ion may just as well be one way as the other, as a matter of practical importance. We all recollect what some great English judge said to this effect of the de cisions reported in Meeson & Wclsby. It seems to us that, under the present system, in reporting the opinion in cases where there is dissent, it would be more appropriate to report the prevailing opinion as an argument for the successful party, and the dissent ing opinion as an argument for the defeated — for that is about what it amounts to outside of the par ticular case.
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wise she might or would be entitled to occupy. AH that might be true of a woman who had been a variety actress, or on the stage in some other capacity; but it would not necessarily impeach her personal honor. The law cannot take notice of the various and everchanging codes and customs under which a person's proper position in the social world is established or gained or lost." "It would be impossible to say, from the words used ' that the ' occupation imputed is respectable at one end of the island while not so at the other." The trouble with the decision is that the Court seem to take judicial notice that the defen dant meant the "shady " end of the island.
NOTES OF CASES. EjusDEM Generis. — About as broad an applica tion of this doctrine as we can recall occurred in Baldwin v. Fraternal Ace. Ass'n, 21 Misc. 124. The accident insurance policy limited recovery for injuries sustained " while engaged in polo, base-ball games, or bicycling." It was held that this language as to bicycling applied only to professional racers '« who make their living by racing on the wheel," and not to those who ride merely for pleasure or convenience. But we guess it is right.
A Concert Hall Performer. — In Gates v. New York Recorder Co., 155 N. Y. 228, a recovery in libel was sustained, without proof of special dam age, under the New York statute allowing recovery in such cases where the words used "impute unchastity." The charge was that the plaintiff was "a dashing blonde, twenty years old, and is said to have been a concert-hall singer and dancer at Coney Is land." This is put on the ground that such perform ers and performances at that locality are usually offcolor, according to the evidence admitted under objection. O'Brien, J., and the Chief Judge, dis sented, the former observing that " some of the most respectable women in the land danced or sang at public entertainments," and that " it would be im possible to hold that loose morality is necessarily imputed to a female from the fact that she is or was a concert-hall singer and dancer." The sting of the charge seemed to lie in the words " at Coney Island," but as there are respectable places of amusement at Coney Island, the dissenters found no charge in the words used, that the lady danced and sang at places not respectable, and consequently that the words used did not " impute unchastity," and consequently that no such imputation could be attached to them by evi dence, and therefore there could be no recovery with out proof of special damage. On this point the dis senters said : " The most that is claimed is that the words, it believed, would affect the plaintiff's position in society, and deprive her of the position that other
The Judicial Business of Suppressing Tramps. In People v. Howland, 155 N. Y. 270, a bare ma jority of the Court of Appeals hold that an act of the legislature, directing justices of the peace in Fort Ed ward to turn over to the supervisor, for the use of the town poor, all costs and fees chargeable by them to the public in tramp cases, but relieving them from the duty of acting in such cases, is unconstitutional, as an attempt to curtail the criminal jurisdiction of those officers. The chief and two other judges dis sented, O'Brien, J., writing their views, and observing among other things : — "The business of hunting down tramps and vagrants in the rural districts, in what are called hard times, is capable of being developed into a very high state of perfection; and if the justice and constable have a sort of vested right in what can be earned in that way, in the nature of prop erty, beyond the power of legislature, there must be certain guarantees in the Constitution that have never been discov ered before. When we consider the origin and history of the ancient and honorable office of justice of peace, it oc curs to me that it it is now very much belittled, if not dis graced, by the contention that it is destroyed whenever the legislature attempts to interfere with the opportunities of the person who happens to hold it for the time being of making money out of it. When this case is stripped of all irrelevant argument and illustration, the only objection that can be urged against the statute in question is that and nothing more. The legislature has relieved the justice of a very small part of his duties, and has enacted that, if he still insisted on performing them, it should be without fees against the town or county, as his predecessors in England did centuries ago."
Falling Signboarij. — A novel question arose in Reynolds v. Van Beuren, 155 N. Y. 120. The de fendants obtained from Williams, the owner of a house, the privilege of erecting upon the roof an ad vertising sign. It was insecurely erected, and was blown down upon the plaintiff. Held that the de fendants were not liable. The court said : "It can not be that mere advertisers, who for a compensation obtain permission from the owner or the tenant to use
