DIVORCE MADE EASY.-The law courts of some of the States of North America - Indiana among others -are distinguished for the ease and readiness with which they grant divorces, but they apparently would have had to shorten their form of process if the Commune had not come to an untimely end last May. The following was the formula made use of by the citizens Michel and Aubry, who acted as secretaries to a commissary of police in Paris under the Commune:

"The citizen A- and the citizeness B- having recognized that, owing to the incompatibility of their characters, life in common has become insupportable for them, have agreed to ask for a friendly (à l'amiable) separation, which has been granted them. In consequence, they are, and remain separated, and are not to be troubled (inquiétés) by each other. Done, in a triple copy, at Paris, the floréal, year 78.

the subject of granting letters of administration, while secs. 75 and 79, title 3, are under the head and on the subject of distribution, which is a step in setting up the estate before the surrogate subsequent to that of granting letters; and also, that sec. 29 is in title 2, and prior in its position in the statute, to secs. 75 and 79, title 3; and sec. 79, being in hostility to the latter clause of sec. 29, must prevail over and repeal it to the extent of such hostility. (10 W. R. 547, per cur.) Consequently we are to look to amended sec. 79 for the true and only rule in the cases provided for in it, viz.: those of "married women dying, leaving descendants."

Then, as to those dying, without leaving descendants; since the repeal of sec. 30, title 2, and the amendment of sec. 79, title 3, there does not appear, so far as I have been able to discover, any statutory provision extant, modifying "the rules of the common law,"

We regret to say that the citizens Michel and Aubry were respectively condemned by M. Cazenave, the police magistrate, to twelve and six months' imprisonment for usurpation of legal functions. - Pall Mall Gazette.

CORRESPONDENCE.

DISTRIBUTION OF WIFE'S PERSONAL ESTATE. Editor Albany Law Journal:

Sir-If your correspondents, J. G. Collins, Esq., 4 Alb. L. J. 115, and Henry Brewster, Esq., id. 147, will allow a third person to put in an appearance, I would suggest: That, as sec. 29, title 2, chap. 6, part 2, R. S., remains unrepealed, as to granting letters of administration, the husband is now, as prior to the married woman acts of 1848-9, entitled to administration on his wife's estate, in all cases. The distribution of the surplus was provided for in old sec. 79, and is now provided for in new sec. 79. Prior to the amendment of 1867 repealing sec. 30, title 2, and nullifying old sec. 79, title 3, the husband was not bound to account to any one for the surplus of his deceased wife's personal estate after paying her debts. But now, by this sec. 79, as amended by sec. 11 of chap. 782 of 1867, if the wife die, "leaving descendants," he is required to account for and distribute to such "descendants" (which means children or descendants of children only, 2 Bradf. 413, and 1 id. 314, 318), two-thirds of such surplus, in accordance with the rule prescribed for widows in sec. 75, title 3, chap. 6, part 2, sub. 1. The authority for this is in the amended sec. 79, which provides that "The preceding provisions, respecting the distribution of estates, shall apply to the personal estates of married women dying, leaving descendants." * * *This reference embraces, at least, the preceding sec. 75, containing the "order of distribution," and fully authorizes the court in reading sec. 75, to read it with the addition to the word "widow" of the words "or widower, in case the estate be that of a married woman dying, leaving descendants," or some other apt words to make the distinction. For it is plain that, if the order of distribution prescribed in sec. 75 is to apply to the estates of married women "dying, leaving descendants," we must, when distributing the surplus of her estate, give the widower the position occupied by the widow in sec. 75. This is the plain import of the two sections read together.

In this connection it will be well also to bear in mind the fact, that sec. 29, title 2, is under the head and on

the closing part of Mr. Brewster's article.

If the case of Barnes v. Underwood, which I have not seen, gives the surplus in such cases to "cousins and nieces," to the exclusion of the surviving husband, I should like to know upon what reasons or authority such a decision is founded or supported, without some further action of the legislature on the subject.

But with the foregoing views of the force of the sections as they now stand, I see no occasion for any further interference by the legislature.

BOOK NOTICE.

C. D. LAWTON.

The Law of Estoppel. By Henry M. Herman, Attorney and Counselor at Law. Albany, W. C. Little & Co.,

1871.

We believe that this is the first extensive treatise that has appeared upon the subject of estoppel, and, so far as we are able to judge, the author has performed well the task he undertook. Heretofore the practitioner has, upon this somewhat important branch, been obliged to rely wholly upon digests and reports, so that this pioneer work will be welcomed by every one who is to any extent employed in the preparation of cases for trial or argument. The accumulation of reported decisions has already become so great that the lawyer can no longer hope to consult any considerable portion of them upon any one subject. Even the most industrious are compelled daily to rely more and more upon elementary books. To be sure, many of the present reported opinions are substantially repetitions of what has been said over and over again before, yet each new case is a variation somewhat from every old one.

