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make a decision. It is one of those situa tions in which the inclination is to stand aside, and let history decide for itself in the result. But on the whole, the result promises to be a fortunate one. No amount of legisla tion can dispel legal rights inherent in the character of a people. It is probable that the prime notions of importance still cur rent will be assimilated into the new system. Thus- the borrowed law will furnish the sys tem, and the indigenous will supply the material, so far as seems expedient. The history of the Roman law in France and Germany will repeat itself. Said Bernhoft, a noted student of comparative jurisprudence, some ten years ago : 1 — 1 Zeitschrift d. vergleich. Rechtswiss, I. 443.

"It is only when we examine the process of development by interpretation through which the Roman law passed in mediaeval times that we can understand how it came to be accepted in Germany. . . . The wider the region it em braced, the greater was the remodelling to which it was subjected, and that involuntarily, at the hands of jurists and administrators." It is in the administration of the new law in Japan that we may expect to see a just accommodation of its principles to the ideas of the people. It is a fact that no foreign law-book is ever cited by counsel or referred to in judicial decisions in the courts of Japan. The spirit which inspires this rule will doubtless secure the best results in the pro cess of welding the codes to the national civilization.

JUDICIAL DIVERSIONS. -^TOT long ago an Irish police-court was ^ disturbed in a peculiar way. A cele brated Irish Member of Parliament was about to be placed upon his trial, when the magis trates were observed to clutch their noses with a suicidal tenacity. The assembled spectators of the trial looked inquiringly at one another, and then at the magistrates whose faces were strangely distorted. Pres ently the crowd began to gasp and sniff, and in a moment a hundred or more noses were held in a tight embrace. The usually impassive faces of the policemen were curiously contorted, and even the prisoner betrayed the effect of the mysterious influ ence. Magistrates and men made a wild rush for the door, and their noses were not released until the fresh air was blowing in their faces. The proceedings were sum marily adjourned to another day. Some merriment was caused when it became known that a quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen had been intentionally sprinkled on the floor of the court-house, the fumes of

j which cleared the building quicker than an earthquake. Perhaps the same fine sense of humor caused some Dublin magistrate to send Mary Smith to prison for eating dynamite. Mary found a brownish-looking compound in a heap of rubbish, and thinking it was chocolate, consumed half of it with consid erable relish. She had not finished the remaining half, when a kind friend informed ' her that she was eating part of a dynamite cartridge. The police sought her out; and Mary Smith was sent to prison for two months, for having dynamite illegally in her possession. Few people can claim to have outwitted Sir James Hannen, the well-known judge. His lordship, however, was curiously " done" by a sombrely dressed juryman in his own court. In a most melancholy tone the jury man claimed to be exempt from serving on j the jury which had been empanelled to j try an important case. Sir James very sympathetically asked on what grounds he