NOTES OF RECENT CASES ESCAPED CONVICT. (CONTRACT OF EMPLOY MENT — VALIDITY) U. S. DISTRICT COURT, DIST. or MASS. A point which is, so far as we know, entirely novel, and which, while it arose in a suit in ad miralty, is not confined in its application to that branch of the law, is decided in McCarron v. Do minion Atlantic Ry. Co., 134 Federal Reporter 762. The suit was by a seaman for personal in juries as well as for wages. The libelant was in jured before the term of his employment expired and claimed wages for the entire term. It was shown that at the time he shipped he was an es caped convict and that aboxit a month after the accident he was recaptured and taken back to the house of correction where he served out his sen tence during the rest of his term of shipment. The libelee contended that the libelant's whole con tract of service was invalid because a convict cannot dispose of himself so that libelant could not recover except for service actually rendered. No authorities were cited on either side, the case being apparently one of first impression, but it was held that the fact that libelant was a convict did not deprive him of the rights ordinarily aris ing from the employment and consequently that he was entitled to wages up to the time of his recapture. EXPRESS MESSENGERS. (CONTRACT FOR CARRIAGE — MASTER AND SERVANT) U. S. C. C. A., STH CIRCUIT. An express messenger, while riding in a car fur nished by a railroad company to the express com pany by which he is employed, under a contract by which employees are to be carried free, is held in Chicago & Northwestern R. Co. v. O'Brien, 132 Federal Reporter, 593, to occupy a relation to the railroad company analogous to that of one of its own employees, and the care which the railroad company owes him in respect to the operation of the train and the condition of its track and equip ment is held to be the same as that which it owes to those persons who are in its immediate service. The contention was made that the messenger sus tained to the railroad company the relation of a passenger, but the court denies this contention, and holds that he was a mere licensee, citing the well-known case of Baltimore & Ohio Ry. Co. v. Voight, 20 Sup. Ct. Rep. 383, 176 U. S. 495. A relationship analogous to that of master and ser vant being established, it was held error on the part of the trial court to refuse to instruct that the fact of derailment of the train did not in itself raise a presumption of negligence for which the company was chargeable, the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur not being applicable.
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FOREIGN CORPORATIONS. (SERVICE OP PROCESS — WITHDRAWAL FROM STATE) SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE TERM. In Johnson v. Mutual Reserve Life Ins. Co., 90 New York Supplement, 539, it is held that sum mons in an action against a foreign corporation on contracts which were made while such corporation was doing business within the state, may properly be served upon the person designated by statute to accept such service, even though the corpora tion before the suit was brought had withdrawn from the state and revoked the authority of the person who had been previously designated to accept service, citing Goldey v. Morning News, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 559, 156 U. S. 519.
FORMER JEOPARDY. (COLLUSIVE CONVIC TION) NORTH CAROLINA SUPREME COURT. A person charged with assault plead former con viction and introduced evidence showing that, on the same day on which the assault was committed, he himself made an affidavit before a justice of the peace, charging himself with assault, and that the justice issued a warrant on which was an in dorsement to the effect that defendant voluntarily came up to be tried and dealt with as the law directs. It was shown that defendant was ex amined, and upon his own evidence was adjudged to be guilty and fined one dollar. The statutes required that a complaint shall be made to a justice that an offense had been committed, and that the complainant and witnesses introduced by him shall be examined so as to make it appear that an offense had been committed before any warrant was issued. It was also provided that when one charged with crime was brought before a justice, complainant's witnesses should be ex amined in the presence of the defendant. Under these statutes it was held that the pro ceeding against defendant was collusive and void, and insufficient to sustain a plea of former jeop ardy. "It was," says the court, "nothing less than a sham and a mockery of justice and should never receive the countenance, and surely not the sanction, of the law. The state has in fact never been heard, the injured party was never notified, and no witnesses ' were examined to explain or contradict the defendant's testimony." A number of cases, holding in a general way that there is no former jeopardy if the acquittal or conviction was procured by defendant, even in directly, by fraud or collusion or for the purpose of forestalling a real prosecution by the state or the injured party, are cited, among them being Watkins v. State, 68 Ind. 427; Commonwealth v.
