Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/524

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Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, Horace W. Fuller, is1A Beacon Street, Boston, Mass. The Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of moderate length upon subjects of inter est to the profession; also an/thing in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetia, anec dotes, etc. THE GREEN BAG. To the Ed1tor of the Green Bag. Sir : In the August number of the Green Bag, in the contribution entitled, " Exterritoriality of Orientals in England," occur passages of which the following are samples : — "But now, with the oblique light shed upon it by the Oriental mind, exterritoriality is rapidly becoming a license to seduce, a charter to kill if not to murder, and a monopoly to commit suicide without the incon veniences of a coroner's inquiry in prospect, besides furnishing a protection for the more everyday pastime of incurring debts and refusing to pay. The Chinese and Japanese Embassies have developed with per turbing facility into a veritable Alsatia, wherein the law applicable to common Englishmen may be con temned." "The case of Oriental embassies, as has been shown, stands by itself. The exceeding extent of the modern privilege of exterritoriality arises from the fact that Europeans have not abused it. There is no such basis of experience in the case of Oriental embassies. As one who has seen as well as read something of exterritoriality and its working, I feel bound to say that the contributor is thoroughly misin formed, and that the whole tone of the article, as well as the passages in question, are offensively and almost wantonly unjust. Not to mention minor criticisms, it is sufficient to say that the writer has just reversed the actual situation; that the abuses of exterritoriality are to be found mainly in the conduct of Occidentals; and that the teachings by example of the Occidentals in this matter can never be equalled by their Orien tal pupils. From books alone your contributor might have learned of the charge of rape against

the Russian consul at Philadelphia in 18 1 6; of the notorious and long-standing abuse of exterri toriality in Morocco and other Turkish dominions by the system of "protected " natives falsely reg istered as belonging to the consular and diplo matic suites; of the flagrant abuse of the asylum in Chili by our Minister Egan, and elsewhere at other times. From other sources than books he might have learned of the general, if casual, abuse of exterritoriality in the Orient; of which a paral lel to his own instances is found in the dangerous facility for law-breaking enjoyed by sailors from warships, and of which an analogous instance is found in the harbor of refuge accorded to Chinese thieves and other criminals on the peninsula of Kowloon, near Hongkong, owing to its having become British territory. As for the " everyday pastime of incurring debts and refusing to pay," the case may be cited of a European Secre tary of Legation of the highest birth, who lived in luxury in an Oriental country and went home leaving creditors in the lurch to the extent of several thousands of dollars. As for " the license to seduce," and to commit other wrongs, it would be a day of disappointment (and perhaps of much-needed shame for us), were the records of the East and the West to be fully disclosed and compared. No experienced diplomatist would think of raising the issue. I am, Sir, yours, etc., J. H. W.

LEGAL ANTIQUITIES. P1pe in law is a roll in the Exchequer, called also the Great Roll. Pipe office is where the Clerk of the Pipe makes out leases of Crown I.ands : he also makes up all the accounts of sheriffs. Spelman thinks it is so called because papers were kept in a large cask or pipe. 485