The Editor's Bag elusions obtainable and to provide a satisfactory standard for legislative action. The first task of the society will be to draft a model judiciary act. In the words of the founder, "under a scientific organization of courts procedure dimin ishes in importance. Most significant of all are the methods for selecting judges, their compensation and tenure, and independence of every allegiance save only the law." There will also be wide acquiescence in the fact that "experience for over a generation in England has proved beyond all cavil that a unified court with administrative machinery has no stomach for techni calities of procedure." The society will then submit a model short procedural act supplemented with a model code of rules of court. It also proposes after thorough research to formulate and submit a model act to organize the bar of a state, so that the bar can attain the power to govern itself and discharge its specific respon sibilities. This is no visionary undertaking, no foolish quest of unattainable uni formity. As Mr. Harley said in his preliminary circular, it is not conceivable "that we should ever have one uniform and unvarying procedure for all state and federal courts. ... It is never theless true that the principles involved in the organization and operation of courts are identical in all states." In settling the details of this procedure "there is no panacea. Diagnosis is allimportant. When we have correctly ascertained the causes for dissatisfaction we shall be able to formulate the appro priate remedy. We have a wealth of experience in the assorting of which scientific methods are needed." There is no reason why any jealousies should hamper the work of the society,
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for it will naturally enlist the services of those most active on behalf of pro cedural reform in the national and state bar associations; it should therefore tend to unify professional opinion and to strengthen the work of every state bar association committee by bringing it into closer solidarity with committees in other states engaged in similar tasks. It is also a satisfaction to discover that there is at last a satisfactory clearing house for discussion, to which all in terested in law reform can look for responsible leadership in the propaganda of the movement. It will be no small advantage to lawyers and laymen to be able to feel, at last, that they can confide in an agency which will sub stitute concentrated, well organized effort, for the wellnigh fruitless dissi pation of energy that has marked the experience of recent years. A GHOST STORY IN COURT STROM BOLI, that island volcano which is known as "The Light house of the Mediterranean," once figured in a court of law in connection with a most circumstantial ghost story. In the year 1688 a Mrs. Booty brought in an English court an action of slander against a certain Captain Barnaby, inas much as he had declared that she had seen "Old Booty running into the flames of hell, pursued by the devil!" The words were admitted, but for the defense it was proved that on May 15, 1687, the day of Old Booty's death, the captain with a large party of friends went ashore at Stromboli to shoot rab bits. At about 3.30 in the afternoon, two men were seen running toward the volcano. Captain Barnaby exclaimed, "Lord bless me, the foremost is Old Booty, my next door neighbor." They then vanished in the flames, a fact of which every one took note.
