opinion in England at the present day as the newspapers, and that much of their increased influence is due to the fact that the lawyers have taken to writing for them. The truth is, that mankind have always had so poor an opinion of themselves, that, were it not for lawyers, they would still be unwilling to allow to each other the smallest credence, in or out of court. Until lawyers caused the rule to be changed, no person accused of crime could testify on his own behalf, because the theologians had taught that he must necessarily perjure himself, and now all the croaking against the present rule comes from dyspeptic haters of our profession. All the ameliorations of the laws respecting women are due to lawyers, and yet all the women think us a terrible set of fellows. They would prefer counsel like Mrs. Stowe.

It is high time that the vulgar notions about lawyers were done away. They are the offspring of the envy that mankind bear toward those who are able to earn a living without manual exertion or the employment of capital. The deities of society are Muscle and Money, Sheer Intellect is something they grudgingly tolerate. Rich men and laboring men alike are envious of lawyers, and yet we can assure them that if the mean things that lawyers consent to do at the

instigation of their clients were weighed against the mean things that they prevent their clients from doing, the balance would incline heavily in favor of the lawyers. In a word, the standard of professional honor among us is as much higher than the standard of commercial honor yes, and of clerical honor, too as heaven is higher than earth.

We would like to ask this Independent gentleman a few plain questions. First. To whom does he think Catholic Emancipation in the British Empire was due, to the lawyers of the House of Commons, or to the prelates of the House of Lords? Second. Does he not

think that such men as Sam Adams, John Adams, and Patrick Henry, who represented all the lawyers, were of as much weight in the struggle for American political liberty as the Rev. Mr. Duche, who counselled Washington to surrender the colonies to Great Britain, and who fully represented a large number of the "martyr" and "moral-hero" class in the Middle States? Third. Does he not think that such men as Lord Mansfield, in England, and Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Salmon P. Chase, John Jay, and Ben Butler have had some influence in effecting the abolition of slavery and the slave trade? Fourth. Will he not concede "moral heroism" to such men as John Somers, of England, who defended the seven bishops, and to Daniel O'Connell, and the other reformers and liberators and champions of civil liberty in the legal ranks, whose names shine on every page of history?

As to the charge of corruption, not one in a hundred of our legislative "corruptionists" is a lawyer. "Corruptionists" are the representatives of a constituency who are too envious of our profession to elect them to legislative or municipal office, but elect instead a body of unprincipled and illiterate adventurers, and offer them an inducement to steal by paying them inadequate wages. In the days when lawyers, to some degree, monopolized such offices, corruption was almost unknown. It is the growth of recent times. The

Constitutional Convention proposed a very effectual preventive of legislative corruption in the shape of an article on bribery. Most of our profession voted for the adoption of that article, but it remains to be proved whether the Independent writer and the rest of the folks who dislike lawyers gave it their support.

CURRENT TOPICS.

-A writer in the Chicago Legal News urges the holding of annual meetings of members of the legal profession from every part of the United States, for the discussion of law reforms, similar to meetings held by members of other learned professions both in this country and in Europe. The Jurisconsults of Germany adopted the idea eight years ago, and have since held a congress regularly every year. Their society numbers among its 2,500 members all who are so interested in the law as to be obliged to study itas magistrates, advocates, notaries, or administrators. Its purposes are to examine legal questions and to promote the unification of German law.

-The Usury law has long since become a dead letter, and should be stricken from the statute book.

Term after term, in obedience to the requirements of the statute, grand juries are charged to inquire into any violations of the Usury law, and yet, day after day, year out and year in, the lenders of money violate that law with impunity. Once in a while a spasmodic effort is made—as was recently the case in New York - to vindicate the law and to punish the offender; but, as in all other cases of spasmodic efforts, little if any good is accomplished. The old reasons for the law are gone, and other and juster laws afford the protection to the debtor which this statute was meant to

give. There are even positive grounds why the law should be abolished. The principal one is that men can no longer afford to lend money at seven per cent. The taxes on property-National, State and Municipal-have increased to such an extent that after paying them there is but a pitiful margin left to the lender for the use of his money. But the fact that the law is not enforced is ground enough for its repeal. The dignity of the State and the interests of society, demand that there should be none but living laws upon our statute books, and that the violators of those laws should be visited with the prescribed penalties. Edmund Burke truly said: "Living law, full of reason and of equity, and of justice (as it is, or it should not exist), ought to be severe and awful too; or the words of menace, whether written on the parchment-roll of England or cut into the brazen tablet of Rome, will excite nothing but contempt."

