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The Green Bag

in the administration of criminal law. Of course that leaves it still discretionary with the court to grant a stay of execu tion if there is any merit in the excep tions taken. Then came the establish ment of the Torrens system of land legislation, and establishment of the Land Court. This has put into the Land Court almost every question of real estate law and has provided a certain and speedy way of settling and securing insurance of the soundness of title to real estate." American Bar Bar Association. Associations — Viscount Haldane, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, will come to America to deliver the annual address before the American Bar Association at its annual meeting in Montreal, Sept. 2-4. ExPresident Taft has also accepted an in vitation to attend the meetings and give an address. He will speak on the general topic of the necessity for raising the standards for admission to the bar. Kentucky. — The annual meeting of the Kentucky State Bar Association will be held at Olympian Springs, July 9 and 10, and former United States Senator Joseph W. Bailey of Texas has accepted an invitation to address the meeting on "The Initiative, the Refer endum and the Recall." Other speakers and their subjects as announced by R. A. McDowell, secretary of the association, are as follows: "Why Cases Are Re versed and Other Things," Hon. John D. Carroll, Kentucky Court of Appeals; "Reporting Kentucky Decisions," James M. Yeaman, Henderson; "Some Great Lawyers of Kentucky," the Hon. Z. T. Morrow, Somerset; "Relation of Fed eral Compensation Act to State Laws on Damages for Personal Injuries," S. S. Willis, Ashland; "The Mechanical Side

of Appellate Court Procedure," Robert L. Greene, Crime Clerkand of Criminal the Court Law of Appeals.

A new court for delinquent girls, pre sided over by a woman, with women for court officers, held its first session in Chicago March 5. The judge is Miss Mary M. Bartelme, long identified with social settlement work. A bill to parole United States pris oners became law in February. The statute is in the form of an amendment to the act of June 15, 1910, and its object is to extend the benefit of the parole law to prisoners who have been sentenced for life terms. It had been recommended by the members of the federal boards of parole, by individuals interested in prison reform, and by the Attorney-General in two annual mes sages. Since the Mann law, or White Slave Act, went into effect in July, 1910, there have been 337 convictions under it, with sentences totaling 607 years and fines aggregating $66,605.50. There have been only thirty-five acquittals. One hundred and six cases were still pending at the last report. It has been pointed out that practically no cases have been lost in the federal courts, while all for similar offenses were lost in the state courts. Frederick L. Hoffman of Newark, N. J., a leading statistical authority, has carefully examined the statistics of lynchings collected by the Chicago Tribune, and reaches the conclusion that lynching has steadily declined in the United States in the past twentyfive years, both actually and in propor tion to population. Twenty-five years ago there were 2.6 lynchings per million