Page:Address as the ABA president.pdf/46

 seems eminently right. It aims a blow at collusive divorces, and seeks to discourage that modern enormity.

An act authorizing probate courts to take charge of the estate of absent persons, and to appoint trustees thereof, when not heard of for more than three years and longer, seems wise legislation, and has been followed with good results in other states where it has prevailed for years.

By another act the Governor is empowered on petition to appoint special prosecutors of criminal cases, intended to render more effective the punishment of those strange, perverse violators of the prohibition and temperance laws.

Another enactment provides for a struck jury, introduced with so many good results in other states, and which will, no doubt, prove equally beneficial in Vermont.

A novel statute empowers the county court to refer certain causes, without the agreement of the parties, to the arbitrament and settlement of the referees, provided, that the issue of fact is not such as to entitle the parties to their constitutional right to have the issue tried by a jury.

The last remnant of the common law doctrine of the rights of husband and wife seems, as in many other states, to have become entirely exploded in Vermont. A recent act provides that married women may contract with any other person other than her husband, and bind herself and her separate property to the same extent as if unmarried. All personal property and rights of action acquired by a woman before coverture, or acquired in any manner except by her personal industry, or by gift from her husband, shall be held to her sole and separate use, etc.

Another act provides that deeds, leases, and other conveyances of land hereinafter executed, acknowledged, and recorded, shall convey such title of the grantor or lessor therein, notwithstanding any actual possession thereof by any other person claiming the same. The common law and an early statute of Vermont, making void all conveyances of land adversely held are thereby repealed.