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XII. Mills and mill-owners. Chapters XIII, XIV and XV. Smoke, noxious vapors and noisome smells. Chapter XVI. Noise and vibration. Chapter XVII. Navigable streams.

Then follow chapters on private actions for injuries from public nuisances; pollution of water (which should have been placed among the chapters relating to nuisances in connection with water); prescription for nuisances; abatement of public nuisances by acts of private persons; municipal corporations; legalized nuisances; dangerous animals; remedies in equity; remedies in law and damages.

The chapters relating to water and water-courses are very full, and form, in themselves, a valuable treatise on that subject. The chapters on smoke, noxious vapors and noisome smells, on remedies in equity, and on damages, are also worthy of especial mention.

much, and sometimes more, than circumstances which raise more evident presumption of partiality," etc. But judges are not, like jurors, liable to be challenged for partiality or favor. After having been returned, judges may accept free passes on railroads, and afterward sit in an action between an individual and the railroad company furnishing such pass. It is true there may not be any gratitude for such favor, to affect the administration of justice. But what is the motive of the railroad company in offering, or in furnishing, the judges such passes? We all know the motive of sending such passes to members of the legislature. Does the same motive cause them to be sent to the judges? We have seen the extent to which some of our judges have traveled in actions brought by individuals against railroad companies.

Quere. Is not the offering and furnishing of free passes over railroads to judges an evil, and ought not such evil to be remedied by statute? An act might be passed disqualifying a judge from sitting in an action

The book is written in a style at once vigorous and perspicuous, and is literally, what the printers made the advertisement of it say it would be, a "compre-by or against a railroad company which had furnished hensible" book. Whether Mr. Wood be dealing with such judge with a pass. some error hoary with age, or with some judicial outpouring of yesterday that has "not yet ripened into a precedent," he is equally outspoken. On every page one finds evidence of the writer's thorough know- THE following decisions were handed down in the

ledge of his subject and of a power of analysis, an ability to grasp and state clearly legal principles, and an industry in seeking out the authorities that entitle the work to the first rank among text-books.

The book is, however, marred here and there by errors, which, though not of a serious character, or likely to interfere with its usefulness, are nevertheless annoying, and indicate an inattention on the part of the writer to the art of bookmaking. To speak of Daly's reports (p. 111) and of Sandford's reports (p. 219) as reports of the Supreme Court is sheer carelessness. Then, too, the running title to chapter 16 is wrong, as is also the numbering of sections in the index to chapter 14. The most serious shortcoming is the table of cases cited, which is almost useless from the fact that the cases, especially dwelt on in the body of the work and there cited, are, as a rule, not included. These things aside, the book is in every way admirable and deserving of especial favor at the hands of the profession. We are glad to be able to add that it is also well printed, papered and bound-items of the first importance in considering the desirability of a book.

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COURT OF APPEALS DECISIONS.

Court of Appeals on Tuesday last : Judgment affirmed.- Gardner v. The People.— Order affirmed with costs Chase v. Vanderbilt.

-In the matter of the petition of Ingraham, ordered, that appellants have leave to take a dismissal of appeal, and to have a new trial under order of general term upon paying costs in this court - Bensel v. Gray.. Ordered, that appellants have leave to take a dismissal of appeal and to have a new trial under order of general term, but without costs to either party in this court as against the other-Gray v. Bensel. - Judgment affirmed with costs as to Travers, Jerome and Skiddy, and as to Mc Vickar, Gaylord and Askmore, judgment reversed and new trial granted, costs to abide event - Morgan v. Skiddy. - - Appeal dismissed with costs Ehle v. Trustees of Canajoharie. Judgment affirmed with costs - McCollum v. Seward; McGriffin v. Baird; Thompson v. Stevens; Halsey v. Stevens; Jarchan v. City of Brooklyn. - Judgmeut modified by deducting one-half of the extra allowance,` and, as modified, affirmed without costs to either party in this court Hunt v. Chapman. Order granting new trial affirmed, and judgment absolute for defendant on stipulation with costs - Quackenbos v. Sayre.

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CORRESPONDENCE.

JUDGES AND PASSES.

To the Editor of the Albany Law Journal;

It is a principal cause of challenge to a juror that, since he has been returned, he has eaten and drunk at the expense of one of the parties. Cowen's Treatise (2d ed.), 889; Coke upon Littleton, 157. Again, causes of challenge to a juror for favor are indefinite. Justice Cowen remarks, same page: "Such is the purity of our law, that no man shall have his cause tried by a juror, against whom he can raise a reasonable ground of suspicion as to his indifference. There are a thousand strings by which the human heart may be touched, and passions by which it may be affected, that are not reducible to any general rule. These may bias the mind as

NOTES.

MESSRS. WEED, PARSONS & CO. have in press,

and will issue next week, their annual volume of the General Laws of the last session of the Legislature. For ordinary purposes their annual volumes answer quite as well as the "Session Laws," and are certainly much more convenient to handle.

-The Central Law Journal has the good fortune of a libel suit. Having recently commented in pointed but just terms on the attempt of "James Cockroft & Co.." to palm off an edition of Sir William Forsyth's "Hortensius," under another name, and to borrow the popularity of Samuel Warren to help along an edition of Stephen's" Adventures of an Attorney in Search of Practice," the aforesaid "Cockroft & Co." have become virtuously indignant, and (perhaps too with an eye to advertising their wares) have commenced an action

against Soule, Thomas & Wentworth, after first having submitted to their attorney "conclusive evidence of the falsity" of the criticism of the Central Law Journal. We are at a loss to know what species of evidence it can be that so satisfies the attorney, or why the corporation of "Cockroft & Co." (for a corporation it appears to be), should go so far from home to vindicate its injured innocence, when it could attempt to do it so much better nearer home.

