Dutch law is more academic than English law. and its study is more classical than that to which English and Australian lawyers are accustomed. The atmosphere of antiquity is conducive to quiet, and there is a certain amount of unreality in trying to apply th|e law which was suitable to a state of society
under a polity long since passed away, to one under a living system which is almost dia metrically opposed to that which has gone. The leisure of the scholar's library seems to have found its way into the lawyer's court.— The Lau1 Times.
A FABLE OF A WAXEN SEAL. Bv HARRY SH ELM IRE HOPPER. A RICH uncle made a will, in which he gave a favorite nephew, George, the income of a hundred thousand dollars for life and disposed of the principal as follows: "Upon the decease of my nephew, it is my will that the principal sum of one hundred thousand dollars shall be paid to such per son or persons as my said nephew shall by a last will and testament duly signed and sealed, will and direct: and in default of said last will and testament, I give said sum to the National Home for Infirm and Home less Cats and Dogs." George was a good citizen, and upon his uncle's death married. He led a virtuous life of industrious years, and died leaving a wife and six children. George was not the most methodical man about papers and documents. One day his wife suggested to him that he ought to make a new will so that she and the children would be provided tor in cer tain ways which she explained, and he wrote off a paper and signed it, leaving it for his wife to look at. Later she thought she would examine it. She did not find it in his desk and got a candle to look in a closet where he kept some of his papers. At last she found it and read it, holding the candle in one hand and the will in the other. As she turned to the last page a drop of candle
grease dropped upon the paper—very near to her husband's signature. As none of the writing was injured by the drops of grease, she put the .will away, and the next day George placed it among his valuable documents. When he died, a question arose as to the disposition of the hundred thousand dollars. His will gave it to his wife and children, but the Trustees of the Cat and Dog Home claimed that the will was inoperative as to this fund, because it was not "signed and sealed," as required by the uncle's original condition. After much litigation and review and ap peal, the courts finally decided that the drop of wax beside the signature on George's will was a sufficient seal in the eyes of the law, and the wife and children got the money. Hacc fabula docet, that a Seal is a relic of antiquity and has outlived its usefulness: that those people are wise in their day and generation who have abolished seals as part of the execution of written papers and that the people of those States who still adhere to the common law seal, are groping in pitia ble darkness in which a fortune is some times saved by a drop of candle wax and sometimes cast to 'the dogs by the absence of a seal.
