By Irving Browne.
CURRENT TOPICS. Kissing the Book. — There seems to be quite a revolution against this dirty and idolatrous practice both in England and America. In the London "Times," as we learn from the " Law Journal," Mr. Francis A. Stringer says : — "Although the practice of requiring an oath in support of testimony has prevailed in this country for at least a thousand years, probably longer, the practice of swearing by kissing the Bible or Testament is not more than 150 years old. It is certain that at the end of the seventeenth century the ordinary established method was for the witness to swear by placing his hand on the Bible. So far as I am aware, no record exists prior to the middle of the eighteenth century to show that the Bible was kissed by the witness in swearing. The second important fact is that though in all other respects the form of oath has remained practically the same for centuries throughout Christendom, the practice of ' kissing the Book ' is peculiar to England, and does not exist and never has existed in any other country." The practice has always existed in all the United States, we believe, although in some, perhaps many, like New York, the witness is at liberty to use any form that binds his conscience, and to refuse to kiss the book if he has conscientious scruples against it. But the practice has always been to tender the book, and thus many persons, to whom it is offensive, have been constrained, not knowing their rights, to accede to what they have presumed to be a necessity. Just now Maryland has abolished the former practice, and substituted the uplifted hand.
The Hoof in Legal Decisions. — There never was a more wholesome and incontrovertible decision in a court of justice than that of the United States Supreme Court in the Maximum Freight-Rate case, which forbids the Nebraska Legislature to fix rates of freight by railway at such amounts that the railway companies could not transact business except at a loss. The court say this is taking private property without due process and without compensation, and that the loss in question cannot be offset by profits on interstate business. Hereupon Governor Leedy, of Kansas, who, although he governs the State, seems' unable to govern himself, exclaims, with the energy of conviction : —
"That it is an • unclean victory ' for the railroads ' in every aspect of the case, showing that no matter how carefully the robes of justice are folded about the per sonnel of the Supreme Court, these robes can no longer conceal the cloven hoof of official malfeasance and usurpa tion. I deny the soundness of the basis upon which the decision of the Supreme Court rests. That basis is the construction given to the word ' person ' in the Four teenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Justice Harlan says that a railway corporation is a ' per son ' within the meaning of the word as there used, and upon that assumption he builds up his theory that railways are within the protection of its terms. I deny it, and so will everybody but a corporation lawyer or a subservient tool of corporate interests. How, in the name of God, can this apply to corporations? Nobody but a slave or a knave will yield assent to the hideous distortion of meaning which Judge Harlan gives to the word ' person ' as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, and upon which he bottoms his infamous decision, and which shows to what depths of iniquity the Supreme Court of the United States has descended." A writer in "Law Notes," who discourses very amusingly on this subject, answers this frantic if not pious appeal, by pointing out that the Kansas Statutes, at least, provide that the word " person" may be used to describe bodies politic and corporate. He also observes : — "This pronunciamento is said to have the indorsement of Chief Justice Doster, the l'opulist head of the Kansas Supreme Court. < • • * and let the welkin roar,' thundered Ancient Pistol; whereupon said the apprehen sive Hostess Quickly, ' These are very bitter words.' Governor Leedy's words are indeed terrible and (ireradiant; and at an earlier stage in the history of Populism his utterance would have been regarded also as the explo sion of a logical torpedo. ' Cloven hoof,' when used sparingly and judiciously, gives tremendous momentum to an argument, and would ordinarily suffice to overwhelm the Supreme Court and justify the confiscation of property by a State. But the trouble with the Populists is that when they have a good thing they make it too common. ' Cloven hoof ' has been scoured to nothing by constant use. For several years it has been exhibited at every Populist barbecue, and employed by the most insignificant of stump speakers as well as the draff and scum of the rank and file Populists. Familiar handling of this engine of logical thought has caused it to pass away. Meanwhile Governor Leedy's rustic followers, who believe his lightest word is ' the great wave that echoes round the world,' are 3i7
