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The Green Bag

chairman be corrected at an early date. The existence of this committee was not terminated at the recent meeting of the

Association, and we are hopeful that it may be instrumental in securing the adoption of further amendments that will overcome all the distrust excited by the law as it now stands.

REVISION OF THE NEW YORK CODE HE article in this number by John McG. Goodale, Esq., of the New York bar, though written in a humorous spirit, is inspired by that serious senti

ment of dissatisfaction with the New York code of civil procedure which we

rejoice to see brewing among leaders of the bar of that state. A very valuable paper on the reform of civil procedure was read by Judge Adolph J. Roden beck of Rochester at the last annual meeting of the New York State Bar Association, and a resolution was adopted favoring the appointment of a committee to consider the question of code revision. Hon. Elihu Root, president of the Association, has appointed this commit

tee, to consist of Judge Rodenbeck, John G. Milburn, William B. Horn blower, Adelbert Moot and Charles A.

Collin.

Co-operation is solicited and

not stand in the way of a reform which

is sorely needed and which man be carried out without violence to meri torious features of the present system of procedure which ought not to be swept away. In fact, a reform of this kind to be successful must needs be construc tive rather than destructive, and in making it the state has everything to gain and nothing to lose.

A DECISION IN COMMON OWNERSHIP ASKASKIA Commons, the lastof the community property held by the “Parish of the Immaculate Con ception of Kaskaskia," under a grant from Louis XIV, is to be sold within a few months and the proceeds of the sale turned into a common school fund for the community. In a decision recently handed down,

the Supreme Court of Illinois approved this disposition of the holdings, by declaring valid the act of the Legislature creating the “Land Commissioners of

the Commons of Kaskaskia," and re versed the ﬁnding of the Randolph County Circuit Court. Answering various objections to the

Wadhams of Albany, secretary of the

enactment, the Supreme Court declares that it was authorized by a majority of the community, and that it in no wise

Association.

deprives any individual of property

suggestions may be sent to Frederick E.

The opportunity is now oﬁ'ered the leading state of the Union to effect a

reform of the system of procedure which will leave the enormous mass of purely

to which he is entitled.

"We have nothing to do with the political question, whether it is wise to sell these lands and use the interest

formal matters to be governed by rules of court, and which will provide, as an inspiration and guide to other states, a

instead of the land," says the Court. “That is a question to be determined

practice act of a limited number of sections covering only the matters of substantive right proper to be em bodied in a code. It is to be hoped that the conservatism of the bar will

view of the great loss that has been sustained, in the past, through fraud and mismanagement, under the leasing system, it is not surprising that a

by a majority of the inhabitants.

majority

of

the

inhabitants

In

should