NOTES OF RECENT CASES La. 1091, 37 So. 980) has reversed its former decision (Planters' Oil Mill v. Monroe Water Works, 52 La. Ann. 1243, 27 So. 684) holding the water company liable. Kentucky, the original jurisdiction holding the water company liable in contract, seems to have become a trifle apologetic about its position. (Graves County Water Co., v. Ligon, 66 S. W. 725, 726 (Ky.)O By far the most usual line of reasoning upon which the water company is held not liable on any theory, is that the plaintiff is not in any proper sense the beneficiary of the obligation on the part of the water company to the municipality. This is most succinctly put in Allen & Curry Mfg. Co. v. Shreveport Water Works Co., 113 La. 1091, 37 So. Rep. 980. (See also Britton v. Green Bay Water Works, 81 Wis. 48, 56, 51 N. E. 84; Nickerson v. Bridgeport Hydraulic Co., 46 Conn. 24, 29; House v. Houston Water Works Co., 88 Tex. 233, 239, 31 S. W. 179; Howsmon v. Trenton Water Co., 119 Mo. 304, 314, 24 S. W. 784; Blunk v. Dennison Water Supply Co., 73 N. E. 210, 211 (Ohio).) See further to the same effect, but not so suc cinctly, Wainwright v. Queens County Water Co., 78 Hun. 146, 28 N. Y. Supp. 987; Ferris v. Car son Water Co., 16 Nev. 44, 47; Nichol v. Hunting ton Water Co., 53 West Va., 348, 44 S. E. 290; Fitch v. Seymour Water Co., 139 Ind. 214, 37 N. E. 982; Wilkinson v. Light, Heat & Water Co., 78 Miss. 389, 28 So. 877. In the Texas case (House'v. Houston Water Works Co., 88 Tex. 233, 31 S. W. 179) the court distinguished between the right of the sendee of a telegram to sue the telegraph company in tort for negligence, and the non-liability in tort of the water company to the inhabitants in case of loss by fire on the ground that in the former case the telegraph company is serving directly the person to whom the message is sent. Guardian Trust Company v. Fisher, 200 U. S. 57, does not in fact hold in the slightest degree that an action of tort lies against the water company. There, judgments had been obtained in the state courts of North Carolina against the water com pany for loss by fire. In foreclosure proceedings against the water company in the United States court these judgments were proved up as claims. The question of liability was absolutely closed. The only question was whether the judgments were in tort or contract. If they were in the former, then they took priority over the bonds. The North Carolina court had already held the judgments to be in tort. The United States Circuit Court held the same way, and in the United States Supreme Court this was affirmed. No question of the pro priety of the judgments was up. The only ques tion was, what was their character. The Supreme Court, while denied all right to consider the validity
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or propriety of the judgments, were asked to say upon what legal theory they rested. They evi dently regarded the tort theory as more possible than contract. Then they stated the most plausible ground of tort liability which they could invent. By this means the character of the judgments only, and not their propriety, was fixed. Obviously there is nothing in such a decision which lends the slight est countenance to the holding on the merits of the question that a judgment in tort is a proper one. The difficulty in the class of cases of which the principal is one, is the opportunity which is afforded to a court, swayed by sentiment and sympathy, of making a special rule for a particular case contrary to a general rule of the greatest fundamental im portance, and by way of infringement upon the peculiar province of the legislature. A. M. KALES. TAXATION. (Transfer Tax — Corporate Stock — Corporation Incorporated in Two States.) N. Y. — The extent to which stock of a corporation in corporated in both New York and Massachusetts, belonging to a non-resident, may be taxed under a law imposing a tax on the transfer by will of any personal property within the state where decedent was a non-resident of the state at the time of his death, is determined in In re Cooley's Estate, 78 N. E. 939. The corporation had property in New York, as well as in Massachusetts. The court was of the opinion that for the purposes of the transfer tax the stock held by a non-resident should be taxed by regarding the New York corporation as owning the property situate in New York, and the Massachusetts corporation as owning that situ ate in Massachusetts, and each as owning a share of any property situate outside of either state or moving to and fro between the two states. By adopting this rule the court regarded itself as avoiding any difficulty arising from double tax ation. The case was distinguished from others in which the tax had been imposed to the full extent of the property owned by the corporation, on the ground that in such cases it did not appear that the corporation owned property situate without the state. See, for instance, Matter of Bronson, 150 N. Y. 1, 44 N. E. 707, 34 L. R. A. 238, 55 Am. St. Rep. 632, and Matter of Palmer, 183 N. Y. 238, 76 N. E. 16. TORTS. (Libel — Picture.) Wis. — InWandt v. Hearst's Chicago American, 109 Northwestern Reporter, 70, a newspaper publisher is held liable in damages to the original of a picture published in connection with a libelous article concerning another person. The fact that the original of the picture published might not have been damaged