-The progress which the "softer sex are making in their attempt to break down the barriers which heretofore excluded them from the Bar, may be rather startling to the nerves of the timid and bashful portion of the profession. In several of the western states attorneys and counsellors at law of the female sex have become fixed facts. An Iowa court, not long since, appointed a committee to examine Mrs. Arabella A. Mansfield, A. B., and the committee very gallantly recommended her admission, and ex

pressed their desire to "welcome her as one of our members." The court, either imbued with that spirit of progress so prevalent in the West, or out of regard to the feelings of the committee, granted the application, and Mrs. Arabella was duly inducted into the profession. It is incidentally related that the husband of the lady was admitted at the same time, and it may be fairly presumed that the "shingle" of "Arabella A. Mansfield and husband," has been long since flung to the breeze. It would seem that the guardians and rulers of the Columbia College Law School of New York, are less chivalrous and courteous to the fair sex. A lady recently complained through the columns of the Tribune that she had procured her testimonials and fees, and presented her application for admission to the junior class in that school; but that she was informed that person, as used in their catalogue, meant man, therefore, that she could not enter, being a woman. The lady's logic is rather formidable. It seems that the catalogue of the law school says that "any person of good moral character * may be admitted." Also, that "the design of the law school is to afford a complete course of legal education for gentlemen intended for the bar inany of the United States." On this the fair communicant predicates the following: "The last clause of the last quotation would seem at first sight to exclude women; but when it is remembered that words change their meaning in the progress of a language, and with the changes of the times, and as the progress of the age has been such that women are now admitted to the bar in some of the United States, it follows that the phrase ‘gentlemen intended for the bar has lost its exclusive significance, is a relic of a past epoch, and can only be interpreted now, in the light of the present facts, to mean, those (men or women) intended for the bar.'" If the popular theory—that it is the business of the profession to lie-be true, which we have reason to doubt, there is one qualification possessed by ladies which would eminently fit them for the practice, provided the Rev. Mr. Cowen, of Boston, who, by the way, is an ardent champion of woman's rights, and should know, is to be relied on. That gentleman, in an address before the recent Woman's Suffrage Convention, at Cleveland, said "women are not as truthful as men." He had seen "young women lie with a steadfastness and imperturbability unapproachable by young men." We have never regarded lying as a female accomplishment, nor an essential qualification for the legal profession, but if our views are incorrect, it may become necessary for the gentlemen of the profession, as a matter of self-preservation, to set their faces against the ladies in their efforts to gain admission to the bar. -Senator Carpenter, of Wisconsin, has introduced into the Senate a bill to increase the salary of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to $12,000 per annum, and that of the Associate Justices to $10,000. We believe that every fair-minded lawyer will approve of the bill, and it is to be hoped it will become a law. The present salary of the Chief Justice is $6,500, and of the Associates $6,000—compensations in no wise adequate to the abilities and

attainments demanded by the positions. England pays her Lord Chancellor £10,000, or nearly $50,000, per annum, and her Lords Justices of the Court of

Appeal £6,000 each, or nearly three times the salary proposed by this bill for the highest judicial officer in the country. Even her Commissioners in Bankruptcy and Masters in Lunacy receive nearly double the salary of any United States Judge, and receive it in gold. The position of Judge of the Supreme Court is one of great importance, and demands the highest abilities and the most varied attainments-qualities that in the ordinary walks of the legal profession would bring to their possessor double or treble the remuneration of our present Chief Justice. It is no uncommon thing for an insurance or railroad company to pay ten or fifteen thousand dollars salary to a president; and it is in accordance with the "eternal fitness of things" that those who serve their country in a position of the highest responsibility should receive an equally liberal remuneration.

