Judge Finch. — To a beautifully illustrated supple ment of the " Troy Times " descriptive of Cornell University, President Schurman contributes an arti cle in the course of which he says : — "Most worthy of remark, however, has been the acces sion, upon his retirement from long and honorable service on the bench of the New York State Court of Appeals, of a famous jurist, who is also a famous literary man —Judge Francis M. Finch, of whom I have heard it said that in all English-speaking lands his decisions are cited as the finest specimens of American legal literature. And it is a hope, which is almost a certainty, that the author of ' The Blue and the Gray ' is imparting to Cornell students of the law some share in his mastery of lucid English and in his gen erous patriotism, as well as in his broad, accurate and judicial knowledge of the law." All this praise is richly deserved. The Chairman has many times said, and perhaps in these columns, that no judge ever lived who wrote so elegantly, so entertainingly, and so convincingly on matters of fact as Judge Finch. He could make the dryest circum stances tolerable and even welcome by his power of orderly, luminous, and felicitous statement. The loss that the New York bench suffered in the com pulsory retirement of this excellent magistrate, even at the age of seventy, will be in some degree allevi ated by the invaluable public service he is doing at Cornell, in training the minds of future lawyers and judges and elevating them by the example and pre cepts of his own moral and patriotic character.
Sir Frank Lockwood. — The Chairman fre quently enjoys reading other departments of The Green Bag than those which he has a hand in, and so was greatly pleased with the memoir of Sir Frank Lockwood in the May number. The portrait pre fixed was admirable. Sir Frank was a man after our own heart, for he loved a jest and he loved Dickens. It is amusing to learn that he was early an actor, and surely he began and ended his histrionic career with appropriate plays — " The Heir at Law," and " Lon don Assurance." The Chairman rubbed against Sir Frank very pleasantly once, in Lord Coleridge's court, on a trial against the owners of the "Great Eastern " steamship, for fraud in inducing the plain tiffs to take a charter-party of her. On one side was Sir Charles Russell and on the other Sir Richard Webster, with Mr. Lockwood as his junior. The Chairman was accredited as a visitor to the latter side. It was not a thrilling case; in short, it would have been dry but for one fact : the ship had been hired to be used as a floating hotel at the New Orleans exposition, and it was in evidence that the plaintiffs, among other viands, had purchased ten thousand cases of champagne. (Possibly, however, the wine was dry.) The trial seemed unique to an
American lawyer, for during a half day only one objection of any kind was raised, and no fault was found with his Lordship's ruling on it. In the course of the trial it was evident that Mr. Lockwood was a favorite with judge, bar, jury, and spectators, for when he rose there was that sort of apparent antici pation that attends every entrance of the beloved Joe Jefferson as " Rip Van Winkle." What a pity it is that one so bright had to die so young, while the bar and bench are incumbered with stupid per sons, who apparently never will have the decency to die, or even quit! We await with impatience the publication of the promised biography of this admirable man, accompanied by his own artistic sketches. NOTES OF CASES. Man and Wife. — Once in a while, but only once in a while, a judicial decision occurs which is clearly wrong, so wrong that no room is left for dis cussion. Such a one, it seems to us, is Clancy v. Clancy, 66 Michigan, 202. where it was held that an agreement to live together, " from now henceforth and forever, as man and wife," is not a contract of marriage. One judge dissented, holding that " man" is there equivalent to husband, saying: " I find the common acceptation of the term ' man and wife ' in every-day life, and even in our best literature, to be the same as ' husband and wife." And its use is by all odds the most common. Webster gives as one of his definitions of ' man,' 'a married man,' . a husband,' quoting a line from Addison, ' Every wife ought to answer for her man.' " It is singular that none of the judges recalled the marriage ceremony, as set down in the Book of Common Prayer, in which the priest pronounces the couple " man and wife." Mr. Rawle should put this definition of " man" in his pending edition of " Bouvier's Law Dictionary." The mere fact that the parties here agreed to retain their respective property rights is not inconsistent with a valid marriage. In fact, this is not infre quently done : and as the dissenting judge points out, this special agreement would be entirely un meaning if the general agreement had not been designed as one of marriage.
Carrier. — Rights of a Fat Woman. — In Louisville etc. R. Co. v. Hale (Kentucky), 44 S. W. Rep'r, 213, it was held that a railroad train may be started without waiting for a fat woman, encumbered by a number of children, but accompanied by an escort, to get her seat. Perhaps the good woman sighed, with Hamlet, " Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt," but more probably she exclaimed, « ' Oh, what a start you gave me! "
