Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/308

292 292 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. Torts — Telephone Wires — Interference by other Wires — Injunction. — A telephone company received a franchise under which it erected poles and strung wires along the streets. Three years later, a like authority was given to and acted upon by an electric-lighting company, to the serious impairment of the telephone ser- vice. It was found that the wires of the two companies were within four feet of each other, that there was sufficient room along the streets for the lighting company to string its wires at a distance greater than four feet, and that such alteration on the part of the lighting company would be attended with greater expense than one on the part of the telephone company. It seems also to have been found that a space of four feet or more between wires would have obviated the difficulty. An injunction issued in favor of the telephone company, the lighting company being compelled to make the changes above indicated, on the ground of priority only, it would seem, as no cases are cited. Paris Electric Light, &'c. Co., v. S. IV. Telegraph, &^c. Co., 27 S. W. Rep. 902 (Tex.). The question whether, of two corporations using electric currents of varying pow- ers, the more recent, if using the stronger, shall so carry on its business as not to impair the service already existing, or whether the one suffering from the proximity shall, in all cases, make at its own expense all changes necessary to the maintenance of its service, can hardly be said to be as yet settled. Contests between telegraph or telephone companies and electric-lighting companies have seldom risen to the higher courts, their dilificulties being settled at a comparatively slight cost to either party. A''eb. Tel. Co. v. York Gas, &'c. Co., 17 Neb. 284, accords with the principal case; while West. U. Tel. Co. v. Champion Electric Co., 14 Cine. W'kly Bull. 327 (Ohio), is contra. A more serious contest, from the nature of the service, has arisen between the tele- phone companies and the electric street railway companies. The authorities are con- flicting, and are collected in Thompson on Electricity, pp. 52-58, and especially in Keasbey on Electric Wires, pp. 1 41-153, where the matter is elaborately discussed. Trusts — Application of Trust-Res at Discretion of Trustee. — Testator gave his property to trustees upon certain trusts, and directed the trustees to invest certain sums for the benefit of his sons, and apply these sums to the advancement of the sons, as the trustees in their discretion should think fit. Held, that the sons were absolutely entitled to the legacies, freed from the exercise of any discretion on the part of the trustees. In re Johnston, L. R. [1894] 3 Chan. Uiv. 204. This follows the rule that where the trustees are to apply the entire amount for the benefit of the cestui, the bequest is to be treated as a gift out and out. REVIEWS. Courts and their Jurisdiction. By John D. Works. Cincinnati : The Robert Clarke Co. 1894. 8vo. pp. goS. The task Judge Works has set himself, the fulfilment of which gives us this book, is one that has been immensely complicated by the great number of statutes and provisions in the constitutions defining the powers of the various courts. One constantly is reminded of this by the qualifications the author feels himself compelled to put on various statements, to the effect that " the tendency of legislation " seems to be against this or that. Yet out of the chaotic mass of decisions and legis- lative directions on the subjects treated, he has given us a resume of the doctrines laid down, with a good discussion of the principles on which the various theories are based. The author candidly admits that many of the cases go on no principle at all save that of precedent, but states as the object of the work, "to get below this mass of cases which rest upon one another, and find out why a given principle of law should be maintained, and cite the cases by which the reason for the rule has been established." On this very commendable plan he has treated the means of acquiring and losing jurisdictions, jurisdiction of judges,