fully with boxes and barrels and bits of chintz. The story is rather pleasant reading, and one or two chapters are delightful, but as a whole we think the publishers might have chosen more wisely and well from among the many manuscripts presented to York: The Macmillan Co., 1901. capable. Charley Steele, the hero, with his singular power as a lawyer, his unscrupulous methods, his open infidelity in religious beliefs, his utter lack of human emotion or tender feeling, his lamentable and insatiable craving for strong drink, his everpresent monocle, of which, by the way, the author them. might have made a little less with more effect - all: this is drawn by the hand of a master. So close New Canterbury Tales. By Maurice Hewlett. New and minute is the study that the man's inmost nature is revealed to us; we feel not only for, but with him. We shall not attempt to describe the plot of the story, and thereby at least in a measure spoil the reader's enjoyment of it; suffice it to say that there is sufficient movement and mystery to keep the interest fully alive. Despite a certain morbidity of feeling pervading it, "The Right of Way" is sure to attract those who like a strong, unusual, highly imaginative story. It has been objected by the literary critic that the effect of this and other tales of the same class has been a too plain grafting of modern sentiment upon mediaeval tradition in other words, no presentday writer can bribe or train himself to work as Chaucer and his contemporaries worked. The point seems to be well taken; no writer, however clever or painstaking, can wholly succeed in changing his point of view; albeit, it is probably true that no living writer could have attained a greater measure The Great God Success. By John Graham. New of success than Mr. Hewlett has reached in this his York: F. A. Stokes Co., 1901. Here we have a really strong, vivid piece of work a book that ought to live. We have the publishers' intimation that the author's real name is not John Graham, but that he chose that as a nom de plume, perhaps for the reason that the story is at least in part autobiographical. The author at least knows very much of newspaper life in the metropolis, for he describes with remarkable power and realism. The dialogue, too, is crisp and unconventional, and the action of the story such as to chain the interest and attention of the reader. The book describes in part the trials, liasons, loves, struggles (with others, and with himself), and final successes of a New York newspaper man. It strikes a strong, true note, and is written with such real power that we cannot but hope the author will again put pen to paper, and, perchance, give us something even better. The Bears of Blue River. By Charles Major. New In this interesting collection of stories the author of "When Knighthood Was in Flower," reveals himself in a new light. The reader is introduced to the Middle West frontier life at a time when the bears were very much in evidence. The brave deeds of a youthful hunter and his boy friends in the great forests are very cleverly told. The illustrations are Caleb Wright. By John Habberton. Boston: The excellent and in sympathetic touch with the text. Lothrop Company, 1901. For a healthy, vigorous boy, few better books can This story, by the author of "Helen's Babies," relates in detail the experiences of one Philip Sommerton and his wife, Grace, who inherit their uncle's grocery business in an out-of-the-way western village called Claybanks, and who go out from New York city to take charge of it. Caleb is their Mr. Clifton Johnson, who has heretofore written uncle's clerk, whom they inherit, as it were, along interesting volumes of travel in England and France, with the business. Caleb is supposed to be a quaint has now added another on Ireland, describing many character and is certainly a good-hearted soul as scenes and incidents in a charmingly graphic manever lived. He does much for the discouraged ner. Through this book the reader is given the first young couple; in fact, proves almost a father to impressions of an experienced, alert traveler, one them. Philip and his wife set about improving who kept his eyes and his note-book open and Claybanks, with such success that in the course of records faithfully and fully what he saw and heard. a short year it is transformed into a flourishing The work shows fine descriptive power as well as a community, with a railroad, and an organ in the keen appreciation of the ludicrous, as well as pachurch, with its malarial swamps drained, and with thetic incidents in the life of the Irish peasantry. It a bath-house; while the public-spirited Grace has is embellished with a profusion of half-tone reprotaught the women to make beautiful dresses of four-ductions of photographs taken by the author, all cent calicoes, and to furnish their parlors delight of which are of a high, order of artistic excellence, besides many wood-cuts of drawings, also by the author. For the coming holiday season, the Isle of the Shamrock will make a charming gift-book. west, the Yellowstone Park, the Yosemite National Park, its forests, wild