EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT not found in evidence of failures of the
- rpast
so much as in the consequences that may reasonably be expected from such influences in the future, and, more especially, in the effects that may be produced on the popular mind by the inevitable suspicion of partiality in judges of known political ambitions in under mining the commanding influence which our courts now enjoy. IN fulfilment of our desire to broaden the scope of the .contributions to our pages, we are glad to publish in this number a purely technical article upon a subject of so unique interest as the exact nature of the rights of the living to control the disposition of the remains of the dead. It may reasonably be expected that, with the gradual spread of ap preciation of the merits of cremation, disputes of this nature may require the attention of the Bar more frequently in the future than in the past. Mr. Grinnell is a graduate of Har vard College and Harvard Law School, where he was one of the editors of the Harvard Law Review. Since 1899 he has been engaged in active practice in Boston, as a member of the firm of Hale & Grinnell, and it was in the preparation of an opinion as counsel for the Massachusetts Cremation Society that his attention was called to the study of the subject of his article. controversies of a private and personal nature have aroused such wide-spread interest and have been of as much importance to in dividuals throughout this country, and even throughout the world, as the contest for con trol of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. What seemed at first to be merely a personal quarrel or, at most, an attempt by one financier to get rid of a rival, has grown to proportions of a national scandal. In the resources of this society, many small investors have a very vital interest, the nature of which per haps does not confer upon them legal rights, and yet, the impropriety of this, under mod ern social conditions has produced a wide spread feeling that these moral rights must have some legal sanction. Much has appeared
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in print upon this subject which will not bear the scrutiny of legal investigation. We are glad, therefore, to present in this issue an explanation of the real nature of these legal problems by a Xew York lawyer who has had an opportunity to become familiar with the facts of the case. EVERY new instance of the successful appli cation of legal methods of determination to international disputes deserves all the public attention which the magnitude of the interests involved and the picturesque character of the matter in dispute are sure to command. The lawyer, however, finds in the adaptation to the large uses of pub lic peace of the famil iar instruments of his daily work, an inspi ration to loftier ambi tions of professional usefulness. The most important of these efforts in recent years has been the investi gation at Paris of the circumstances which surrounded the bom bardment of the Eng B. H. CONNER lish fishermen of the Dogger Bank by the Russian fleet on its way to the war in the Far East. The author of our account of the North Sea Inquiry is a native of Kentucky and a graduate of Central University. He was ad mitted to the Bar at Cynthiana, Kentucky, in 1900, but after one year of practice entered the Albany Law School, and where he re ceived his degree and was admitted to the Bar of Xew York in 1902. After two years of general practice in New York City he has moved to Paris, where he is now engaged in the practice of law in the office of Sir Thomas Barclay, and in the study of Roman and civil law at the University of Paris. He has always been interested in questions of international law and has found a subject agreeable to his tastes in the examination of the proceedings of Court of Inquiry.
