with a dance — England once had a dancing chan cellor. Really, the London bar must be more chary of reading our bar lectures on professional dignity!
A Practical Test in Evidence. — A very pleas ing addition to our recent collection on this topic is afforded by the following from the " London Law Journal " : — •' It is refreshing to find a magistrate so confident in his judgment that he defies a whole body of experts and ignores a threat of appeal. In sentencing a cabman to fourteen days' imprisonment for driving a horse in an unfit state, Mr. Shiel, who had inspected the animal, declared that he would not believe the whole veterinary college if they swore that the horse was in a capable condition. This observation was made in the course of the evidence given by a member of that body. Mr. Shiel had seen the horse, and that was enough for him. 'Miero was good reason for this confidence, for Mr. Shiel is one of the best horsemen in the legal world, a great part of his leisure being spent in the hunting field." It really does a humane lawyer's heart good to learn that cab-horses have some rights that courts are bound to respect in spite of the insensibility of experts and veterinary surgeons. Cab-horses are better used in London, however, than in Paris, where their treatment is a disgrace to a civilized people, to say nothing of a nation that prides itself on its "politeness."
A Plumber's Rights. — Has a plumber any rights which a white man is bound to respect? It would seem so from the following paragraph from the " London Law Journal " : — "Has a plumber a right to wear his cap in one's house? This was the point submitted to the Highgate justices by an ex-Fellow of Balliol. The plumber and his son came to the ex-Fellow's house to clear away a stoppage in the bath. Arrived at the scene of operations they kept on their caps, as is the use of British workmen. The householder lec tured the parent plumber on the bad example he was set ting his son in not teaching him to take his cap off in a gentleman's house. The parent replied by setting up the custom of the trade to work covered. The plea was over ruled, and the father plumber's cap thrown out of window by the indignant ex-Fellow. Then the parties aggrieved adjourned to the open air (it was drizzling), and went — the plumber capless and the ex-Fellow carrying the plumb er's cap — to seek counsel and advice of the nearest police man, who referred them to the justices. The ex-Fellow says that he was on the way called by the plumber ' a thick-headed old fogey.' Yet the justices fined him ioj. for his manner of giving a lesson in manners, and gave him no redress for this very unacademical language." It would seem that the plumber "sized-up" the ex-Fellow very accurately. The latter should con
sult Mr. Burnand's to a plumber.
Happy Thoughts " for a repartee
Harvard Law School. —We were about to write a very deleterious paragraph on the rumored decision of this celebrated institution not to admit any to study nor confer its degree on any but graduates of colleges. We are glad to learn that our incipient indignation at this asinine proposal was wasted, and that the idea is scouted in the current number of the ' 'Harvard Law Review, " the official organ of the school . We are still in the dark however on one point, and we wish the " Review " would enlighten us. It says : — "Any man who passes a satisfactory examination in simple I^atin or French and in Blackstone's Commentaries, can enter the school, now as heretofore. All such students will be given the regular degree, after three years' residence, and the passing of the requisite legal examinations, if they attain a mark within five per cent of that required for the honor degree; I. c, if they attain what is often technically spoken of as ' creditable standing.'" Exactly what is " required for the honor degree"? When we are informed of that, we may have some thing further to say. Meantime we will say that it seems to us that the New York rule, requiring the stu dent, before he enters on his term of legal study, to pass the " Regents' examination" is sufficiently strict, inasmuch as it is probable that not more than one practicing lawyer in ten in the United States could pass it off-hand, even if his salvation depended on it.
A Correction. — In the " Michigan Law Journal" Mr. Hyde publishes an article against general codifi cation of the common law, very labored and very in conclusive, consisting chiefly in "You can't do it, you know." The "Journal " editorially says of it : — "Mr. Hyde has chosen his subject unfortunately, for the question, ' Can the Common Law be Codified? ' is practically answered by the fact that the common law has been codified, not only substantially so in England, but in twothirds of the United States." Now we have been suspected of a sympathy with the cause of general codification, but candor compels us to dissent from this editorial statement, which is a repetition of an erroneous assertion which that jour nal has made before this. The common law has not been substantially codified in England, nor in twothirds of these States, nor in any States but California, Georgia and North Dakota, as we recollect the mat ter. There are codes, more or less extensive, of procedure, differing from the common law procedure, in some twenty-six States, but this is a very different thing from codification of the principles of the com mon law.
