is after the well-known pattern that has done such excellent service from Dumas to Weyman - Paris in the days of internecine war and strife. There are courtly nobles serving different causes, plotting against each other, brawling, fighting duels; great swordsmen who, for purposes of the author, inflict only slight wounds in order that they may live (?) to fight in subsequent chapters; a wonderful yokel who holds his own with the best and cleverest of them; a great lady in love, rivalries for her hand, ignoble treachery; and, at the very last, Henri IV. There is plenty of action, and no lack of exciteent, and not a little ingenuity has been shown by the author in making use of stock situations; the story swings along at a great pace, as it is cleverly told, but one cannot help rebelling at the wrenching of the probabilities or seeing through the thin illusion. The story might be very properly termed a good imitation of the best. That it will find many readers admits of no doubt. "FARMING OUT" CONTRACTS. When the contract for the State printing was awarded to one McCarthy, it may be remembered, objection was made on the ground that he had no plant, and the prediction was made that he would at once proceed to "farm out" his contract. Those who thus predicted proved true prophets. The contract was apportioned among several Albany printers, including Lyons, Williams, Brandow and Quayle. Under the well-known unbalanced bid system, State Printer Lyons receives $2.00 a page for matter that almost any printer in Albany having the necessary facilities would be willing to do for from 75 to 80 cents per page and count on a good margin of profit in the work. But this is not alland here, let us remark, is the colored individual in the woodpile. It is stated that Lyons is able to still farther add to his profits by reason of the fact that he has the type of most of these pages standing, and hence it is about all clear profit when he is able to use the matter a second time, as is often the case Now that a new contract for the State printing and for the Session Laws is about to be let, it would be well for the authorities to provide that on all matter once paid for by the State, allowance should be made, both in the State printing and more especially in the Session Laws, where all the bills are set up and plates made from them and then are used over again for the State edition of the Session Laws, for which a large price is charged - $1.80 to $2.00, where, in other States, they are to be obtained for 75 cents to a dollar. The June session of the New York Court of Appeals will be held at the city and county hall, in the city of Buffalo, commencing June third, and continuing three weeks. THE ALBANY CAR STRIKE. The reasons for the strong prejudice against labor organizations which exists on the part of many employers, were clearly shown by the progress and results of the strike of street car employes in this city, now happily ended. There was, in the first place, no adequate reason whatever for the unfortunate dispute which not only stopped all street car traffic in Albany, Troy and their suburbs, some fifty miles of lines, for nearly two weeks, caused great inconvenience to residents and large loss to business men, and the calling out of several thousand State troops to quell rioting, but — most deplorable of all-claimed the lives of two unoffending citizens. All legitimate differences between the employes and the company could have been settled amicably, and would have been, but for the precipitate haste of the men to strike, in utter dis The one regard of right and justice and of the earnest advice of their own leaders. The strike, while sometimes justified, is often not only unnecessary, but positively criminal. It should in all cases be the last desperate resort to obtain rights not otherwise possible to obtain. The untenability of the men's position in the Albany strike is clearly shown by their action in abandoning the contention which was at the bottom of all the trouble. demand which the local union placed above all others in importance, was that the United Traction "unionize" its road- that is, Company should discharge the eight or ten men, perfectly satisfactory and faithful in their service, who did not belong to the union and who steadfastly refused to be coerced into joining it. After all the inconvenience, turmoil, paralysis of business, brutality, reign of terror, and finally loss of life, the strikers announced their willingness to waive the one demand which they ought to have known from the beginning the company never could and never would grant, even if every dollar invested in the road was to be lost; not merely because they believed in standing by those who were faithful to them, but for the reason that to discriminate against an employe because he did not see fit to join a labor union would be as reprehensible in morals, and as contrary to law, as to discriminate against those who saw fit to join a union. In other words, the strikers tacitly admitted that they had been wrong from the beginning on the one point which had from the first prevented a settlement without a strike. The action of the company throughout the whole dispute was firm, honorable and eminently fair; its officers and directors did everything they could possibly have done, in honor, to prevent the strike, and after it had been inaugurated, to bring it to an end. The strike has brought home several important lessons which are likely to be heeded for some time to come. Perhaps the most vital of these is the necessity of keeping petty politics out of municipal administration. Had the police