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The Lawyer's Easy Chair.

officer of state, which resulted in defeating the legis lative choice of the people and in electing a senator of the United States contrary to their will.

'•Sound1ng Brass" — In Detwiller v. Hartman, 37 N. J. Eq. 347, a testator provided a fund of $10,000, from the interest of which a brass band was to be equipped and maintained forever, to be named after the testator, and to march to his grave on the recurring anniversaries of his death, as well as on holidays and other proper occasions, and there to play a funeral march and such other appropriate music as the leader of the band should 'designate and appoint. The testator also provided for a monu ment at a cost of from $40,000 to $50,000. But the legacies to relatives amounted to only $18,000, and the estate footed up only $35,000, although the testator directed an outlay of from $73,000 to $83,000. The monument was approved, but the brass band was discountenanced. Of course the monument had to abate in expense. This musical charity seems to have been of the order described by the apostle as " sounding brass." We have a sus picion that the testator was a practical joker.

A Tru1sm. — In Slate v. Hyland, 144 Mo. 302, the defendant had been convicted of murder by unprovokedly striking the deceased with his fist. The prosecuting attorney said to the jury " Crimes of this character are becoming too frequent." This was alleged as error, but the appellate court said : "He merely voiced a truism. It is lamentably true that criminal acts like the one under investigation are too common." About how common might they lawfully be? In Hayes v. Sears, 51 S. C. 537, holding that abusive words may mitigate assault and battery, although they will not justify it, the court said : " These are not times which justify a circuit judge in offering a premium, so to speak, on vio lence. The hearts of all good citizens are stirred at the dreadful results which sometimes follow the supposed power of a man when he conceives him self to be wronged by his fellow-man, and in con sequence thereof takes the law into his own hands to redress those wrongs."

Memory not Ch1ld1shness. — In Riley?'. Sher wood, 144 Mo. 354, a will made by a woman at the age of seventy-six was contested on the grounds of childishness and insanity. One curious claim was disposed of as follows : — "Again it was considered evidence of insanity that Mrs. Shootman in her old age delighted to recall the recollec tions of her childhood and young womanhood in Salem,

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Virginia. It was said the constant repetition of those events in her life was evidence of an unsound mind. To one who never lived in the Old Dominion prior to the late war between the States, the fondness with which all Virginians dwell upon those halcyon days, sweetened with an unrivaled hospitality, this tendency to recall again and again the memories of that period may seem un natural, but to those who knew Virginia at that time even as casual sojourners, instead of being evidence of weakness, it would excite suspicion should a Virginian neglect for any considerable time to recount the glories and delights of that period. Indeed it can be said that such was the spell of that life that all who came within its influence became intoxicated with its charms and ever afterward dwelt with loving reiteration upon its refine ment. We are unwilling to believe that any considerable number of the most advanced neurologists would see, in this amiable disposition to linger over the memories of youth and home, the most remote evidence of unsoundness of mind." Mrs. Shootman was "all right," but between 1861 and 1865 a good many persons of the description indicated by that name were very inhospitably treat ed in Virginia, and do not dwell on their life there with any degree of enjoyment.

Ra1lroad L1ab1l1ty for Rape. — The Georgia supreme court has recently held, in Savannah, etc., R. Co. v . Lula Quo, 40 L. R. A. 483, that a rail road company is liable in damages for an attempt by its baggage master on a train to commit rape on a passenger. Quite correct, and carries the doctrine of the Illinois case, where the conductor uninvited kissed a female passenger, to its legitimate conclu sion. The court said : — "When a contract of carriage is entered into between a passenger and a carrier, there arises out of the relation thus created, not only a duty to safely transport the passenger to the destination fixed in the contract, but also to protect him from injury, violence, insult, and ill treatment at the hands of the servants of the carrier who are in charge of, or connected in any way with, the carriage in which the passenger is being transported. 5 Am. and Eng. Enc. Law, 2d ed. p. 541. While a carrier of passengers owes a duty to all of its passengers to protect them from violence and insult on the part of its servants, it owes an especial duty to female passengers, to protect them from insult and abuse. In the case of Chamberlain v. Chandler, 3 Mason, 242, Judge Story, in discussing the question now under consideration, uses the following language: In respect to passengers, the care of the master is one of peculiar respon sibility and delicacy. Their contract with him is not for mere ship room, and personal existence on board : but for reasonable food, comforts, necessaries, and kindness. It is a stipulation, not for toleration merely, but for respectful treatment, for that decency of demeanor which constitutes the charm of social life; for that attention which mitigates evils without reluctance, and that promptitude which ad ministers aid to distress. In respect to females, it proceeds