Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/336

This page needs to be proofread.
Editorial Department.

A man shooting from below hit a golden eagle belonging to the United States Government and mutilated it. The aeronaut was thus prevented from sailing around the Eiffel Tower and win ning a prize of 10,000 francs. With this sum he would have made a million dollars (perhaps) in the Chicago Wheat Pit. He sued the gun-maker for statutory replevin. Held,1 that the gun-maker was not liable on the ground of de gustibus nil nisi bonum. Mee v. Hym, 14 Bucket 1. In accord Ex parte Cake VI Birthday Book Hen. IX. c. 33. A man's right in his land ex tends usque ad ecelum. Further than this we do not care to go. OUR EXCHANGES. Coke. — Of what act is a bad shot in England guilty? L1ttleton. — Miss-pheasants. —6 Harv. Law Rev. Q0004. Lord Mansfield. — For a well-balanced man, Loughborough seems to smell out an awful lot of trouble. Marshall, C. J. — That's due to his scenter of gravity. — Cro. Eliz. 91. Perjury. — Anything done by a jury. — JO Yale L. J. 1. Qu/ere. — Is a parrot that calls you vile names a personal chattel? — J Blackstone's Com. 41144. The best beast of a college shall not be taken for a haricot vert. — Potkier, Civ. Law III. The C. J. — Why doesn't the Dean of the Columbia Law School teach Evidence? The P. J. — Because he's Keener on QuasiContracts. — Y. B. Ill Hen. I. 2. Quaere. — Has summer-y procedure anything to do with seisin? — o The Green Bag 00. We are accustomed to look in the pages of the poet and essayist, rather than in the volumes of law reports, for one mark of literary genius — the choice of exactly the right word to ex press the most delicate shade of meaning. Yet 1 See note 2 supra.

299

Taylor v. Hair, 112 Fed. Rep. 913, contains a phrase so fortunate that we cannot forbear to call it to the attention of all lovers of exact ex pression. This was a suit on a benefit certifi cate issued in favor of the fair plaintiff, who based her claim on a promise to marry made between herself and the deceased Hair some four months before the plaintiff had obtained a divorce from her husband and within six months after the divorce of Hair from his wife, during which period he could not marry. What could be finer than to declare, as the Report here has it, that the lady bore to the late lamented Hair the relation of Jinande I This is nothing short of a stroke of genius. NOTES. "D1vorce is not the easy matter it used to be," remarked the groom-elect casually. " States where only a brief residence used to be required now demand that the complainant shall have resided in the State a year." "George, dear," said the Chicago widow per suasively, " when we take our wedding trip let us go right to one of those States for our honey moon so all that time will not be lost travelling around the East." In one of the far western jurisdictions, in an appellate court, there was filed recently by the chief law officer of that subdivision of our coun try, a brief from which is taken the following entertaining extract (it is perhaps well to have in mind the fact that the author of the brief, and several members of the court, are bald-headed) : "A large amount of expert testimony was taken to show the vagrant, not to say dissolute, habits of the infant bovine of the male sex, from which it is sought to be shown that, at the tender age of six months, a red bull calf will forsake his mother in an erotic chase after stray cows, and that, regardless of hunger or filial duty, this youthful Lothario of the Guadalupe plains will travel for miles on an empty stomach to gratify what must be at best a hopeless passion, and, with futile dalliance to take the place of moth er's milk, grows emaciated and ' choused.' But it must be remembered that this particular bull calf, whose character is assailed in a general manner, was 'bald-faced,' and this Court will take judicial notice of the fact that baldness,