Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 10.pdf/578

 Wit and Wisdom of Chief Justice Logan E. Bleckley. customers for a small fee, and entertaining them the while with the small gossip of the town or village, have been held responsible for a mistake made by one customer whereby he taketh the hat of another from the common rack or hang ing-place appointed for all customers to hang their hats, this rack or place being in the same room in which customers sit to be shaved. The barber is a craftsman laboring for wages, not a capitalist conducting a business of trade or trust." Dilberto v. Harris, 95th Ga., 572. "Every direct authority known to us is against us; nevertheless, we are right and these authori ties are all wrong, as time and further judicial study of the subject will manifest. The mistake made by courts and judges has been that they treat the problem of preferential debts as having but one pole, the affirmative pole of benefit, ig noring the negative pole of burden altogether. Courts which thus reason and decide may pos sibly be reached by the late discovery of Professor Roentgen, and for their benefit and the benefit of the profession generally, we shall close this

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opinion with appropriate illustrations, based on the new process." — Green v. Coast Line R. R., 97th Ga., 36. The Green case holds that a railroad com pany is not the only " going concern," that the husband and the son of the plaintiff were both " going concerns," and as such were en titled to the equal protection of the laws. This decision is the first on that side of the question, and has not met the approval of some members of the bar. I think, how ever, that many of the profession will en dorse the sentiments of a lawyer, who speak ing of this case said : " When Judge Bleckley wrote that opinion his mind was luminous with equity." The' State of Georgia owes much to Judge Bleckley. He gave the best years of his life to her service, and his opinions will stand as monuments to his genius, which criticism cannot tarnish nor the hand of time efface.