Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/178

 Rh NOTES.

A verdict of "guilty of assault and battery with intent to commit involuntary manslaughter" is invalid. (Thetge v. State, 83 Ind. 126.)

Cicero, whose mind was always diffuse and imaginative, shows in all his writings an impa tience and scorn for all sorts of antiquated legal formalities; he indulges himself in deriding obsolete law ceremonials, and talks of the judi cial systems as eating into the very flesh and blood of the Romans.

The Law School of the Northwestern Univer sity deserves more notice than it has received anywhere except in Chicago. Nowhere in the country have more praiseworthy or promising efforts been put forth for high attainments than in the management of this school — efforts far beyond the ordinary perfunctory ones of making a " good school." Chief among these is a really superb faculty, a faculty such as but one or two other Law Schools in the country can match. Among them are four graduates of Harvard, two of Boston University, and one of Yale; one of them being a graduate of both Harvard and Boston University, another of both Yale and Boston, and all first-rate men.

There is nothing in any of the games of chance or skill which engage men's efforts which can compare with the intellectual pleasure of advising clients. The lawyer confronting what at first seems an inextricable confusion, or an in superable combination of barriers, finds gradually that their aspect yields to his persistent analysis. As he gather the facts, compares the conflicting representations, weighs the adverse elements of the situation, he begins to see a path opening be fore him. The task of laying out his policy is often as interesting as the plan of a political or military campaign. He may, just because he knows all the ins and outs of the complex situa tion, employ one agency to accomplish one move, and another for another move, and sit himself silent and perhaps apparently inactive : but he is at the centre, and the various activities of his office, and sometimes those of others, are only the results of his direction.— N. Y. Daily Register.

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"A case just settled on appeal in the Dutch courts establishes the fact that according to the law of Holland a man cannot be punished for kissing a strange lady in the streets against her wish. A young man having assaulted a young woman in this way in the streets of a little vil lage near Utrecht, the latter complained to the burgomaster, who instituted proceedings, de manding that the offender should be fined one florin, or in default that he should be imprisoned for one day. The Utrecht Court first of all, and now the Appeal Court at Amsterdam, have dis missed the case, the judges declaring that ' to kiss a person cannot be an offense, as it is in the nature of a warm mark of sympathy.'"

True or not true, this story is sufficiently amusing. Only, coming as it does from America, we hardly know in which part of our columns to print it. Among the curiosities of American ad ministration, it is reported, a case is recorded of a young German whose betrothed had amassed sufficient money in America to pay for his ticket from Hamburg. He was detained on his arrival by the immigration authorities, who were of opinion that the importation of a husband was a distinct infraction of the Alien Contract Labor Law! — Indian jfurist.

We see it reported in one of our English con temporaries that " Judge rose on Thursday and will not sit again for a month." Poor fel low! His lot is surely " not a happy one."

A jury is a body organized for the purpose of deciding side in deciding which which side in aa law law ""• suit has the smartest lawyer. — Washington Law Reporter.

The old story of the lawyer who advised his pupil, "When you are sure that you have lost your case, abuse the plaintiff's counsel," extends to the plaintiffs witnesses. No good lawyer abuses witnesses while he feels strong in his case, and it is a test — almost a supreme test — of skill that a lawyer shall be courteous to witnesses against his client while endeavoring to weaken the force of their evidence. Certainly a brow-beating cross-examination is a dangerous proceeding —