Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 24.pdf/309

 278

The Green Bag

been convicted of rape or of such a suc cession of offenses as the board may decide to afford sufficient evidence of confirmed criminal tendencies. Pleas of guilty by George Graham Rice and Bernard H. Scheftels, of the brokerage firm of B. H. Scheftels & Co., brought to a dramatic close on March 8 what is believed to be the longest trial on record in a United States court. They had been on trial in the United States District Court of New York City for nearly five months for alleged con spiracy and the misuse of the mails to promote and sell mining stocks. The outcome of the trial was significant. United States Attorney Wise com mented on the case as follows: "The defendants, doing business as brokers, sought to create a market for certain stocks of which they held large blocks under option. These stocks they sought to sell to their customers at inflated market prices with a secret profit to themselves. In aid of their stock sell ing campaign they put out market 'literature' cleverly devised to induce the public to accept their advice to order the purchase of the particular stocks in which they expected to make this secret profit. These and other simi lar practices with which they were charged have been common in this city. Those engaged in such practices have not heretofore been prosecuted, and it has not hitherto been supposed to be practicable to prosecute them under the federal statutes. The case has been re garded by the Government as a test case and one of far-reaching importance in that aspect. Its successful termi nation has established the criminal re sponsibility of brokers for practices which it had been commonly supposed would expose them at the most to civil liabilities.

Miscellaneous

Reargument of the so-called "intermountain rate cases" was ordered by the Supreme Court of the United States on April 8. The reargument will per mit Justice Pitney to participate in the decision of the cases. The cases in volve the constitutionality of the "long and short haul" provisions of the inter state commerce law and the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission to make "blanket" rates over a large zone of territory. The latest volume of Illinois Supreme Court Reports contains an interesting decision, in the case of Trenchard v. Trenchard. Mrs. Trenchard sued her husband for divorce, alleging cruelty and non-support. It was alleged that he shook her, pushed her against the door, threw her to the floor and held her there, kept her awake at night by quarreling with her, and finally turned her out of the house. Scant and ineffec tive testimony was offered in rebuttal. The court decided that though a wife "may be dutiful," a husband has the right to do any of these things, since they do not constitute "extreme and repeated cruelty" — that is to say, such cruelty that endangers life or limb. The Governors of the states as a body today filed their solemn protest with the Supreme Court of the United States on April 1 against the proposi tion to strike down state railroad rates as interfering with interstate commerce. It was the first time in the history of the nation that such a protest had been made. The protest took the nature of a brief, filed as "friends of the court" by a committee of Governors, Judson Harmon of Ohio, Herbert S. Hadley of