been worth their salt, there would have been no necessity to call out the militia. Why they were not more efficient, and whether they were officially as well as actually in league with the riotous portion of the strikers and their sympathizers, investigation may disclose. If mere incompetency in the higher officials of the department was the real cause of the disgraceful supineness or open connivance of the police with the mob, then the need of a change is equally urgent. Another lesson to be learned from this strike is the need of keeping off of public streets patroled by armed soldiers, unless called there by urgent business; attacks by mobs upon cars filled with armed troops are likely to be dangerous to somebody, and while these are going on or likely to happen, the only safety for peaceable citizens is in their own homes or places of business. Very much of the disorder in Albany was attributable to immature youths, either belonging to or candidates for the "hoodlum" class, who should have been either in school or at home tasting of the parental rod, instead of thronging the streets shouting “scab" and in other ways inflaming the public mind. An additional lesson to be learned is the duty of frowning down every attempt at violence after a strike has been inaugurated. With the very first brickbat thrown in Albany, the cause of the strikers was lost. We observe that a committee of citizens have undertaken to probe the strike matter to the bottom, particularly as to the attitude of the police. It is to be hoped that, unlike many a worthy project for the amelioration of municipal evils, it will escape the sad fate of dying a-borning. A RUMORED PARTNERSHIP. JAMES, MARKUS & ROB. Dame rumor hath it that with the opening of the new century a very notable co-partnership has been formed in this ancient city for purposes defensive and offensive - a sort of angelic triumvirate, some scoffer has termed it. If it be true that the gentlemen whose names have been bruited about in connection with the enterprise really constitute the partnership, then there cannot possibly be anything offensive about it, for they are all emphatically sans reproche. The whole affair seems to be shrouded in mystery, for so far as we have been able to learn, no formal partnership papers have been filed, nor have any of the alert daily prints made any mention of the alleged co-partnership; so that Dame Rumor - lying jade that she is — may simply have been at her old tricks. The following doggerel, received from an esteemed reader just as we were going to press, is apropos, but instead of elucidating the mystery seems, by its veiled allusions to still further increase it. Our correspondent seems to mention the names of the partners, but we are confident they are merely pseudonyms. He appears to have suffered terribly in delivering himself of the "verse," and he has our sympathy; we sincerely hope he will have recovered from the attack by the time of the appearance of our next issue when we shall doubtless be able to give our readers something more explicit about this mysterious affair. THE ANGELIC THREE. James, Markus & Rob, In unison now, their hearts throb, "We'd ne'er condescend The wrong to defend," They cry, with an audible sob. "We live for the public, alone, No injustice we e'er would condone, We sing in solo, 'Pro bono publico' And we live near the steps of the throne." "We plan for the public weal, The pulse of the people we feel, We fight every job If you doubt it, ask Bob- And the light (though it's faint), "Is something we'll need, by and by, To sample a flesh-pot or two." "James, Markus & Rob, In unison now, our hearts throb, To go home," the three cry, with a sob. English Botes. A year or two back there were five 'varsity oars upon the bench; now there are but two, Lord Macnaghten and the master of the rolls. Every fool, said the Times, in a recent leading article, must by right have his fling in court. And so it happens that persons selected for attack, in no small degree because they are supposed to be well-to-do, must carry on costly litigation with the The lord chancellor, speaking at the annual dinner of the Chemical Society, remarked that he had heard it whispered - he would not say by unkind friends that the work of the house of lords in manufacturing acts of parliament was not absolutely perfect, but the more they advanced in the science of language, in perfecting precision in organizing human thought and reasoning, the plainer they would make to the popular understanding the meaning of an act of parliament. Nothing could more induce to the making of clear laws than a scientific education, which would bring about an assiduity of reasoning and clearness of thought. the succession act (6 Anne, c. 41, Revised Statutes), which retained the holders of appointments in Great Britain or Ireland in office for six months after the death, unless sooner discharged by the new sovereign. The present bill goes further and is also unrestricted as to place. It proposes to enact that "the holding of any office under the crown, whether within or without his majesty's dominions, shall not be affected, nor shall any fresh appointment thereto be rendered necessary, by the demise of the crown; and also that the act, which is to be cited as the demise of the crown act, 1901, shall take effect as from the last demise of the crown. The bill was down for second reading on Thursday. An arithmetical calculation based on the figures provided by Whitaker's Almanack, says the Daily Telegraph, shows that the average age of a law lord is sixty-eight. The lord chancellor is seventysix; Lord Lindley is