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The Lawyer's Easy Chair.

suppressed the confession of the nap, and averred that he lunched on pork chops or pig's feet. Then the advertisement would have been more adroit. In the immortal language of Patrick Henry, " We know not what course others may take, but as for us," give us sleep from 11 to 7.30, and poverty, with that moderate degree of wisdom which enables us to occupy this Chair. Doubtless there is hardly a lawyer in this land who would habitually adopt Mr. Armour's hours even if he knew there was a tail of clients awaiting him at his office door. From recent sta tistics we find that the order of longevity among different classes is as follows : Clergymen, grocers, fishermen, lawyers, commercial travellers, plumbers and painters, blacksmiths, railway laborers, tailors, doctors, liquor dealers, hotel keepers and bar tend-

Grand Juries. — The composition of juries in this country is becoming a very troublesome problem. If anything is to save the jury system from disrepute it must be a thorough reform and greater vigilance in the selection of the materials, and especially in the abolition of the present practice of excusing very many if not most of the most reputable and intelligent citizens from this service. It is to be feared that especially in the work of selecting grand juries there are shocking abuses. This is exemplified by a recent report by three prominent citizens of Albany, N.Y., who were appointed by the citizens' general reform committee to look into this matter. These gentle men say : — "That of the ten jurors selected from the fourth ward of the city of Albany, seven are saloon keepers; "That of the eight jurors selected from the sixth ward of the city of Albany, five are saloon keepers; "That of the eight jurors selected from the seventh ward of the city of Albany, four are saloon keepers and one a gambler by occupation; "That of the forty-four men selected from the town of Watervliet, there are less than ten who can be described as of ' fair character,' and that of the remainder, eleven are saloon keepers, seven are officeholders and the others are princ1pally professional politicians and their followers; "That of the total number of 176 grand jurors named from the city of Albany, thirty-nine are engaged in the l1quor business, most of them keeping saloons; one is a gambler by occupation, one a professional prize-fighter, three are contractors with the city, six are at present office holders of the city or county, nine are ex-officeholders, eight are closely related by blood or marriage to present officeholders, and over fifty per cent of the total number are men of little or no standing in the community, most of them living by the practice of politics as a profession; "That on the list of grand jurors for the year 1893, of the forty-four men from the town of Watervliet, the occu pation of twenty-six was given as ' gentlemen,' and that on inquiry nearly all of these so-called ' gentlemen ' proved

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to be saloon keepers or men of no occupation but politics. "The list of jurors for the year 1894 was made after the attention of the board of supervisors had been called by the district attorney of Albany County to the statute requir ing grand jurors to be men of' approved integrity,' in addi tion to having certain property and other qualifications, specified in that statute." Why would it not be a good plan to prohibit any saloon-keeper, professional gambler, or prize-fighter from sitting on any grand jury, if not on any petit jury?

NOTES OF CASES. "High Seas." — The most important and in teresting question of judicial definition that has arisen in many years was decided by the United States Supreme Court, on November 20, 1893, in the case of the United States v. Kodgers, certified on a difference of opinion between Justices Jackson and Brown in the Circuit Court. The defendant was indicted for assault with a dangerous weapon, on board a steamer in the Detroit River, and within the territorial limits of Canada, under section 5346 of the United States Rev. St., which reads as follows : — "Every person who, upon the high seas, or in any arm of the sea, or in any river, haven, creek, basin, or bay, within the admiralty jurisdiction of the United States, and out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, on board any vessel belonging in whole or in part to the United States or any citizen thereof, with a dangerous weapon, or with intent to perpetrate any felony, commits an assault on another, shall be punished by a fine of not more than three thousand dollars and by imprisonment at hard labor not more than three years." It was conceded by all the members of the court that the word "river" refers only to rivers flow ing into the high seas or connecting such seas, and the question was whether the great inland lakes are "high seas." This was decided in the affirmative, Mr. Justice Field writing the opinion, but Justices Gray and Brown wrote dissenting opinions. It was conceded by Mr. Justice Field that anciently the term referred exclusively to the great oceans, forming the common international water highway of travel and commerce, but he argues that as there are other seas than the oceans, the term in modern times is used to distinguish between their open waters and their ports and havens. The gist of his contention is that there are " high seas" of the lakes as well as of the ocean, and is found in this sentence : — "The term 'high seas 'does not, in either case, indicate any separate and distinct body of water; but only the open waters of the sea or ocean, as distinguished from ports anil havens and waters within narrow headlands on the coast."