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 Some Singular Massachusetts Decisions any rate; but what kind of house was it she lived in with the staircases all topsy-turvy by judicial decision? John did not have any children, but his father said by will that John's three children should take a remainder. Lo! and behold, nothing daunted by the creation of man, the Court performed

a metamorphosis and obtained the re sult that the three non-existent children of John should become the children of Sister Mary and Brother Ed. Con ception is not alone the prerogative of woman; some “old women” evidently have the power. See Polsey v. Newton, 199 Mass. 450. A man's knowledge consists fre quently of those things he doesn't know. A poor innocent express driver took it port a to harmless the drylooking city of parcel Lynn. toHe trans— had

no right to examine the parcel, he just had to take it along with him. It turned out to be a fera nature so far as he was concerned, for it bit him, since it con

tained liquor, and as he was prohibited by law from bringing the dangerous substance into the respectable city of

517

Mass. 494, we are told that when the

law says that public officers and agents shall obtain security and they don't

do it, nevertheless they do it, because although they didn't know the law that required them to do it, still they are conclusively presumed to have known it, and therefore they intended to do, and they did do, what they did not do. The foregoing sentence is somewhat involved, but what can we say of the decisions that called it forth? Once more the laity stands in awe of law when it reads Parrot! v. Mexico Central Ry. Co., Banker 8: Tradesman, Jan. 14, 1911, and ﬁnds that whereas the jury was justiﬁed in ﬁnding that X and Y had authority to make an oral contract in substitution for a written one which they had made, yet so far as the defendant's defense was concerned the same X and Y had no authority to make the same contract. For ways and tricks that are vain and devious, the heathen have nothing on our esteemed distributors of justice. More could be said in like vein, but closing time has come, and the curtain

Lynn, he paid a ﬁne for the knowledge that he did not have. See Com. v.

must be drawn.

Mixer, Banker 8t Tradesman, Dec. 17, 1910.

lesson the humorous yet exceedingly well written article on “Three Weeks"

Before we go, let us read for a parting

Again does it appear judicially that

by our beloved Justice Hammond, as

we do not know what we do know, for in Burr v. Mass. School for Fable-minded, 197 Mass. 357, and its complement,

contained in Com. v. Buckley, 200 Mass. 346. Yours respectfully, X

Friedman v. County of Hampden, 204