Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/171

 148

Green Bag.

IN Missouri the right of a husband to the pre sumption of being " head of the family " was sus tained in Whitehead v. Tripp, 67 Mo. 415, where, under the homestead law, a man was so held, though his wife had deserted him and was living in another State with another man, and he was living in improper relations with another woman; "for," say the court, " the domicile of the hus band drew after it that of the wife." In England, however, where a testator bequeathed,£500 to his "dear wife Caroline '' the court held that this did not belong to his wife (who was named Maria) . but to a woman named Caroline, who was living with him as his mistress; and " dear wife " was rejected as surplusage; " for how," said Baron Maule, "could she be dear to him, when he would not live with her? " We cannot say, unless to suggest that perhaps she might have been regarded as "lost to sight, to memory dear."

SOME months ago we drew attention to the sor rows of district judges who have to peruse a mass of very bad handwriting. One such sorely tried officer tells us that he was perusing the testimonials of an applicant, and he came upon one which said, "He is a scamp and lazy character." This seemed too good to be true, and on reference to the drawer it was found to be, " He is an exemplary char acter." Really, some men in this country seem to be of the opinion which Hamlet held in his youth ful days : " I once did hold it, as our statists do, a baseness to write fair." — Indian Jurist.

IN a paper on " County Jails as Reformatory Institutions." Mr. Edward B. Merrill, of New York, tells of a jail in that State, upon the outer walls of which " is an inscription, cut in stone, in forming the curious passer-by, with a finer regard to the customary game played in the neighboring tavern than to the strict demands of a correct Latin version, that it was ' Erected Anno Domino 1853.'" THE vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court of Canada, caused by the death of the late Chief-Justice, Sir Wm. J. Ritchie, has been filled by the appointment of Robert Sedgewick, Q. C., the late deputy minister of justice. Judge Sedgewick was born in Scotland in 1848, and came to Canada with his parents in the following year. He

was educated at Halifax, N. S., and was called to the bar in 1873. Previously to his appointment as deputy minister in 1888, he practised his pro fession at Halifax. His early elevation to the bench is regarded as a fitting tribute to his emi nent professional attainments.

THE only case on record of a lawyer building an ark occurred in 1540. At that time Biaise D'Auriol, a professor of the canon law of Toulouse, be came so terrified at the prediction of a deluge by a pretended prophet at that time, that he actually had a big ark constructed, in which, like Noah, he hoped to escape. -But no flood came. He died soon after, and was henceforth spoken of as an Ark-angel.

ftccrnt HON. JOHN SCHOLFIELD, a member of the Su preme Court of Illinois, died on February 13. He was born in Marshall County, I11., in 1834. His father, Thomas Scholfield, was of Pennsyl vania Quaker stock, though born in Virginia, and came to Illinois in 1830. The wife of Thomas Scholfield was a Flood, and came from Muskingum County, Ohio. Their son worked on the farm and went to country school until he was sixteen, when his mother died. He then went to live with his uncle, Jacob An derson, at Martinsville, also going to school there. The old national road to St. Louis ran through Martinsville, and Anderson kept a tavern and stable. In this stable young Scholfield worked two years for his board, clothing, and schooling. He was a studious boy, and kept several books in the loft of the barn, it being his ambition to become a lawyer. Judge Scholfield used to tell how he once took a stable-tip from a man who afterward came before him to argue an important case in the Su preme Court of Illinois. From the stage barn young Scholfield went to Marshall, and entered an academy kept by a Congregational minister named Adams. To support himself while in school he did chores and odd jobs nights and mornings for Sheriff Thomas Handy. It is said he never spent an idle hour in those days, joining the youngsters of his age only in