Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/380

 Rh curious or humorous in the domain of the law seems to have escaped the keen observation of the author, and the two principal sources of information of this kind in this country — the "Albany Law Journal," and the Green Bag — have been largely drawn upon. There are one hundred and seventy-five pages of biography and anecdote of leading lawyers, arranged alphabetically, mostly very well conceived, although several of the sketches are somewhat inadequate, as for example, those of David Dudley Field, Alexander Hamilton and Nicholas Hill. In this department there is a very considerable amount of unfamiliar and in teresting information. Forty pages are devoted to "Lingo," including definitions; and this is a very agreeable chapter. A chapter of fifty pages, entitled "Episodes," is the weakest part of the book, and might have been omitted, as smacking too much of the newspaper, and as rather below the dignity of the remainder. There are other chapters on Judges, Jurors, Criers and Constables, Witnesses and Evi dence, Litigants, Reporters and Curious Laws. This forms the first part. The second part, entitled " Curi ous Cases," is a rich mine of strange suits, concern ing various subjects, from animals to Witchcraft, in cluding the fruitful heads of Negligence and Torts, and the very amusing topic of Sunday (which is com paratively slightly treated in fourteen pages). This portion of the work will prove of solid use. The cases therein chronicled form a table covering thirty-two pages in double columns in fine type, and are stated in a remarkably clear, concise and accurate, and at the same time readable manner. Indeed, Mr. Burnham (who has done much reporting) herein evinces a talent that is exceptional and admirable. Probably no seri ous law-book ever before stated so much law and stated it so well in the same space, and this part of the book alone should commend it to the patronage of that part of our profession (small, let us hope) that have no sense of humor, or think it out of place in the law. On every page the work affords abundant evidence of good scholarship, liberal reading in many departments, and indefatigable research. The style is marred only by an occasional tendency (possibly learned from the present writer) to bad puns. One of the best quoted puns is attributed to one of the strangest legal characters who ever flourished in this country. In an election case, in the city of New York, Judge Brady remarked, "All we want is an honest count." " Thereupon arose in the bar a tall, strange figure, put his hand on his heart, bowed low, and in sepulchral tones said, " ' May it please theCourt, Ecce Homo! '" It was undoubtedly a perfectly unconscious pun. In his paragraph on " Hibernicisms in Statutes," Mr. Burnham has omitted the funniest that ever was, which he might have found in an early volume of the "Albany Law Journal." It is in the New York statute

347

allowing commutation of, and deduction from terms of sentence to imprisonment, so many months in a year, when earned by good behavior. The act closes with a saving clause that it shall not apply to the case of any person sentenced to imprisonment for the term of his naturallife. Mr. Burnham's reminder of the group ing in statutes of " infants, lunatics and married wo men," is surpassed by an old New York law which ex empted from taxation " priests, paupers, lunatics and idiots." The volume is furnished with a most excellent index of eighty-six pages, the only defect in which, so far as we can discover, is one that is extremely flattering to the present writer, namely, a failure to cite more than a third of the references in the text to the present writer. Mr. Burnham is quite excusable for getting tired of it, and we only hope that the nu merous references in question may not discourage any body from buying his book. We venture to say that, aside from this matter, the volume will prove as well worth the price as any ever issued, and of more per manent value than most, for wit and humor never go out of fashion, and the cases cited are mostly of a perennial character.

NOTES OF CASES. Negligence of Theater Owners. — In Butcher v. Hyde (curious collocation of names!), ioMisc.275, the city court of Brooklyn held the defendant liable for an injury to an old lady who tripped on a loose rubber covering of the stairs of his theater. In a re cent New York case, where a spectator fell from the top gallery into the pit, it was held that the owner was under no duty to put a railing on top of the par apet, although the seats were on an incline of thirty degrees. This reminds one of the anxious Israelite, whose young son fell from the gallery into the pit, and who leaned over the parapet and cried, " Shakey! come out of dat! It costs a tollar town there!"

Mental Suffering. — The Texas doctrine that damages are recoverable for mental suffering caused by the failure to deliver a telegram, calls out a vigor ous protest in Francis 7'. Western U. Tel. Co., 58 Minn. 252, where the Court observe : " The ' Texas doctrine ' has been favorably referred to in many of the more recent text-books, but the Bench and Bar will understand of how little weight as authority most of these books are, written, as they very frequently are, by hired professional book-makers of no special legal ability, and who are usually inclined to take up with the latest legal novelty for the same reasons that the newspaper men are anxious for the latest news." "No lawyer as yet seems to have had the