : — "No co-respondent or particeps criminis is named, but a drag-net is thus cast out to gather up whatever might be found to besmirch his wife's fair name. The chan cellor granted divorce to the husband, looking, it must be presumed, solely to the question of abandonment, but refused Alimony, pendente lite or otherwise, to the wife; and of tnis she complains. The testimony discloses that in 1884 the appellee, when some forty-odd years of age, married the appellant, who was about eighteen, and they lived together happily until the summer or fall of 1889. The wife was of a lively — almost rollicksome and girlish — disposition. She sought the company of the young and unmarried girls of the village, but was duly kind and affectionate to her husband. He was of steady and seri ous habits. He was an undertaker, and away from home to a limited extent. For some reason, not disclosed in the record, — but there appears to have been no trouble causing it, — the appellant, in the latter part of the year 1889, left home to visit her brother or father in Cincin nati. Her husband accompanied her to the depot, and affectionately kissed her good-by; and this was the abandonment complained of. When she returned, after some weeks, she was not met by the husband. She re paired to the village inn, and sent for her husband, and, after being charged with infidelity, insisted on facing her accusers. They started out for that purpose, and when she found that her character was to be tried by a coterie of negro strumpets, she indignantly sought the shelter of her father's house in an adjoining State, accepting, pre sumably from dire necessity, the sum of five dollars from her previous husband. The judgment granting him a divorce cannot be disturbed; but after examining care fully the voluminous body of testimony, without here reviewing it in detail, we are clearly of opinion that the insane jealousy of this otherwise seemingly fair-minded husband has rendered him blind to the plainest dictates of duty and affection, and led him on in this unrighteous attempt to blacken the good name of his wife. We are told of no alienation of affection, — no special infatuation or guilty amour; but on the public highway, at the open window, looking out towards the town thoroughfare, in the woods and out on the fields, and with any passers-by, are these wicked debaucheries and lewd acts practised. And amid it all, the respect of the pure-minded, and the confidence and company of the best people of the com munity, are retained and enjoyed by the defendant. A veritable Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde! After her alleged detection and fall, she is guided by instincts of purity to the home of her kindred, and is engaged in honest work to provide an honest living. The court should have allowed her a reasonable sum for alimony, and on the return of the case let this be done, including an additional fee for her attorney; and for these purposes, and to this extent, the judgment of the lower court is reversed."
KILLING A BASE-BALL PLAYER. — We note a decision which holds the debatable doctrine that it is a crime for one amateur base-ball captain to
247
kill another. This is the doctrine of Byrd v. Com monwealth (Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia), 16 S. E. Rep. 727. The opinion also discloses the remarkable fact that the ability to throw '• rocks," attributed to the heroes of the Iliad, has descended to these modern athletes. The syllabus is as fol lows : — "The evidence showed that deceased and defendant, fifteen years of age, were leaders of opposing base-ball teams, and became involved in a dispute over the game. Defendant left the grounds, whereupon deceased applied abusive epithets to those who would refuse to play under such circumstances; and on defendant's asking if he ap plied that to him, replied, ' Yes,' and picking up a base ball bat approached near to defendant, and, according to one witness, stood leaning on it, but according to others he said he would mash out defendant's brains with it. Defendant ran back twenty or twenty-five feet, picked up two rocks, and then turned and came nearer deceased, who had not followed or approached defendant further, or threatened to strike him as he retreated, and as he stood leaning passively on the bat, or swinging it in his hand, defendant threw one of the rocks at him, which struck him in the head, fracturing his skull. There was no evidence of any previous ill-will between the parties. Held, that a verdict of voluntary manslaughter was prop erly rendered."
The decision might have been different had the parties been "professionals."
A STUMBLING-BLOCK. — In Seildon v. Bickley (Penn.), 25 All. Rep. 1104, it was held that where a passenger on a steamboat stumbles over a gang plank of ordinary construction, lying on the deck of the vessel in close proximity to the place where it must be used, causing severe injuries, the owner of the vessel is not liable in the absence of proof that the plank was negligently or unusually constructed or handled, or other proof of specific negligence which caused the fall. The court observed : — "If it was in the position testified to by the plaintiff's husband, only two feet in front of the end of the other gang-plank leading from the wharf to the boat, all the passengers who got off the boat and returned must neces sarily have passed over it. Yet none of them stumbled, or fell over it, so far as the proof goes, and its location cannot be regarded as either necessarily or probably the occasion of persons stumbling over it. But a gang-plank is a highly necessary and indeed indispensable appliance of a steamboat engaged in the transportation of passen gers and freight. There is no other place for it to lie, when not in use, except the deck of the boat; and passen gers must be assumed to know the fact that such planks are in use, and are present on the deck in the near vicin ity of those portions of the vessel from which landings are made. There are many other appliances on the deck