seventy-two; Lord Macnaghten is seventy; Lord Davey is sixty-seven, and Lord Robertson is fifty-five. The average age of a lord justice, arrived at similarly, is something over sixty-two. Rigby, L. J., is sixty-seven; the master of the rolls is sixty-five; Stirling, L. J., is sixty-four; Vaughan Williams, L. J., is sixty-two; Romer, L. J., King's Bench judge is a trifle younger than a lord justice. His average is not quite sixty-two. Lord Alverstone, C. J., is fifty-nine; Mathew, J., is seventy; Day, J., is seventy-four; Wills, J., is seventy-two; Grantham, J., is sixty-five; Lawrance, J., is sixty-eight; Wright, J., is sixty-one; Bruce, J., is sixty-six; Kennedy, J., is fifty-four; Ridley, J., is fifty-seven; Bigham, J., is sixty; Darling, J., is fiftyone; Channell, J., is sixty-two, and Phillimore, J., and Bucknill, J., are fifty-five. The chancery judge is a young thing of fifty-nine. Kekewich, J., heads the list at sixty-eight; Cozens-Hardy, J., is sixtytwo; Joyce, J., is a year younger; Byrne, J., is fifty-six, and Buckley and Farwell, JJ., are fifty-five, jointly and severally. A curious question was raised before Sir Francis Jeune last week in the case of The Swift, an action by an oyster company to recover damages for injury done to their oyster beds by the grounding thereon of the defendant's brigantine, says the Solicitors' Journal. Negligence in the navigation is sixty, and Collins, L. J., is fifty-eight. The of the vessel was established, and the defense raised was that oysters were ferae naturae, and were not recognized as the subject of private property, and that there was no remedy in rem for damage done to them by a ship. It was, however, impossible to contend that oysters in an oyster bed are not private property at the present day; section 51 of the Fisheries Act, 1868, expressly declares that such oysters are the absolute property of the owners of private oyster beds if such beds are sufficiently marked out or known. The contention was that in 1861, when the remedy in rem was given by the 24 and 25 Vict. c. 10, property in oysters in an oyster bed was unknown, and that that remedy was, therefore, inapplicable. The president declined to give effect to either part of this contention; authority is not wanting to show that private property in oysters was recognized before 1861 (see Mayor of Colchester v. Brooke, 7 Q. B. 339). And even if this were not established, this right of property is fully recognized by the Fisheries Act, 1868; it seems clear, therefore, that damage to property so recognized may be made the subject of an action under the act of 1861, although such property may not have been within the scope of that act at the time when it was passed. In the future it will be impossible to ascribe any ferocity to the oyster. A bill has been introduced in the house of commons by the attorney-general which is intended to obviate the inconvenience resulting from the rule that appointments under the crown terminate, apart from special statutory provision, upon the death of the sovereign, says the Solicitors' Journal. To a limited extent such special provision was made by Prof. Charles Noble Gregory of the University of Wisconsin has been offered the position of chancellor of the law faculty of Iowa University. Hon. Charles S. Cole, for more than eight years one of the associate justices of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, has tendered his resignation and will resume active practice of the law in the city of Washington. The annual meeting of the Illinois State Bar Association for 1901 will be held at the Auditorium Hotel, Chicago, instead of at the Chicago Beach Hotel, as has been the custom for some years. The dates of the meeting are Thursday and Friday, July eleventh and twelfth. The Albany Law Journal. A Monthly Record of the Law and the Lawyers. Published by THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL COMPANY, Albany, N. Y. Second. After such exchange of ratifications of peace such territory becomes domestic territory, and its products must have free entrance into the United States until such Contributions, items of news about courts, judges and lawyers' time as the congress may define its status by queries or comments, criticisms on various law questions, addresses on legal topics, or discussions on questions of timely interest, are solicited from members of the bar and those interested in legal proceedings. legislation. Third. The United States consists of only [All communications intended for the Editor should be addressed the thirteen original States and such other simply to the Editor of THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL. All letters States as may have been added. The conrelating to advertisements, subscriptions or other business matters should be addressed to THE ALBANY LAW JOURNAL COMPANY.]gress has the right to legislate for any newlyacquired territory as it may please. The Subscription price, Three Dollars per annum, in advance. Single Foraker Act, so called, imposing duties on number, Twenty-five Cents. ALBANY, N. Y., JULY, 1901. Current Topics. importations from Porto Rico to the United States, and into Porto Rico from the United States, is constitutional. Hence it follows that duties collected on importations from Porto Rico and the Philippines prior to the The decisions of the Supreme Court of the ratification of the treaty of peace were colUnited States in the insular cases, so long an- lected legally; that duties collected on importicipated, were handed down on May twenty-tations from Porto Rico after the ratification seventh last. They will be found elsewhere, of