Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/73

 54

Sir Edward Coke was memorable for one faculty, without which, though individuals at the bar have attained office, none have attained eminence — intensity of application. He gen erally rose at three in the morning, and studied all day. The court seldom sat later than noon, and thus he had leisure to acquire his ex traordinary learning. But his eminence is not to be fairly ascertained but by contrast with the men of his day. He had some of the most powerful minds of the most powerful period of the English intellect to contend with : Plowden, the well-known author; Lord Bacon, the first of philosophers; Egerton, the most fortunate of all chancellors; Sir George Coke, the great judge, whose judgment on Hampden's trial was the keystone of the liberties of England. Those were his rivals in the field of legal learning, and those were the men to whom his learning was as that of an oracle. — New Monthly Magazine.

That the court is not always ready to overrule its prior decisions, even though they may be plainly erroneous, is a matter of every-day obser vation. The tendency towards blind adherence to precedent is strongly shown in a recent Massa chusetts case in which the Court in reaching its decision uses this extraordinary language : — "If we were contriving a new code to-day we might hesitate to decide in this way. But we are not at liberty to refuse to carry out to its conse quences any principle which we believe to have been part of the common law simply because the grounds of policy on which it must be justified seem to us to be hard to find, and probably to have belonged to a different state of society." In the course of its decision the Court quotes from such ancient authorities, dug from the dust and mould of the past, as Brackton, Plowden and the Year Books in the time of Edward I., Edward III. and Edward IV.! The estimation in which Brackton is held to-day is well shown in a note in a recent number of the "American Law Review" as follows : "It would seem that Brackton was a kind of literary fraud and plagiarist. No doubt it was a great deal easier for an itinerant judge, as Brackton was, to copy out of the Digest than to discover and state what the customary law of England was. Even making the most liberal allowance for the

backwardness of all scholastic attainments in Eng land in the reign of Henry III., Brackton was little better than a literary fraud." This " literary fraud " lived in England in the thirteenth century, but helps to decide a contro versy arising in Massachusetts in the nineteenth! And this in spite of the fact that the Court finds difficulty in discovering the grounds of policy upon which his reasoning may be justified, and admits that it probably belongs to a different state of society. — Boston Courier.

A report of a very queer lawsuit comes from Paris. During last season a house in the Avenue de Neuilly was suddenly and unaccountably infested by rats. They swarmed all over the place, and what was peculiarly irritating, seemed to confine themselves to that one house. The owner managed to trap one of the swarm, and, having a mechanical mind, constructed a wire noose, which he was able to slip round the captive's head. This collar was furnished with a small silver bell, and, so equipped, the rat was set free. Of course, he found his comrades, or tried to do so, with the result that that special house in the Avenue de Neuilly had peace at last. Near by there lived a studious gentleman of nervous temperament, the plaintiff in the forthcoming action. He was wakened in the night by a curious tinkling sound, which came on fitfully, and seemed to proceed from every cor ner of the room. He lit a candle, and timor ously proceeded to search. There was nothing visible, and yet the mysterious sound was dis tinctly audible. He tried to think it was imagi nation, but, failing, decided it must be ghosts. It was clear his house was haunted — and haunted, too, by day as well as by night. For weeks he could not sleep, and the anxiety told on his health. At last a gossiping servant learned the truth, and the victim, instead of laughing at his own credulity, has begun an action against (he man who belled the rat.

Judge McKinley, of Duluth, is in a singular position. He is judge of the circuit court in which his own wife, recently admitted to the bar, will practice. He is probably the only man in the world to-day who can prevent his wife from having the last word. — Law Reporter.