The bar of Connecticut last week accomplished a a permanent organization of a State Bar Association by the election of the following officers: President, Origen S. Seymour, of Litchfield; vice presidents, Charles R. Ingersoll, of New Haven, Richard D. Hubbard, of Hartford; treasurer, William Hamersley, of Hartford; secretary, John R. Buck, of Hartford; executive committee, John T. Wait, of Norwich, John S. Beach, of New Haven, Roger Averill, of Danbury, Henry C. Robinson, of Hartford, William T. Elmer, of Middletown. A constitution and by-laws were also adopted, after being slightly amended as reported from committee. The association will hold semi-annual meetings in Hartford, and the annual meeting the second Wednesday after the assembling of the legislature each year. - In an essay recently read to the Medical Library and Journal Association of New York, Mr. R. E. Guernsey treated, at considerable length, the Penal Laws relating to suicide in ancient and modern times. A large number of members of the New York bar tendered a public dinner to Attorney-General Pierrepont last week, but the Attorney-General declined it, adding: “If, through the Divine guidance, I can persevere unto the end of my official course so as to meet the approval of my brethren of the bar and of other good men, I shall ask no more reward; and until then permit me to decline the banquet which you so kindly offer, and for which evidence of your encouragement I am sincerely grateful."

Lest the profession should be misled by the citation, in 57 N. Y. 232 (Commission of Appeals), of Bush v. Lathrop, 22 N. Y. 535, as "settled law," it may be well to note that that case, which declared that its law had been the law of this State for over forty years, and which did steady work as a tow-horse case for thirteen years afterward; which was elaborated by the Court of Appeals in 1872 (50 N. Y. 67), "as putting the question at rest in this State;" was by the same court in 1873 (55 N. Y. 41), according to the reporter's note, flatly overruled after being slurred, as having been decided by a divided court and another case (46 N. Y. 325) "much better considered." In point of fact, Bush v. Lathrop was roughly handled in 55 N. Y., but whether it was really overruled depends upon a very nice technical distinction. At any rate, in the present aspect, it is very far from being regardable as settled law, though it is difficult to see how the courts are going to get along without it, particularly in view of the industrious use they have made of it since it was decided, and its fitness to those equitable exigencies to which it is applicable.-In The People v. Olwell, on the 9th inst., in the first district, the court charged the jury that, outside of the prisoner's statements, there was proof only of two things-that a man died of wounds, and that he died in the prisoner's house: and that if such were the whole of the evidence the prisoner should be acquitted,

it being insufficient to show that he did the killing. The result shows how dangerous it is for the defense to risk putting in evidence unnecessarily. The prisoner was produced in his own behalf; supplied the missing fact that he killed the person; and, although it is possible he acted in self-defense, was convicted of manslaughter in the fourth degree."

Mr. A. P. Sprague, the winner of the first prize offered by Senor Marcoartu, through the English Social Science Association, for the best essay on the subject"In what way ought an international assembly to be constituted for the formation of a code of public international law, and what ought to be the principles on which such a code should be framed" - has received a letter from Senor Marcoartu, informing him that the essay will be printed in English, in French and in German. The copyright in the essay belongs, according to the conditions of the prize, to the donor, which fact should relieve Mr. Sprague from numerous applications for copies. - The Supreme Court of Illinois have adopted rules in relation to the reports of that court, which provide that the opinions shall hereafter be reported within three months from the time of their delivery, in volumes of not less than seven hundred pages, and that the volumes shall be printed on "clear white paper supersized and calendered, and of not less than fifty pounds to the ream," and that they shall be bound in" the best law sheep without blemish or patches," etc. There is certainly room for improvement in this latter particular, for the recent volumes from that State have been the worst bound books we

ever saw.

In a recent case in the English Common Pleas, the plaintiff was the assignee of an English version of a French drama called the "Wandering Jew." The defendant caused to be represented an English version of the original French drama which the plaintiff alleged to be an infringement of his version. At the trial before Coleridge, C. J., sitting without a jury, his lordship found as a fact that the version represented by the defendant was independent, and drawn from the original French drama, and was not copied from the plaintiff's version, except as to two theatrical situations, which were not material and substantial portions thereof. The verdict was entered for the defendant. On a rule to set the verdict aside, the court held that the verdict was right.-The following point in the law of negotiable paper was decided by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in Rheem v. Carlisle Deposit Bank, and will be reported in the next volume from that State. 1. The plaintiff, a bank in Carlisle, was the holder of a draft payable in Philadelphia, indorsed by defendant; notice of protest was duly received by the bank on Saturday; on that day an officer of the bank called at defendant's house and place of business to serve notice personally, but could not meet him. On Sunday he called at defendant's house and handed him a sealed envelope containing the notice, saying what it contained; défendant put it, unopened, into a drawer, and did not look at it for some weeks afterward. Held, that the service of the notice being on a Sunday was unlawful and the indorser was not bound. The defendant was not bound to receive the notice nor to open or read it on Monday, although the service would then have been in time. Receiving the notice on Sunday in silence was not a waiver of the irregularity.

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