The multiplication of decisions either evolve new principles or render the old ones better understood. In this result the lawyer of to-day has one advantage over the one of a hundred years ago. He has more and better law. But much being given much is required, so that he is expected to know the law with more accuracy than his predecessor. So it becomes necessary for him to do what was done by those who studied the law before there were reports or digests to study the principles. This necessity is evident from the demand there is for topical text-books.

That there have been, in answer to the demand, many hastily gotten up and inferior works issued is undoubtedly true, but these have not been wholly worthless. They were prepared in haste because the call was urgent; they were inferior because there was no time to make them better. The temporary want being

supplied a new and better school of legal treatises is coming forward, in which ability and industry are manifest. In this school we do not hesitate to place Mr. Herman's work. He has fully and clearly, and as concisely as the nature of the subject-matter would admit, set forth the principles of the law of estoppel as it stands to-day, citing sufficient authority of both late and early date in their support. The book contains 662 pages; is thoroughly indexed. Its mechanical execution is excellent.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

We have received the following publications which we will notice at an early day:

Benedict's New York Civil and Criminal Justice. Fifth edition. W. C. Little & Co., Albany, 1871.

Civil Code of California. Division second; Part IV, Title IV.

The Insurance Law Journal. Vol. I, No. 1; September, 1871. Edited by Daniel T. Potter. New York, Baker & Voorhis; St. Louis, Hugh R. Hildreth. Waverly Novels. Vol. 22; centenary edition. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1871.

GENERAL TERMS.

1st Monday in November, first department, New York.

2d Tuesday in November, third department, Schenectady.

3d Tuesday in November, fourth department, Syra

cuse.

2d Monday in December, second department, Brooklyn.

COMPULSORY EDUCATION. -The English elementary education act contains several features which perhaps might be to advantage incorporated in our own school laws. Among other sensible provisions there is one, to be put in force at the discretion of the local school boards, for compelling the attendance at school of children not otherwise learning or working. The justice and wisdom of such legislation had been established by sound argument and sad practical experience, which proved that the community suffers a huge amount of mischief in every way from the idleness and ignorance, too readily seduced to positive crime, so frightfully prevailing among the poor, neglected youth of large towns. In London, society has been obliged, in selfdefense, to resolve on the application of a forcible treatment to remedy this growing evil, and the operations of the school board of that city have already been extended to the apprehension of vagrant boys, and their committal to the industrial schools. In Prussia this system has been in force for many years, and with the best results. In that country no person can grow up ignorant of the elementary branches of education, as every boy and girl is compelled to attend school a certain part of every year, and the consequence is, that Prussia has no ignorant class of people within her borders. The whole nation is intelligent. The practical worth of this national characteristic was signally displayed during the late war with France, when an educated and intelligent people came into conflict with one not less brave, but less educated and less intelligent as a nation, and defeated them as no nation was ever defeated before. It is worth while to inquire whether similar legislation could not be advantageously adopted in the several States of this Union. - Harper's Weekly.

LEGAL NEWS.

It has been judicially decided libelous in North Carolina to call a man a "Pennsylvania Yank." "Snoring on the levee" was the crime for which $5 fine was imposed by a New Orleans magistrate.

A lady has applied for admission into the Harvard law school.

The chief justice of India died at Calcutta on the 20th of September, from wounds inflicted by an assassin.

The Swiss federal council having tendered their hall at Geneva for the council chamber of the board of arbitrators, the commissioners have mutually designated December 15 as the day of the first meeting.

Virginia is re-establishing the whipping posts of "by-gone days." The criminals in that State, it is said, prefer taking retribution in that way, rather than in the shape of long imprisonment.

It is said that in certain districts of Hungary, the courts still extort confessions by torture from persons accused of crime. Minor offenses are not punished by imprisonment, but by flogging.

The commissioner of internal revenue decides that the interest on the new funded loan bonds of '81 is not to be included in the returns for taxation in computing the government tax of two and one-half per cent on the net earnings of the bonds.

No cases will be heard by the United States and British claims commission before December. The rules adopted do not exclude any claims having the color of justice. The claims of British subjects residing in the South during the late war will not exceed $5,000,000.

The supreme court will resume its sessions shortly, and among the first cases on the calendar which were argued last term and are awaiting decision, is the constitutionality of the direct tax on cotton levied a few years ago and afterward repealed, but under which several millions were paid into the treasury.

There are now pending in the various United States courts, internal revenue cases representing $2,771,993. These cases are principally assessments against distillers and tobacco manufacturers, suits for the recovery of which are instituted upon their bonds. These cases will all be pressed to a trial at the coming fall sessions of the courts.

