The Green Bag
708 This {a
r deals, in rather a humorous
way,wit t eevilof municipal graft rimarily. While written when Mr. Taft was t irty-two, it shows no fundamental difierence of attitude from that of the President today, except that the cares of public life did not then weigh heavily on his shoulders and he was able to write with more exuberance and ofihanded ness. TI-rifl. "The Mysteries and Cruelties of the Tarifi;
The Bulwark of the Wool Farce."
By Ida M. Tarbell. v. 71, p. 51 (Nov.).
American Magazine,
Tchaykovlky. "My Prison Story." By Nicholas Tchaykovsky. Outlook, v. 96, p. 493 (Oct. 29). Tellin of his arrest, imprisonment, and acquitta.
It is not a dark picture, but it
shows that the system of administering justice in Russia has many absurdities. Wall Street. “The Masters of Capital in America: Morgan, the Great Trustee." By John Moody and George Kibbe Turner. McClure's, v. 36, p. 3 (Nov.).
The story of Morgan's career is brought
in this first installment up to the year 1898. The rtrait of Morgan IS ruthlessly frank, but gives in the main a sympathetic. appre ciative picture of the man. No effort is made to attach a forced, unnatural interpre
tation to great deeds in the world of finance. The authors have sought in this most readable article to write an impartial history of the manner in which Morgan won re-eminenoe as a financier. The growth of t e syndicate, and of the methods by which the name of Morgan came to be synonymous with sound. conservative banking and promotion are treated with an entertaining fullness of detail. "It: The Sovereign Political Power of Organized Business." By Lincoln Steffens. Everybody's, v. 23, p. 646 (Nov.). This second installment is devoted to the power exercised by the financial interests of Wall street in injuring the credit facilities of individuals or roperties toward which they are not friend y. The author evidently believes that a credit monopoly exists in the United States, not yet held in check by legislation. Those who control eat banking institutions possess an unfair a vantage over outsiders seekingato finance meritorious enterprises.
Latest Important Cases Banking and Currency. Deed of Real Estate to National Bank not Void but Void able. N. Y. Associate Justice Hughes handed down his first decision as a member of the Supreme Court of the United States on November 7, in the Kerfoot case. The opinion was marked by unusual brevity, the whole paper, with citations, taking up only about two printed pages. "But while the purpose of the transac tion was not one of those described in the statute for which a national bank may purchase and hold real estate." said the Court, “it does not follow that the deed was a nullity and that it failed to convey title to the property. In the absence of legislation to the contrary, a conveyance of real estate to a corporation for a purpose not authorized by its charter is not void, but voidable, and the sovereign alone can object." Any other finding, the decision holds, will lead to great confusion and injustice. Conveyancea. Equity Will Interfere to Cancel Sale Induced by Fraudulent Repre sentation: of Purchaser. N. Y.
Where the owner of vacant city property is induced to sell it by the representations of the buyer that he intended to build dwelling houses thereon, when his purpose was in fact to erect a public automobile garage, which would materially injure seller's adjacent property, an action may be main tained by the seller to cancel the deed and compel a reconveyance of the property, because of the sale having been induced by the purchaser's fraud in relation to a material and existing fact. This was the decision of the New York Court of Appeals in Adams v. Gillig (reported in N. Y. Law jour. Oct. 19), rendered Oct. 11, Chase, 1., writing the opinion. Corporations. Indictmant Nat Necessary for Conviction of Crime—jurisdiclion of Inferior Caurts. Mass. The notion that a corporation can only be criminally dealt with by indictment, however trivial the ofiense, was exploded by a decision rendered by the full bench of the Massa chusetts
Supreme Judicial Court, Oct. 18,
in the case of Commonwealth v. New York