gardens, animals, birds, and fountains and streams. There are also chapters on The Sequoia and General Grant National Parks and The Portion of Labor. By Mary E. Wilkins. New the American forests. Mr. Muir writes con amore, York: Harper & Brothers, 1901. In this story of the day laborer's lot Miss Wilkins has given us not merely an accurate picture of a New England manufacturing town and faithfully described the struggles of the various types of working men and women, but she has embodied a conception of what has been the portion of labor since time began. The story follows the life of Ellen Brewster from childhood to womanhood, through her steady growth away from the people to whom she is allied by birth, but an alien by nature. The story of the day laborer's lot in life has never been better told than in this latest work of the talented authoress. The The Benefactress. By the Author of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden." New York: Macmillan Company, 1901. Lovers of " Elizabeth and Her German Garden" have a rare delight before them in "The Benefactress." Dainty, delicious, charming, are adjectives that very inadequately describe it. The style is well-nigh perfection. The story may be described as a comedy of philanthropy, the reductio ad absurdum of sincere, but ill-regulated idealism. Anna Estcourt at twenty-five, is at her wits' end to escape from a situation intolerable to a high-minded and self-respecting woman - that of a pensioner on the bounty of a snobbish sisterin-law. Opportunity comes when an old German uncle leaves her a small estate and 2,000 a year in Germany. Anna upon taking possession of her inheritance, determines to signalize her gratitude by throwing open her house to and sharing her fortune with twelve distressed German ladies. Of course she falls on easy prey to the rapacity and envy of parasites and imposters, and herein is the most delicious portion of this most delicious story. The author shows an almost marvelous insight into the feminine heart and an unfailing sense of the ludicrous. "The Benefactress" is one of the very few novels among the deluge we are having that is really worth while. Our National Parks. By John Muir. Mr. F. Marion Crawford's new novel, Marietta: A Maid of Venice," has run through four large editions since October 28th, the day of its publication. "The American Federal State" is a text-book in civics for high schools and academies, by Roscoe Lewis Ashley, which the Macmillan Company has on the press for immediate publication. Miss Beatrice Harraden has returned to England from Norway with twenty-six chapters of a new novel that will be a study of temperaments. Miss Harraden spent several months among the peasants of Norway. Max O'Rell, who at present is enjoying the distinction of London correspondent of a New York paper, will pass the winter in the United States. In the spring he will join the editorial staff of "Figaro." will run as a serial through "Scribner's Magazine,” The hero of F. Hopkinson Smith's new novel which is a young artist. The title of the story is "The Boston: Fortunes of Oliver Horn." It is said to be largely autobiographical. "Lazarre" is a successful novel. It has already reached the fifty thousand mark. Therefore “Lazarre" will be dramatized. It is hinted that Otis Skinner is negotiating with Mrs. Catherwood for the dramatic rights. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1901. The author in his charming preface to this charming book declares he has done his best to show forth the beauty, grandeur and all-embracing usefulness of our wild mountain forest reservations and parks, “with a view to inciting the people to come and enjoy them and get them into their hearts, that so at length, their preservation and right use The "Century's" promised series on the Great might be made sure." Surely a noble aim. The West began in the November number with a paper book is made up of sketches first published in the by E. Hough, author of The Story of the CowAtlantic Monthly. It contains ten chapters, devoted boy," on "The Settlement of the West: A Study in to the wild parks and forest reservations of the Transportation." Mr. Hough shows how the course of the empire, in the early days, moving ever westward, followed the pathway of the waters. "It was a day of raft and boat, of saddle horse and pack horse, of ax and rifle, and little other luggage." The article is illustrated with full-page and smaller drawings by Remington, printed in tint, and with portraits, maps, etc. The last novel in the American Novel Series, to be published by Harper & Bros., treats of a Civil war feud, and is by Arthur Colton, author of "The Delectable Mountains," which was published by Charles Scribner's Sons a short time ago. The novel will be ready in December. In view of the several editions of Balzac's works which are now appearing, his readers will be interested in the news that the Temple Edition of the "Comedie Humaine" has just been published by the Macmillan Company in forty volumes. It appears under the editorship of Geo. Saintsbury. Within a month of its publication "The Benefactress" has run into four large editions, the last of which is just off the press. Its popularity bids fair to equal that of "Elizabeth and Her German Garden." Unlike that book, however, it is a novel, but with so unique a spirit of humor that it is in a class by itself outside the ordinary run of fiction. Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co. announce for early publication a life of Herbert Spencer, by Dr. David Starr Jordan, president of Leland Stanford University. It will be complete to date, and comprehensive in every particular. The lack of any reliable biography of Spencer will undoubtedly insure a favorable reception for a volume by so eminent an authority. Mark Twain in a letter to his publishers, Messrs. Harper and Brothers, adds a "P. S." to this effect: “Before January I shall have a story ready for the Magazine. Truly yours, S. L. Clemens, Saranac Lake, Sept. 4, 1901." This should forever do away with the idea that women are the only correspondents who save the most important part of their communications to put into the postscript. 66 The Macmillan Company has just published George Washington: A Biography," by Norman Hapgood, author of Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Webster, etc. Mr. Hapgood has endeavored, in his latest book, to make a literary sketch of the man Washington, to bring out the human side without prejudice, to give a complete picture in comparatively small space of the foremost man in American history, or, as Mr. Gladstone once said, the foremost man in all history. All the qualities which Mr. Hapgood brought to his other work capacity for painstaking investigation from original sources, nice discrimination, and remarkable power of clear statement are seen at their best in this admirable biographical work. The last long work of fiction from the pen of Mark Twain was "Personal Recollection of Joan of Arc," which began in "Harper's" of 1895. Soon after that date Mr. Clemens started a new novel, which is nearing completion, and which is to be published serially in "Harper's Magazine" for 1902. The story is one of American life in the middle west, a portion of our country thoroughly understood by Mark Twain. Captain Mahan's new book, entitled "Types of Naval Officers," is, of course, one of the important books of the year. This authority on sea power has supplemented his "Life of Nelson" with sketches of a popular character of six British admirals. Captain Mahan also gives his views on the development of naval warfare during the eighteenth century. The book contains six photogravure portraits, and is published by Little, Brown & Company. Many complaints are heard in the land that the American public will not read serious books, that we are wholly given up to novels " that carry the reader breathless from page to page." What will these cynics say when confronted with the fact that Hudson's "Law of Psychic Phenomena appears among the ten most popular books in October at the public libraries of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Worcester, Mass. A more convincing reply to the charge would be difficult to imagine. George Douglass, author of "The House With the Green Blinds," is a Scotchman. He was born in the west of Scotland and brought up amid a farming and mining population. At eighteen he proceeded to Glasgow university. In his last year there he won a scholarship worth over $4,000. With a portion of it the future author went to Oxford. Having finished there, Mr. Douglas went down to London, and with a total capital of £17, started out as a man of letters. The Hon. Albert J. Beveridge, United States serator from Indiana, has spent the past five months in the Far East investigating commercial and political conditions, studying international relations, appraising national resources, and conferring with the men who are establishing the Eastern policy of the European powers. The information thus secured at first hand Senator Beveridge will embody in a series of noteworthy papers now appearing in the "Saturday Evening Post," of Philadelphia. Volume VII of the Columbia University Biological Series will be on "Regeneration," by Thomas Hunt Morgan, Ph. D., professor of biology at Bryn Mawr College, and will be published by the Macmillan Company immediately. The author has brought together and analyzed the numerous and widespread observations of the power of regeneration in animals and plants, beginning with the famous experiments of Abbe Trembley, of Bonnet, and of Spallanzani, and extending down to the present time. The book is not only intended for zoologists, botanists, and physicians, but also for the intelligent general reader who wishes to place himself in touch with some of the newest fields of work and thought in biology. A new edition of "The Strenuous Life," revised and brought down to the date of the author's accession to the presidency, is about to be issued by the Century Co. It will contain the Minneapolis and Pan-American speeches, in addition to other new matter. "The Strenuous Life" is a phrase that brings the name of President McKinley's successor to every mind, and the collection of essays