Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/322



CURRENT TOPICS. The New York Constitutional Convention has assembled. It is an important assemblage, and contains many men of mark and of the first order of professional and administrative ability. The president, Mr. Joseph H. Choate, is one of the leaders of the New York City Bar, and has a wide celebrity for legal attainments and brilliant eloquence. . At least two subjects of the gravest importance will be brought before the convention. One is the subject of woman suffrage; at first received with derision, then tolerated with smiles and empty gallantry, the day has come when it must be treated seriously and determined equitably. It remains to be seen whether one-half the community may deny the right to vote to the other half simply on account of difference of sex. Hut have we not too many voters already? Doubt less, considering the material of which they are com posed. But it is a very poor reason for refusing the suffrage to the female sex that it is already granted to the very dregs of the male sex. The vendible and criminal cattle who loaf on our street corners may vote, but the purest and most intelligent and richest woman in the community may not. Fix a qualifica tion if you will, such as property, or intelligence, — there is some reason in that; but do not tell us that sex is a qualification or a disqualification. Another important topic is the judiciary. In respect to this, all other details are insignificant when compared with the importance of enabling the courts to transact their business promptly. The great majority of lawyers in New York believe that it is imperatively necessary to increase the number of judges of the court of appeals, and do not approve of limiting ap peals. Doubtless the convention will accept this view, and will not be deterred by the well understood unwillingness of the present members of the court to tolerate accessions to their numbers. It is much more important to have the legal business of the State promptly transacted than to cater to the social preferences or humor the personal wishes of these highly estimable gentlemen. Municipal government and taxation are other topics of great importance that now occur to us. The man who shall devise an effective

and impartial system of taxation will prove the great est benefactor of the present age in a material sense. If taxes were thus administered they would be so light that nobody would feel them nor care to shirk them. The subject of biennial sittings of the Legis lature will also come up. Very few States preserve the annual session, but whether the change would afford any relief, or even be practicable, in New York, is quite debatable.

Shakespeare's Handwriting. — Somebody has sent us a circular announcing a forthcoming book de signed to demonstrate that Shakespeare could not write. This circular is illustrated by fac-similes of his five known signatures, which it is claimed are extremely illiterate, and show that he could write nothing more than his name, and never wrote it twice alike nor spelled it uniformly. An article in the "Pall Mall Magazine" for May is to the same effect. A highly esteemed lawyer writes us that he never has seen any satisfactory evidence that Shakespeare could write, and argues that if he could not write he could not read, and if he could not read he could not have composed those plays. Among the earliest arguments of the Baconians we recollect the story that the manuscript from which the printers set up the dramas was entirely free from interlineations, ad ditions and changes; therefore it was urged that he must have copied them from another's writing. It has been found convenient to let this tradition drop out of sight in view of the more modern and potent theory that he could not write. On the same course of reasoning, i.e., the argument founded on the sig natures, it might be proved that Napoleon could not write. Let the reader consult the fac-similes of his signatures at the end of Prof. Seeley's biography, and note the continual decadence of his "pen-gesture" and the meaningless and illegible character of the the later signatures. If the argument of the disap pearance of the original manuscript of the plays is urged, we may retort that there are probably very few manuscripts of the great old authors extant. We do not know, but we will ask, are there anv, or