was only misleading her, and never intended to pay her, ex cuse him from doing so? A person is estopped from denying sincerity of his conduct, to the injury of a person misled thereby. We therefore must conclude that these promises, in spite of the declaration of the defendant to the Contran1, were made in sincerity, as an inducement to her future ser vice."
Counsel for defendant complained of " useless ver biage and trifling repetitions " in the record; to which the Judge answers : — "In view of the many exceptions and instructions ' use less in verbiage and trifling in repetition,' with which the counsel have encumbered the record, their attention is re spectfully called to the celebrated decision of a beam against a mote, with which they are familiar."
MALPRACTICE. — A curious history is shown in Richards v. Willard, 176 Pa. St. 181 . This was an action against a surgeon for malpractice in the gra tuitous treatment, at a hospital, of an alleged frac ture of the tibia. The first jury gave $5,512.50 damages — evidently a quotient verdict. The sec ond disagreed. The third awarded Si 2,000, although the plaintiff had asked for only $10,000. and the court reduced it to $4,000. On appeal from this a new trial was awarded. The court observed : — "It must not be overlooked that the medical and surgi cal service rendered by the defendant to the plaintiff was entirely gratuitous, the defendant receiving therefor no compensation of any kind. For many years Dr. Yillard had been rendering such service to the hospital to which the plaintiff was brought after receiving his injury. He v.-as one of a corps of physicians who, from motives of benevo lence and charity, contribute, as they do in many other cities and towns, their time, their skill, their labor, and their most valuable and humane service in relief of the sickness and suffering of their race. If such gentlemen are to be harrassed with actions for damages when they do not happen to cure a patient, and are to incur the hazard of having their estates swept away from them by the verdicts of irrespon sible juries, who, caring nothing for law, nothing for evi dence, nothing for justice, nothing for the plain teachings of common sense, choose to gratify their prejudices or their passions by plundering their fellow-citizens in the forms of law, it may well he doubted whether our hospitals and other charitable institutions will lie able to obtain the gratuitous and valuable sen-ice of these unselfish and chari table men. It is much more than probable that if this plaintiff had been content to remain at the hospital a week or two longer he would have been cured of his hurt. Be cause he would not submit to such a reasonable detention he apparently brought upon himself all his subsequent sufferings. If he chooses to take snuh risks he must take the consequences himself.
A SINGULAR DISSENT In a recent case in the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals. McCann v. Newark &c. Ry. Co., 32 L. R. A. 127, the judicial
head-note is as follows : " The plaintiff, being the only passenger in a street-car, became suddenly ill, told the conductor she felt sick, and twice requested him to stop the car so that she might get off. He failed to do so, and, going to the front of the car, be gan talking to the motorman. The plaintiff, grow ing worse, and becoming frightened and dazed, rose to her feet, and staggered towards the rear of the car, and there fell, unconscious, through the door. Held, that whether the plaintiff was guilty of negli gence, whether the conductor was guilty of negli gence, and whether the plaintiff's injuries were the natural and proximate consequence of the conductors negligence, were all questions of fact for the jury. To this statement, perhaps, might well be added the fact that the plaintiff testified that her purpose in going to the rear of the car was to endeavor to get someone on the street to stop the car. Five of the judges of this numerous court dissented, but why, it is difficult to understand. The connection between the conductor's gross negligence and the plaintiff's conduct seems to us quite natural and reasonable.
AN ARCADIAN- ELECTION. — " Ttie account of the election at Lake Precinct is a breeze from Arcady," says Hensha J., in Tebbe 11. Smith, 108 Cal. loi : 49 Am. St. Rep. 68. This vac a highly important contest. Smith had 13 votes, Tebbe 20, in this pre cinct, which was a ranch. The polls should have opened at sunrise, but did not until nearly ю o'clock. At dinner time the officers adjourned and took the ballot-box with them to a house one hundred yards from the polling-place, and set it on the dining table while they dined with others. They left the ballots impelled in the poll-room. The witness who gave this account testified that he " served on the election board in my father's place. Nobody was deprived of his vote, but the Court felt constrained to throw out the vote of the precinct on account of the failure to open the polls at sunrise. This is certainly careful.
MENTAL DISTRESS. — The Texas doctrine that damages are recoverable for the non-delivery of a tele gram received a set-back in the place of its origin, in Rowell т/. Western U. Tel. Co., 75 Tex. 512. The plaintiff had received information of the dangerous illness of his mother-in-law. A subsequent dispatch, announcing her improved condition, was not delivered. The Court declined to allow for the continuance of the mental anxiety thus occasioned, on the ground that it would give rise to "intolerable litigation." The ac tion was by husband and wife, and the former esti mated his distress at $100 and that of his wife $2400, which seems to be a reasonable apportion.
