Page:18801002 NYT The Federal Reporter.pdf/1

 THE FEDERAL REPORTER.

Several times in past years we have spoken of the lack of any satisfactory system for reporting the subordinate Federal courts. Until now this matter has been, taking the country at large, in entire confusion. No attention has been paid to the subject by Government, and private enterprise has hitherto cared for it only in the more populous circuits and districts. The Federal Reporter undertakes to fill this chasm in the judicial system. Its engagement is to give immediate publication of all the current decisions of the Circuit and District Courts, issued every week, in the ordinary size and form of State reports. The number of pages in each issue varies in accordance with the quantity of matter received, the object being to give every opinion promptly, which makes some issues large and some small. The copies of the opinions published are in most instances supplied by the Clerks of the courts. The head-notes are prepared by the editor. The present volume is well edited and printed. The enterprise deserves the approval and support which we bespoke for it when it was first announced, and from acknowledgments in the preface of the “encouraging reception” which the first volume has received. and from the further facts that the second volume is completed in numbers and the publishers are even under way with the third, we infer that a satisfactory support is assured, and that the publication may be deemed permanent. It well deserves some appropriation by Congress to place the volumes in those public offices where early knowledge of the course of decisions in the national courts is peculiarly important.

The more notable contents of the first volume are about 30 decisions in the various branches of admiralty, covering the most recent questions as to carriage of goods, seamen’s wages, collisions, salvage, pilotage, &c.; about 20 cases on bankruptcy and debtors’ assignments, several of which discuss the effect of the repeal of the Bankrupt law and revival of State assignment laws; a case on the liability of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for goods destroyed in the Pittsburg riots; the noted Parrott case, sustaining the right of the Chinese to have work and wages, notwithstanding the prohibitory regulations of the Pacific States; a decision expounding the Delaware registration system, which may well win attention from those who are preparing for the election this Fall; 10 or 12 decisions upon rights and liabilities of corporations, especially upon negotiable bonds; the noted Gommerford case on the delivery of lottery correspondence, with an elaborate charge to the jury in another case, explaining the same subject, and about two dozen decisions upon patents and trade-marks.

The New York Times

Published: October 2, 1880

Copyright © The New York Times