-A "Lawyer's Congress," attended by some of the most eminent jurists of Germany, was held, a few weeks since, at Heidelberg, and passed several resolutions on important social and judicial questions. Among these were the following: 1. "Civil marriages should be recognized as a necessary principle of the relation between Church and State in the whole of

Germany; and the State should make no objection to the marriage of persons of different religions." This was proposed by Dr. Gneist, and passed against a minority of one only. 2. "That government sanction should not be required for the formation of joint stock companies or other associations, but that the liability of each member of such company should be unlimited." 3. "A written document acknowledging a debt should be taken as sufficient proof of such debt, independently of the circumstances under which such debt was incurred." 4. "As nearly all the objects of punishment are more effectually obtained by solitary confinement than by any other system of imprisonment, such confinement should be recognized by law as the regulated mode of executing sentences which involve the loss of liberty; exceptions to this rule might be made when necessary, either by the judge or the governor of the prison." This resolution was passed almost unanimously.

Dickens tells us, in one of his Christmas stories, of the performances of the ghost of a murdered man that would not lie quiet in its grave like a well behaved Christian ghost, but persisted in revisiting the "glimpses of the moon" to aid the prosecuting attorney in bringing the murderer to justice. While in a murder trial a ghostly interference of this kind may be tolerated, we doubt very much whether in the ordinary litigations and trials it would tend to advance the cause of justice or conduce to the well-being of society. We, therefore, have to regret the position which the Philadelphia spirits seem to have taken in the matter. The story comes to us from that city that Judge PIERCE recently sent a jury out to deliberate, and received a note from the jury room the next day stating that all had agreed except one, who had communed with the spirits, and had been told by them that the law bearing on the case was illegal. The jury asked to be discharged, and the request was finally granted. If it is to become fashionable for spirits thus to usurp the functions of the judges, it may become necessary to add another to the present causes of

challege, that gentlemen who are in the habit of holding communications with spirits may be excluded from the jury-box.

- It may be regarded as settled that Mr. AttorneyGeneral Hoar will not have the honor of filling the vacant seat on the United States Supreme Court Bench. The Senate have by a very decided majority laid his nomination on the table. The opposition to him was strong and settled. Some opposed him because of his locality, claiming that the South should have at least one representative on that Bench; others opposed him for lack of confidence in his ability to properly fill the position; but the great body of the Senators objected to him because of effronts which they had received at his hands. It is to be regretted that men occupying the high position of Senators of the United States should allow mere personal pique to so seriously affect their actions in matters of the greatest importance to the country. We were surprised that doubt should be expressed as to his ability. He has long ranked among the ablest jurists in Massachusetts, which fact alone ought to be sufficient evidence of his ability to fill any judicial position. It is quite probable that the President will now withdraw the name of Judge Hoar and substitute that of some Southern lawyer.

-There is a lamentable tendency among people to denounce a system as soon as any irregularities shall be discovered therein, no matter howsoever exceptional they may be in their nature. An excellent illustration of this tendency has recently occurred in the denunciation of our judicial system by the newspapers because one or two judges have interfered with each other's orders in the "Erie Imbroglio." Nothing is said about the fact that in nine hundred and ninetynine cases the order or decree of one judge is never modified or reviewed by a brother judge, except for the most urgent reasons, but the fact that in the one thousandth case a judge departs from this rule sets the public press in a perfect furore. These papers say that the judicial system must be reorganized and that the judges of the Supreme Court must be so limited in their powers and jurisdiction as not to be able thus to interfere with the particular business of each other. But the great difficulty is that no two papers agree as to how this happy result is to be brought about. Nor do they follow the thing out to its logical sequence to see about what would be the effect of any such revolution. One very respectable paper talks thus learnedly on the subject: "It would be well, however, if some judge whose orders have been interfered with would bring the matter before the Court of Appeals, with a view to seeing if the common law affords a remedy. We suppose this might be done by quo warranto issued by a third judge." Now this proposition-quite as good as any we have yet seen on the subject-may strike some as being very sensible, but it strikes us as being very absurd. If any single judge exercise improperly the powers conferred upon him by the law it may be well enough for the public press to reprove him for it; but the wholesale attacks on the judiciary and the judicial system which have of late become so fashionable tend to no good and should be abandoned.

