States Supreme Court, reads with envy of the good old times referred to in Fuller's Worthies of England (1662), when "all the writers of the common law, unless they be much multi plied very lately, with all the Year Books be longing thereunto, may [might] be bought for three-score pounds, or thereabouts; which with some, is an argument that the common law imbraceth the most compendious course to decide causes; and, by the fewness of the books, is not guilty of so much difficulty and tedious prolixity as the canon and civil laws." Alas, " fewness " is no longer a virtue of our law books, now multiplied to a degree which would have been inconceivable to our worthy historian and divine. Still, though not un mindful of the constant danger we all are in of being swamped by " Reporters," that roll in upon us constantly from all points of the com pass, we venture to point out one field which has not been exploited as it deserves to be. When everything, from science to religion, has been popularized, why should an exception be made of the law? That the law would lend itself to popular treatment, there can be no doubt; as witness the readable column or two devoted to topics of the courts which some of the leading newspapers print weekly. These writings suggest what more can be accomplished in the same direction. Why not have a series of Popular Reports, which might be cited as "Pops," in which should be reported only those cases in which the facts are strange, dramatic or amusing? Every court in the land, from the lowest to the highest, might furnish material. The plaintiff's declara tion and the defendant's answer, the testimony of the witness and the repartee of counsel, would all come as grist to the mill. With a suitable corps of reporters, in whom a live sense of humor, rather than legal acumen, would be the essential qualification, such a series of weekly reports would give to the story-reading public a collection of short stories and novels of absorbing interest,— such, in fact, as would carry envy and despair to the heart of the professional story-writer and novelist. Law yers are notorious novel readers, so such a pub lication would appeal to them; while the reading public, by these reports, might be weaned from its love of Hall Caine and Marie Correlli.
NOTES.
THE following is an exact transcription of a "declaration " recently filed in the circuit court for Anne Arundel County, Maryland, by an Afro-American lawyer, who, when asked whence he had his precedent, somewhat proudly an swered — " Out of mah head, sah." The defence is in doubt how to frame a plea in answer : "For that the defendants falsely and maliciously spoke and published the words following, that is to say, ' he is a thief in Anne Arundel County afore said, meaning that he is guilty of a crime against the State of Maryland, to wit — a felony, whereby the plaintiff hath the good "respect of the citizens and his neighbors of honesty, to the great damage and injury and grief and expenses to him in prose cuting this suit. And the plaintiff claims #1000."
JUDGE G for a long time had been the dispenser of justice in one of the judicial district courts in the early days of Nebraska. His popularity with his constituents was mainly due to his populistic orations from the bench, to gether with his well-known aversion to regular form and precedent in legal procedure, es pecially in criminal cases. His zealousness in behalf of the tax payers overshadowed his judicial judgment to such an extent that his cases were, almost without exception, reversed by the Supreme Court, for errors both large and small. For this undue interference with his prerogatives the Judge never lost an opportunity to pay his respects to that august body. In one of the more remote counties of his district the inhabitants had been relieved of many horses by some maliciously minded persons who had been systematically engaged in their avoca tion against the peace and dignity of the State and contrary to a certain lex non script in such cases made and provided by the court of Judge Lynch. who exercised concurrent jurisdiction with Judge G—. The horse thieves were apprehended and, as a consequence thereof, on the morning of Judge G 's arrival a throng of spectators was witnessing the last rites over the three ghastly forms dangling from the trestle work of a near by bridge. Judge G was conspicuously pres ent, and his face bore one of those intense grins which it is difficult to ascribe to pleasure or to anger. He seemed to be restraining himself with great difficulty, from giving vent to his
