Taney, when questions involving the funda mental principles of our theory of government were more often than now before the United States Supreme Court. The broad constitu tional questions involved in these cases have been drawn, of necessity, into our politics, so that not since the income tax cases has there been such widespread interest in suits before that tribunal. The arguments in the Pepke case, by Charles H. Aldrich, formerly solicitorgeneral under the Harrison administration, for the plaintiff in error, and by the AttorneyGeneral for the government, were worthy of the occasion; and doubtless the same thing will be true of the arguments in the De Lima case, in which former Secretary Carlisle is to represent the plaintiff. The Goetze suit may go off on a question of jurisdiction; but it is hard to see how in the Pepke case the court can escape de ciding squarely whether or not the customs laws of the United States extend to the Philippines. An equally decisive opinion may be looked for in some one of the Porto Rican cases which come up for argument this month. It is to be hoped that the decisions will go far toward in dicating, if not settling, what is the status, and what are the political rights, of the inhabitants of the islands which came to us under the treaty of Paris. The decision which does settle these two questions will take a place among the few supremely important decisions of our highest court. How these questions will be settled it is idle to speculate; but we are far from willing to admit, as Mr. Griggs would have us, that, should the contentions of the government be not upheld, the Constitution " is as misshaped as Richard the Hunchback, ' sent before his time into this breathing world, scarce half made up, and that so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at him as he halts by them.'"
RECENTLY a suit has been brought by the professor of music at Yale University against a local newspaper because of failure of the defen dant to return a manuscript of the plaintiff's lec ture on " Church Music," which manuscript, it is alleged, was lent to the defendant, with the understanding that it should be returned; and damages are laid in the sum of six thousand dollars. This case, interests us in its editorial,
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rather than in its legal, aspect. Even in the best regulated sanctum, manuscripts may disappear. The office cat may have an epicure's taste that prefers six thousand dollar manuscripts to those of more modest value. In self-defence we ask our contributors, when sending such articles, to mark the value plainly in red ink on the first page, for it sometimes happens that the straw berry mark of great price in the manuscript itself is plainly visible to the author's discerning eye, while the editor, in his blindness, fails to note it.
THE legal profession may be pardoned for having a feeling of satisfaction at the showing it will make in the Hall of Fame. In the twentynine names chosen already it has eight represen tatives, — Marshall, Kent, Story, Webster, Lin coln, Jefferson, Clay and John Adams. Lest, however, we be unduly elated, it is well to bear in mind that, as compared with other professions, the law has had practically a double chance. The first three names quoted above doubtless were voted for under the group of " lawyers and judges "; while the five remaining names would seem to have been admitted in the class of "rulers and statemen." Webster, indeed, might well claim a place both as lawyer and as statesman. Who will be the lawyers and judges among the twenty-one names to be chosen during the present year? Will Chief Jus tice Taney and Chief Justice Shaw be named? Will John C. Calhoun be found among the statesmen?"
THE article on John Jay, in this present num ber, recalls the fact that formerly there was much speculation as to the origin of the first Chief Justice's robe. The following satisfactory explanation, however, has been made, an expla nation which shows the thriftiness of the times. At the conclusion of the peace negotiations with England, Jay, together with Adams and Franklin, received the degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Dublin. In 1790, the Chief Justice was honored with the same degree by Harvard College; and it was the gown of Doctor of Laws, with its cheerful salmon-colored facings, that he wore as his robe of office.