and addresses bearing this title, which appeared on the eve of the last national election, embodies his personal and political creed, and sets forth clearly and vigorously the principles that may be expected to guide his administration. The historical novel is not the only seller. In the dissemination of news concerning the record sales of fiction, the fact is frequently lost sight of that many books not fiction have sales which even the lucky authors of successful novels might envy. Among these paying literary properties many library books of reference hold first place, simply because they have become a necessity. Harper & Bros., who publish George Crabbe's "English Synonyms," state that they have printed 40,000 volumes of this famous work, and that every year its sale is as steady as the sale of fiction is uncertain. Two serials are planned for "McClure's Magazine" for 1902, either of which should insure popularity for the periodical. Booth Tarkington has again selected Indiana for the scene of a story, the action taking place in the times directly following the Mexican war, and Maurice Hewlett is at work on a new romance, the heroine of which is to be Mary Queen of Scots. Short stories are promised from time to time by Kipling. Clara Morris will continue her stage reminiscences, Mr. Dooley and George Ade will supply humor, and various other literary features of excellence promise that the standard of the magazine will be preserved. Legal Notes. Connecticut is to have a Constitutional tion in January next, the first since 1818. Arrangements are in active progress for the celebration of the centennial of the Law Association of Philadelphia, on the afternoon and evening of Thursday, March 13, 1902. The occasion promises to be a very interesting one. The ALBANY LAW JOURNAL is requested by W. J. Brown, LL. D., who is now president of the institution, to state that J. William Farr is no longer connected in any way with the Oklahoma College of Law. The college is to be congratulated. Mr. Edward H. Wells, of Utica, has opened an office in New York city, at No. 45.Cedar street. Dower Tables." The president of the American Bar Association has appointed Adolph Moses, editor of the National Corporation Reporter, of Chicago, the Illinois member of the committee on the Louisiana Purchase Exposition. A member has been appointed for each State and territory in the Union. The governor of Arkansas has resorted to a novel method of compelling the legislature to provide a State Reform School. He has pardoned every woman incarcerated in State prison, giving as a reason that Arkansas has no separate place in its penitentiary system for women, and that he will not be a party to keeping women in the penitentiary under existing conditions. The ALBANY LAW JOURNAL records with deep regret the death at Boston, on October 26th, last, of Horace W. Fuller, who for twelve years from its start, until the beginning of 1901, was the editor of the Green Bag. Mr. Fuller was born in Augusta, Me., in 1844, and went to Boston at an early age. Studious and scholarly, he was exceptionally well fitted for the literary and editorial work which he undertook in addition to his legal practice. Alfred Smith, colored, who shot and killed his wife last September, has been sentenced by Judge Ralston, in the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Philadelphia, to death by hanging. The accused had pleaded guilty and as he demanded no trial by jury, the judge heard the evidence, decided upon the Conven-grade of the crime and pronounced the sentence. This procedure, in capital cases, is permissible by the laws of Pennsylvania, but it is very rare. Chief Justice David A. Depue retired from the bench of the New Jersey Supreme Court on November 15th last, after a continuous public service of thirty-five years. 66 The 200th anniversary of Yale," says the Yale Law Journal, "finds the Law School happily situated both as to progress and promise within its own halls and in the halls and councils of the On October 13th Professor Mommsen celebrated | university. Coincident with the bicentennial observthe fiftieth anniversary of his appointment as pro-ances marking the development of Yale, the Law fessor of Roman law at Zurich. In 1858 he accepted a call as professor of ancient history at the University of Berlin. School presents one of the finest and most admirably equipped halls in the university, the largest enrollment in its history and a record in the de centennial of the Law School." velopment of American law which must be received negotiated before its date, it is payable on or after with gratification by those to whom Yale generally, the day on which it purports to bear date (Mohawk and Yale Law School particularly means so much. Bank v. Broderick, 10 Wend. 304, 307); and it It is at this significant point in the history of the confers no authority on the bank to pay it before Yale Law School that the new board of editors its date (Crawford v. West Side Bank, 100 N. Y. assumes its duties. We look forward to the bi-. 