unusually "drawing," and from being so attractive that the streets are jammed with people trying to get tickets or gain admission to hear him. The injunc tion was not "ranted, as we understand, because the police reduced the crowds, but the judge recognized the principle by making the actor pay the costs of the application. Now a court might just as well de cide that an injunction would lie against Mr. Glad stone for making a thirty hours' speech and causing the streets in the vicinity of the parliament house to be obstructed by admirers; or against Mr. Spurgeon for attracting crowds to his tabernacle on Sunday; or against the " London Times " tor publishing a series of articles that are not dull; or against "Punch" for publishing a good joke and thus causing a jam of people in the street curious to obtain them. Of this absurd decision the " Law Quarterly Review " very justly observes : — "Barber -,'. Penley ('93, 2 Ch. 447) certainly goes be yond anything hitherto decided. If Mr. Penley had let off fireworks on his premises, or exhibited a pig-faced lady in his window, or even caricatures, or done anything reasonably calculated to attract a crowd, he would fairly have exposed himself to an injunction; but is a man who carries on his business in an orderly and quiet manner, and does nothing to attract a crowd in the ordinary sense, to be answerable for the idle and vulgar curiosity of a set of London loafers? Is a chemist, for instance, when a person in a fit is carried into his back parlor, to be answer able for the crowd who flatten their noses against his shop window? Chang, the Chinese giant, is a resident at Bournemouth. Is he reponsible for persons who may col lect to gape at him as he goes in or out? Is a professional beauty answerable, or я distinguished statesman? Popu larity, moralists have long ago told us, is a perilous thing, but North. J., lias added a new terror to it if a popular actor must either clear the streets or discontinue his act ing. The true remedy is in the police; and happily that excellent body is always found equal to the situation."
In "Bookseller Carlile's Images," 2 Green Bag, 238, the reader may find the principal cases of unlaw ful obstruction of highways by attractive shows poetically described. See also a supplementary ver sified report of the case of the long-haired Suther land sisters, lbid, p. ¡01.
BASIS OF RECOVERY FOR SEDUCTION OP DAUGH TER. — The common law, which '•is the perfection of reason " according to some, is the perfection of nonsense in some points at least. One of its most delightful humbugs is the notion that mental anguish and wounded affection cannot support a parent's action for the seduction of his daughter, but that the only ground of recovery is the loss of service. This being shown, no matter how trivial, damages, founded theoretically on that loss, may be heaped up to any amount. So if the child was accustomed to milk
cows or make tea for her father, or we dare say comb his head, and is temporarily debarred from the performance of those onerous duties, the old man may recover ten or twenty thousand dollars therefor. The latest illustration of this pleasing fiction is in the Irish case, O'Reilly v. Glavey, 32 L. R. Ir. Q. B. 316. The " Law Quarterly Review " says : — '•The daughter-servant there was a mature woman, who had been a wife ten years and a widow two, who lived, not under her mother's roof, but in lodgings of her own, and was employed in a milliner's shop from 9.30 in the morn ing till 8 at night. Incidentally it may be mentioned that Clarissa had already got damages out of the defendant for breach of promise. All that the so-called service con sisted in was in her going occasionally to her mother's house and performing little acts of kindness, such as get ting tea, helping to cook, and doing a little dusting. Yet this gratuitous kindness by a long emancipated daughter was held enough by a majority of the Court to found the action."
What is the use of keeping up this foolish old pre tence? The Irish case seems to go beyond our own cases. See Browne's Domestic Relations, pp. 82-84; Ogborn v. Francis, 15 Vroom. 441; 43 Am. Rep. 394. It seems also opposed to Thompson v. Ross, S H. & N. 16. WHEN is A THIEF NOT A THIEF?— This question is asked by the " London Law Journal," continuing as follows : — "This is a riddle of a kind suitable for the Court of Crim inal Appeal suggested by daily experience of the difference between theft as ' taking what is n't his'n ' and the elabo rate definitions by common and statute law, of the incidents and varieties of larceny, which lead to infinite judicial casuistry and the elaboration and conflicting opinions in Regina i'. Ashwell, 55 Law J. Rep. M. C. 65; 16 Q. B. Div. 190. The latest solution, given by Mr. Bushby, is 'when committed by a cabman.' A man took a cab. On his way, and before his journey's end, he found he had only a five-pound note. So he stopped the cab, and asked the cabman to get down and change it for him. Next time he will get down himself to go on such an errand. The cabman agreed, got down, went into some place, and presently came back and handed to his fare a piece of paper, saying that he could not get change. Later on the fare looked at the paper, found it was not the five-pound note, and went to Mr. Bushby to seek process against the cabman. Mr. Bushby explained that the cabman was not a bailee of the valuable security, but had only been in trusted with it in order to convert it into cash, with a view to getting paid himself, and that, therefore, in the eye of the law, he had not stolen but merely 'conveyed' the check, — i. e. converted it to his own use; and that the only remedy in respect of the converted note lay in the . County Court, where the cabman's adviser will doubtless plead that, as the facts show a felony and no prosecution, the owner of the note cannot recover its amount The cabman could not be regarded as servant of the hirer of