A question has arisen in the courts of Maryland as to the rights of negroes to vote, who, previous to their enfranchisement, served terms in the penitentiary for infamous crimes. Judge Magruder, of the seventh judicial district, is said to have decided that such persons have a right to vote. In the second district, the full bench has decided the other way. The question will doubtless be referred to the appellate tribunal of the State for an authoritative and final decision.

About seven thousand five hundred claims have been indexed by the southern claims commission; the aggregate amount of alleged damages being upward of twenty millions of dollars, owing to seizures of supplies, etc., for the United States troops, belonging to those claiming damages who have been Union men during the late war. Evidence has been taken in six hundred cases and decisions arrived at on one hundred and fifty.

We think, therefore, that the mingling together of persons sentenced for criminal offenses, and those who, so far as the law is concerned, are only unfortunate, is a mistake that operates to the prejudice of the individual whom it is designed to benefit, by destroying his reputation, and inflicts an injury upon the public, by rendering all movements for the rescue and reform of abandoned children unpopular.

There is another cause why very many of these institutions have accomplished so little. This has been the introduction of religious instruction. In speaking concerning the point, we desire to cast no reflection on the intentions of those who have labored so zealously for the welfare of our unfortunate classes. But it has seemed to us that they have sometimes carried on their work in such a manner as to defeat the very purpose for which it was begun. The main end sought has been claimed to be, the making of good citizens from persons liable to make themselves bad ones. For this, laws have been passed, and public moneys appropriated. If this end is gained public opinion will be satisfied. Whatever may be demanded in other countries, the theory of our government forbids the inculcation by public authority of religious tenets. Yet we find, in almost all these institutions, the teaching of doctrinal dogmas a prominent feature in their course of instruction. As men do not all agree on the same dogmas, it has been found necessary to multiply reformatories, so that each faith shall be accommodated; thus the State becomes a religious educator. All this would do little harm if the tendency was not in taking care for the spiritual welfare to overlook the temporal, seeking to fit the individual for the life hereafter, and forgetting the no less essential duty of fitting him for the life here.

A third reason why reformatories have done less than they ought may be found in the methods of manual labor usually adopted in them. The pretense of their managers is, that a child committed to their care will be instructed in some useful trade, whereby he may afterward earn an honest livelihood. But for the most part, this pretense is wholly false, the child being generally taught only to perform some single simple mechanical process, and this not that he may be better able to support himself when he grows up, but in order that certain work for which the institution gets pay may be accomplished. Tasks, monotonous and laborious, are given out, and their performance enforced by penalties. The character and effects of this system are fully set forth in the report of the commission on prison management, made to the legislature last winter. While there may be difference of opinion as to the policy of abolishing the contract system in our State prisons, we cannot see how any unprejudiced person can favor its retention in places where the only inmates are children. To do so makes consignment to a reformatory equivalent, in fact, to imprisonment at hard labor, and it is so regarded by a large portion of the people.

ON THE TRANSMISSION OF BILLS OF LADING AND OTHER NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS BY TELEGRAPH.

As the subject described in the heading to this article will probably be new to most of our readers, it will, perhaps, be best for us to arrange the various points involved in the consideration of it in the order in which they first occurred to us.

The question was first suggested to us by a case in the court of chancery, respecting bills of lading, and as, possibly, some of our readers may not be familiar with these documents, we will commence by stating, shortly, what a bill of lading is. A bill of lading is a receipt given by the master of a ship for goods placed on board her. Its form is liable to be varied, at the desire of the shipper, but it will be generally found to contain an accurate description of the goods, with an acknowledgment by the master that they have been placed on board his ship, and an undertaking by him to deliver them at the port of destination, to the shipper, or such person as he may order. The shipper then generally sends this bill to the person to whom he wishes the goods to be delivered at the port of destination, indorsing on it an order that they are to be delivered to that person, and the person indicated then takes the bill to the ship, when it arrives, and claims the goods. It is not, however, necessary that the goods should be claimed by the person immediately named by the shipper. A bill of lading is negotiable, like a bill of exchange, and may be indorsed any number of times, and the right to receive the goods always passes with it. By means of it, therefore, the goods may be sold before they have arrived, and without it the intended consignee cannot make a title to the goods at all, and a valid security upon the goods may, therefore, be created by a deposit of the bill of lading. We may mention, also, in view of some remarks we shall have to make at a later stage, that a bill of lading is generally signed in triplicate. The object of this is to enable it to be transmitted safely by post. The first and second parts are sent independently to the consignee, just as a bank note is often sent in two halves, and the third part is kept ready to be sent in case of a miscarriage happening to either of the first two parts. With these preliminary remarks, we will state, shortly, the circumstances of the case in the court of chancery, which suggested to us the subject of this article.