50, 56). In many cases no actual damage might result from paying the instrument before its date; but if they should occur the bank would be liable. For example; if the bank having paid a post-dated check, should afterwards refuse to pay other checks of the depositor, on the ground that there was not a sufficient balance to pay them, it would not be permitted to set up as a defence that it had paid his post-dated check; but, if the balance without deducting such check was sufficient to pay the others, the bank would be liable for the damages resulting to him by the wrongful refusal to pay the The subject of the admission of women to the. bar of the various States has come up again for discussion under a recent decision of the Supreme Court of Tennessee, excluding them from the bar of that State on the ground that lawyers were officers of the court; that women were not allowed, by the law of that State, to hold office, and, therefore, could not be iawyers. The application was made by Miss Marion Griffin. In Maryland the members of the bar must be “male citizens," and a Miss Maddox, who was recently graduated from the Baltimore Law School, finds herself unable to gain admission to the Baltimore Bar because of this provision. It is needless to say that it is only a question of time when all the States will remove barriers of sex or color to the learned professions. If one is competent to practice law, or medicine, or teach theology, he or she will be permitted to do so, and, if not, it is to be hoped that proper examining boards will intervene and prevent it. In a few quarters there may be some surprise manifested that there are any States where there are still insuperable legal obstacles to a woman's accession to the bar, but we must not forget that, as a matter of fact, great strides forward have recently been made in this country on all these advanced subjects, and, with few exceptions, they date from within the last quarter of a century. To be more exact, they grew out of the wonderful national development which succeeded the late Civil War. The surprise ought to be, not that so little has been accomplished toward emancipating woman from various forms of slavery, but that so much has been evolved out of our national life within so brief a period of time. At the present rate of progress, within the next quarter of a century, most of these vexed questions concerning sex, creed, color and other conditions will be pretty nearly solved.- New Jersey Law Journal. The Bankers' Magazine thus answers the question: If a bank cashes a post-dated check and charges it to a customer's account, and anything arises later to which such an action might be detrimental, can the party claiming to have been jeopardized by such an act of the bank gain redress from said bank? In other words, is a check a demand document, regardless of date? Answer. The bank is authorized to pay only upon the orders of the depositor, and strictly according to their tenor; and is not entitled to charge to his account any payments except those made at the time when, to the person whom, and for the amount authorized by him (Crawford v. West Side Bank, 108 N. Y. 50). Where a check is drawn and same. The United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, decided, in re B. B. Carpenter, Bankrupt, that there is no presumption of law or fact that any firm name includes any number of persons more than one, and doing business under a name not the true name of the trader, does not constitute a holding of himself out to the public as a firm; hence, does not deprive a citizen who was the sole owner of the business and the goods engaged in the trade, of the right to claim the benefit of the exemption secured to him by the law of the State. The law passed by the last legislature of New York prohibiting ticket scalping, has been declared unconstitutional by the Court of Appeals. The decision was rendered in the case of Clarence Fleischman, a ticket broker of Buffalo, against Sheriff Samuel Caldwell, of Erie county. The Court of Appeals affirms the judgment of the lower court, holding that the law which prohibits any person other than the authorized agent of a transportation company from selling its tickets, violates the constitutional rights of citizens of the State. The court did not write any opinion, basing its decision upon a decision rendered in the case of a similar statute declared to be unconstitutional two years ago. The decision of the New York Court of Appeals in which the highest tribunal reversed the judgment of connection in the case of Roland B. Molineux, makes interesting reading. The crime charged against Molineux, it will be remembered, was the murder, on Dec. 28, 1898, of Mrs. Katherine J. Adams, who lived at No. 61 West Sixty-eighth street, New York. Harry Cornish, athletic director of the Knickerbocker Athletic Club, who was known to be an enemy of Molineux, received cyanide of potassium, one of the deadliest poisons, concealed in a bottle of bromo seltzer. Ignorant of its nature, Cornish turned the bottle over to Mrs. Adams, who took a dose of the mixture and died in a few moments. Molineux, charged with sending the poison to Cornish with murderous intent, was arrested on |