the treaty of peace and prior to the enactin full, in other columns of this issue of the ment of the Foraker law were not collected JOURNAL. Involving, as they do, the most legally and must be refunded; that duties important constitutional questions, perhaps, levied on importations from Porto Rico to the that have come before the court since the war, United States since the enactment of the it is not to be wondered that the public in- Foraker law have been legally levied. Mr. terest in them was great. The decisions re- Justice Brown wrote the prevailing opinions. ferred to were in test cases involving the In the decision that Porto Rico became constitutionality of the Porto Rican tariff, domestic territory on the ratification of the and the administration's theory of the proper treaty, the chief justice and Justices Harlan, and legal course to be pursued in dealing with Brewer and Peckham agree in the conclusion the islands acquired from Spain. In brief, the but dissent from the reasoning. Gray, Shiras, court decides that the Constitution does not White and McKenna dissent altogether. In follow the flag; that it extends over territory the decision that the Foraker Act is constituappertaining to, but not a part of, the United tional, Justices Gray, Shiras, White and States only through the action of congress. McKenna concur in the conclusion, but disThus the main contention of the administra-sent from the reasoning; while the chief tion is sustained. But it is to be noted with justice and Justices Harlan, Brewer and satisfaction that the decision is entirely non- Peckham dissent from both the reasoning and partisan in its character, one of the demo- the conclusion. cratic judges having taken the side of the It seems to us that the decisions should government on the main question, while two meet with general approval. Law is or is suprepublican judges joined the dissenting ma-posed to be crystallized common sense, and it jority. The decisions may be thus briefly summarized: looks like common sense to hold that in no other way can the business with the islands be carried on unless they be declared territories and come under the general jurisdiction of the congress, the same as territories, undisputed and complete. The judges, in interpreting First. Territory acquired in or through war remains foreign territory during military occupation and up to the date of the exchange of ratifications of the treaty of peace. Tariff duties may be levied on importations from and construing the Constitution, properly such territory into the United States. VOL. 63.- No. 7. kept in view, the general question of expedi the islands in the light of their needs and of their capacities, and we quite agree with the statement that the power which the court declares resides in congress is a power which, if lacking, the country would be under the necessity of providing immediately, even if this involved a sixteenth amendment to the Constitution. The congress is under the clear obligation to use its power to the fullest extent for the benefit of the newly-acquired territory, and there need be no fear whatever but that the broad guarantees of life, liberty and property will be fully respected. ency. The congress is left free to legislate for ger from collision, swells and suction is greatly reduced. "The navigation of the Hudson river," he says, "is open to all craft, and each must exercise care and caution, having regard to the ordinary conditions which are, or should be, familiar to all river pilots and mariners. A steamer has no right to proceed at a rate of speed dangerous to craft rightfully in the river or properly moored along its banks; but, on the other hand, boats which, from their size, shape or unseaworthy conditions, are unable to meet the ordinary dangers of navigation should not deliberately place themselves in exposed positions." Judge Coxe further held that this rule applies equally to canal boats as to all other craft navigating the rivers of the State. Not only are the courts asked to pass upon many important questions of interpretation and constitutionality, but they not infrequently find themselves compelled to decide The tendency of legislation in the United even as to the meaning of words. Recently, States, and to a somewhat less marked degree in Ireland, four justices of the King's Bench in other countries, has been to remove entirely Division wrestled with the meaning of the exclamation "Humph," and they found themselves badly split up on the question, two of them holding that the word, as used by Sir Walter Scott, Miss Austen and others, in their novels, was an expression of dissent, and the other two that it meant only a dissatisfied state of mind. The Court of Appeals, however, has decided that it is an "expression of doubt or hesitation," or a "grunt of dissatisfaction," and that will have to be considered its official and judicial meaning in the British isles, for the present. An interesting decision in admiralty was rendered recently by Judge Coxe in the United States court, in the case of Dunbar against the Albany and New York Steamboat Co., in which it was sought to recover damages for the sinking of the libelant's canal boat, Thomas Carroll, caused by swells from the steamboat company's vessel, New York. Negligence was alleged in the navigation of the steamboat, but the decision was in favor of the libelant. In deciding the case, Judge Coxe held that the rules which the courts have repeatedly laid down for the guidance of large steamers in crowded harbors are hardly applicable to river navigation, where the dan the common-law disabilities of the married. |