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The Green Bag.

a building, a fence, a telegraph pole, or physical ob jects oflike character for their business, can be made liable for the result of personal injuries when such objects are blown down by the wind, and where it is not shown that the mere use has any connection with the accident as the moving cause." The court inti mates that the owner of the premises is the party lia ble. The case is clearly distinguishable, for example, from that of a telephone company which fastens a wire to a chimney, whereby it is pulled down upon a passer in the street; the company would there be liable, for the injury would have occurred in the inev itable use of the structure. The Keelev Cure. — A novel case is Wisconsin Keeley Inst. Co.7'. Milwaukee County, 95 Wis. 153, holding that an act of the legislature providing that habitual drunkards, pecuniarily unable to pay for treatment for such disease, may by judicial order be sent to some institution in the state therefor, at the expense of the county, is unconstitutional. The state may itself set up such an institution, but may not thus foster a private one. A distinction is suggested in the case of contagious or infectious diseases. So in Lowell v . Boston, 111 Mass., 454, it was held that an act authorizing the city of Boston to aid citizens in rebuilding after the great fire of 1872, was uncon stitutional; and so in State v. Osawkee, 14 Kans. 418, of an act to provide destitute citizens with grain for seed and feed. The contrary of the principal case is held in Mayor, etc. v. Keeley Institute, 81 Md. 106, and In re House, 23 Colo. 87. Whisky for Votes. — Eppsv. Smith, 121 N.C. 157, was an action to recover a penalty against a candidate for the office of sheriff, under a statute since repealed, for giving money and whisky for votes. In the defendant's sworn statement of elec tion expenses, filed under the law, he admitted that he gave whisky to Tom, Dick and Harry, specifying the individuals and value, "to be used as best they could and thought proper," or " wished," or "pleased," or "liked," and the court on appeal, disagreeing with the trial court, held this an infringe

ment of the act. The court said, among other things : "The defendant's counsel called our attention to the fact that he had been unable to find in our reports a single case brought under its provisions during this century or more, except the one against his client. This may be so, and yet some enterprising citizen of Vance County, some genuine reformer, may have determined not to let this statute perish from ' in nocuous desuetude.' It may be a consolation for him to know that in his trouble, wherever it is known, he has the deepest sympathy of some of his brother officers; and from the argument of his counsel here it may not be rash to infer that both client and at torney feel, with redoubled conviction of its truth, even if the client should be convicted, the force of the scriptural declaration that the men upon whom the tower of Siloam fell were no greater sinners than those who escaped." A Precocious Infant. — In Southern Ry. Co. v. Covenia (Georgia Sup. Court), 40 L. R. A. 253, the declaration stated facts showing the tortious killing of the plaintiff's child by the defendant, and alleged that the child " was a boy well formed, precocious, and of strong and robust physical powers for a child of his age; that he was physically sound in every re spect, and was capable of rendering, and did render, to the plaintiff valuable services, by going upon er rands to neighbors residing near to plaintiff's resi dence, picking up and bringing in coal and chips to make and keep burning fires in the house, bringing the broom and other articles used in house-cleaning to his mother, picking up and carrying out of the house trash and litter which tended to render untidy in appearance plaintiffs home, watching and amusing plaintiffs younger child while his wife was engaged in cooking and attending to her household duties; and that these services were worth to the plaintiff the sum of two dollars per month," but the court held that no cause of action entitling the plaintiff to recover for the child's services was set forth, it being also al leged in the declaration that the child was only one year, eight months, and ten days old. That younger baby must have been easily amused.