Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/617

 574

The eighty-fourth volume contains thir teen opinions upon as many different branch es of the law. The first is Plummer v. Jones, page 58, which decides when various sections of the " Registration Act" of 1891 went into effect. The opinion quotes some quaint selections from Coke and Plowden well fitting to the subject. Auburn v. Paul, page 212, relates to the oft-recurring ques tions of taxation and constitutional objec tions arising in them. Breckenridge v. Lewis, page 349, holds that one who entrusts his signature to another for commercial use, that is, to have some business obligation written over it, becomes holden on a prom issory note fraudulently written by the per son so entrusted with it, and negotiated to an innocent holder. Ela v. Ela, page 423, declares that probate procedure should be conducted upon the rules of broadest equity when the statute does not prevent; and was a wholesome application of the doctrine in this case. The eighty-fifth volume contains the work of a busy year. Among his twenty-four cases in this book there is Donnell v. Wylie, page 143, a good statement of the rule re lating to voluntary unexecuted promises; Hurd v. Bickford, page 217, vindicating an original vendor's right to reclaim property purchased by fraud, although the last ven dee is ignorant of the fraud,— a question about which courts differ; Attorney-Gen eral v. Newell, page 273 (auo warranto, elections and false returns); Hewett v. Co. Com., page 308 {certiorari, and the practice therein); Hazen v. Wright, page 314 (real actions and effect of a plea of nul disseizin}; Paris v. Norway Water Co., page 330, solv ing a question of taxation of water-pipes as real estate in the town where they are laid. Volume eighty-six, containing twenty-five opinions, still maintains the usual variety of topics. Some of them, noticeable for their intrinsic interest, are White v. Mooers, page 62 (specific performance); Barron v. Burrell, page 66 (creditor's bill to compel pay

ment of unpaid stock); State v. Edwards, page 102 (constitutional law, tolls of grist mills); Pease v. Burrows, page 153 (a pe culiar case of libel in which it is held that the court may, in its discretion, permit the cross-examination of a witness to show men tal illusion; yet it is not evidence of the facts so stated, and the jury are to be so in structed); Bettinson v. Lowery, page 218, (what judgment should be entered in re plevin when the writ is quashed); Holt v. Knowlton, page 456 (when contracts are to be governed by the laws of Maine, but formulated in another State); Sawyer v. Long, page 541 (chattel mortgages as af fecting after-acquired property). This vol ume closes with a report of his decision in the matter of the estate of John B. Brown. The decision was not appealed to the law court, but passed into judgment upon the conclusions found by the Judge sitting as chancellor. His strongest opinion in this volume, I think, is the case of Morey v. Milliken, page 464. The law relating to preferences in insolvency and bankruptcy and the decis ions slumbering in many reports, are deftly brought together in so felicitous a summary that it will not fail to become a generally cited authority hereafter. His analysis of the testimony is clear and satisfactory, copi ous and convincing. The case came to the law court on a bill of exceptions with a statement of facts. Under the practice pre vailing in Maine, such findings of facts are not subject to review in the law court; and one might think that a judge who has de voted so much time to questions of prac tice, where the tendency is to restrict and not amplify remedies, becoming narrow and technical instead of being fond of justice in spite of technicalities, would have found dif ficulties in his way that would prevent a de cision on the true merits of the case, and which turned on the question whether the creditors, in the case at bar, at the time they received security upon an existing debt from