A merchant had ordered goods to be sent to him from some distant country; he had been informed by telegraph of their shipment; and, being in want of money, he obtained a loan on giving a promise, in writing, to repay the money out of the produce of the goods, and, for security, to hand over the bills of lading to the lender as soon as they arrived. He was then adjudicated bankrupt; the bills of lading fell into the hands of his assignee, and the question was,

whether the person who made the loan was entitled to the produce of the goods, or whether they be- | longed to the assignee for the benefit of the general creditors.

Without stopping to discuss the question in whose favor this point ought to have been decided, we will at once call attention to the thought that it suggested to us, that is to say, that it is most desirable that a merchant, to whom goods have been shipped, should have the power of giving a good security upon them, as soon as they have been actually consigned to him. A moment's reflection will show that this end would not be obtained by merely deciding the case we have mentioned in favor of the lender. Supposing such a security as that there given to be good against the borrower's assignee or trustee in bankruptcy, what is to prevent the merchant from borrowing in the same manner from half a dozen different persons, on security of the same goods, and what will then become of the security? Clearly, all the lenders but one would find their security worthless, and if, when the bills of lading arrived, the borrower did not keep any one of his promises, but sold the bills to some third party, all the former lenders would be excluded altogether. It may safely be affirmed, therefore, that at present there is no mode by which the consignee of goods can raise money upon the security of them until he receive the bills of lading, and this must necessarily be long after the shipment, and, perhaps, even after the arrival of the goods. If, therefore, he requires money during this interval, he may find himself unable to raise it at all, or only able to raise it at a very high rate of interest; and that, although he is possessed of property far more than sufficient to repay the loan he requires. His property being at sea, he may find himself financially at sea also. Now, if we could devise a method whereby, as soon as the shipment of the goods was announced to the consignee by telegraph, he could sell them or give an effectual security upon their proceeds, he would be able at once to raise money upon favorable terms, to an amount differing only by a slight margin from the full value of the goods themselves. The money thus raised might then be employed in some other commercial adventure, which could not now be undertaken at all, and the man's money might be turned over, as the saying is, much more rapidly than can be done at present. Thus we should stimulate trade, by extending legitimate credit, that is to say, by enabling credit to be given where it deserves to be given, which increases, in fact, the available capital in the world. The more certain also we make credit, that is to say, the more we enable all persons worthy of credit to show their title to it, so much the more difficult do we make it for persons who do not deserve it to obtain it under false pretenses, and defraud their neighbors of their money. If we could but devise a simple and certain method of supplying every person with a title deed to all credit that he really deserved,

we might oust misplaced credit altogether from the field, and relieve ourselves of all further fears of bankruptcies and panics, and the losses caused by them. We cannot, of course, hope to arrive at this state, but we may make some efforts to come a little nearer to it than we are at present, and diminish the frequency and intensity of the evils caused by misplaced commercial confidence. A scheme by which the consignee of goods could make a title to them, the moment he was apprised by telegraph of their shipment, would, we conceive, be a step in this direction.

We will assume, therefore, that the law ought to enable a man, to whom goods have been shipped, to give a good security upon them as soon as their shipment is intimated to him by telegraph. We then have to consider next what provisions it would be necessary to make in order to enable this to be done. First, then, in order to make one security effectual, we must deprive the man making it of the means of giving another. That is to say, it will not be sufficient that he should show the telegram to the lender, and give a charge in writing on the goods or their proceeds, for he might repeat that process to half a dozen people, but he must also give up the telegram to the lender, and the possession of it must be essential to the validity of the security. For the same reason we

must take care that our borrower shall not obtain more than one copy of the same telegram, and our law must, in fact, forbid the issuing of these telegrams in duplicate. Again, we must provide measures for preventing the correspondent in the foreign country from sending more than one telegram relating to the same goods, or sending a telegram when there are no goods at all. And for this purpose it would seem that it ought not to be left to the private individuals to send the telegrams, but that an office, under the control of the government, should be established, in order that its messages might be known to be au

thentic.

There is also another consideration which will lead us to this same conclusion, and that is, that ordinarily the bills of lading carry the right to the goods; supposing, therefore, a loan to have been effected on some goods, of which the shipment was notified by telegraph, still, when the bills of lading arrived the recipient of them might, as he may now, raise money on a deposit of them, or sell the goods by their means, notwithstanding the previous security effected on the telegram. It might, also, happen that the shipper of the goods, after sending the telegram, might, himself, transfer the bills of lading to another person, mortgaging them to a bank, say, in his own country, and the bank would then send them to their correspondent at the port of destination, who would clearly have a title to the goods. Our law should, of course, provide for these emergencies, and the best means of doing so would seem to be the institution of a responsible office, which should examine the bills of lading, and stamp or write upon them, in the lan