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Bankruptcy. Common Law Assignment a Preference—Debts so Discharged are Unpaid Claims. U. S. An important decision was handed down at Boston May 29 by Judge Dodge of the United States District Court, who sustained Referee Olmstead of the Bankruptcy Court in his contention that debts paid off and dis charged under a common law assignment must be added to the claims as unpaid when the assignor is petitioned into bankruptcy. The Court, in adjudicating Abram Jacobson a bankrupt, took the view that under such circumstances the whole common law as signment is a preference. Such an assign ment was held to be a constructive fraud upon the Bankruptcy Act. It attempts to hinder and evade the workings of the fed eral courts and has a tendency to deprive them of their jurisdiction over bankrupt estates. The Court ruled that all debts pref erentially paid may be proved in bankruptcy after adjudication of the debtor. The peti tioning creditors are entitled to a distribution of the property without regard to the assign ment or to any distribution under it by the voluntary assignee. Commutation of Sentence. Death Pen alty and Life Imprisonment—Degrees of Pun ishment. N. Y. The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, second department, denied Albert T. Patrick's application for a writ of habeas corpus June 4, at Brooklyn, N. Y., the Court expressing its inability to find any force "in the contention that there cannot be a commutation of the punishment of death to that of life imprisonment, because commutation implies a less punishment, but life imprisonment is a greater punishment than death. The degree of punishment is not determined by the individual preference of a convict. ... It is the common judg ment of man that to deprive the criminal of •Copies of the pamphlet Reporters containing full reports of any of these decisions which are cited in the National Reporter System may be secured from the West Publishing Company, St. Paul, Minnesota, at 25 cents each. In ordering, the title of the desired case should be given as well as the citation of volume and page of the Reporter in which it is printed.

Cases*

his life is the greatest punishment known t0 modern times." Per Jenks, J., People v. Frost, N. Y. L. J. June 9. Contempt. Sheriff's Conspiring with Mob to Lynch Prisoner Granted Stay of Execution. U. S. The United States Supreme Court ren dered its final decision May 24 in Shipp's case (see 203 U. S. 562), thus disposing of the question originally presented in 1906, when Sheriff J. F. Shipp of Hamilton County, Tenn., upon whom notice had been served by tele graph of the Supreme Court's order for a stay of execution, removed from the jail the usual guard, leaving only the night jailer in charge, and afterward, in the evening of that same day, a mob stormed the jail, got out John son, the negro in whose behalf the habeas corpus proceedings had been set in motion, and hung and shot the culprit. The opinion of the Court, read by Chief Justice Fuller, reviewed the facts of the case, declaring that "Shipp not only made the work of the mob easy but in effect aided and abetted it." Five other defendants were also found guilty of contempt of court. This decision set a new precedent, that of the Supreme Court proceeding on its own motion to punish for contempt under such circumstances as those of this case. Justices Peckham, White and McKenna, however, dissented, holding that there was no evidence that the sheriff partici pated in any such conspiracy with the mob as charged. A spectacle unprecedented in the history of the Supreme Court, probably, occurred on June 1, when the defendants per sonally appeared at the bar of the Court for sentence. It is believed to be the first time that august tribunal has ever undertaken to mete out grave punishment upon a de fendant appearing in the Court's own pres ence. The Court postponed the passing of sentence to allow the prisoners to file petitions for a rehearing. Consequently the cases go over till next term. Contracts. Alteration on Typewriter—Pre sumption of Validity Exists. Neb. Where a contract prepared by the use of a typewriter appears to have been changed after the first impression was made, it is held,