--The new Judiciary Article is likely to work important improvements in the character of our courts and judicial proceedings. The old system was one of the worst, if not the worst, judicial systems in the world. The court of last resort was five years in arrears with its business, and counsel and clients who had causes on its calendar had about as little prospect of getting a final adjudication as had the suitors in the old English Court of Chancery. Its members were annually changing, and, a very natural result, its decisions were vacillating and conflicting. In the Supreme Court the evils were as great, though not of the same character. Judges all over the State sat in review of their own decisions, and in many districts judicial courtesy ran so high as to allow the judge who had made the order or ruling appealed from to write the opinion and announce the decision of the appellate court. The judges of one district very seldom sat at the General Term of another district. Each district, had therefore, in effect, a separate local court, which decided questions according to its own convictions and precedents, without any very high regard for the precedents of another district. The County Court was practically without original jurisdiction in civil matters, and the Circuit calendar was therefore crowded with causes of slight importance.

Under the new article these evils will in a great measure be done away with. The Court of Appeals' calendar will be cleared up by the Commission; that Court will gain the element of stability, and with it an increased working power that will enable it to keep up with the business. The Supreme Judges will no longer sit in review of their own decisions. Instead of eight General Terms there will be but four, and possibly not so many, and thereby is insured a greater uniformity of decisions. Besides this, the Justices

who hold the General Terms are to be chosen from the whole number of Justices in the State, thus doing away in a great measure with those local and sectional influences which have sometimes affected our General Term decisions. The jurisdiction of the County Courts is extended, and a large number of the causes which now burden the Circuit calendar can be disposed of in this court. While we do not regard the new system as by any means perfect, yet it is so much of an improvement on the old one that we hail its adoption with pleasure.

-Associate Justice Robert C. Grier has resigned his seat on the Bench of the United States Supreme Court; the resignation to take effect on the 1st of February next. Justice Grier was appointed by President Polk in 1846, and, next to Mr. Justice Nelson, is the oldest judge on the Supreme Bench. He had long since become disqualified by age and sickness to discharge the duties of his position, and his resignation was urged by his brother judges as well as by his friends. He will receive his full salary during his life-time, as provided by the act of congress.

The late Edwin M. Stanton had received the appointment to the seat made vacant by the resignation of Justice Grier, but his sudden death has reopened the

vacancy.

-"Have we a Court of Appeals among us?" is a conundrum which is at present exciting the ingenuity of both the Bench and Bar of the State. From what

The question arises from the doubt, as to when the new Judiciary article is to take effect. The last section of the proposed Constitution provided, that the Constitution should be in force from and including the 1st day of January next after its adoption by the people. When the legislature made provision for submitting the Judiciary article separately, they declared as follows:

"If a majority of the ballots indorsed' Constitution -Judiciary' shall contain on the inside the words, 'For the amended Judiciary article,' then the Judiciary article proposed by said Convention shall be deemed to be adopted by the people, and shall be the sixth article of the Constitution of this state."

If this language were to be literally construed, it would seem that the Judiciary article took effect as soon as adopted, that is, as soon as the State canvassers had declared the result of the vote on it. Again, it is contended, that, inasmuch as it was provided that the proposed Constitution should take effect from January first, therefore, the Judiciary article must take effect from the same time. Whatever may have been the intention of the legislature, it will be rather difficult to sustain this argument by strict construction. The clause providing when the Constitution should take effect was rejected by the people. How then is it to govern as to the Judiciary article? But supposing it to go into effect on the first, have we any Court of Appeals, properly so called? The twentyfourth section of the new Judiciary article is in these words:

"Section 24. The first election of Judges of the Court of Appeals, and of the three additional Judges of the Court of Common Pleas for the City and County of New York, shall take place on such day, between the first Tuesday of April and the second Tuesday in June, next after the adoption of this article, as may be provided by law. The Court of Appeals, the Commissioners of Appeals, and the additional Judges of the said Court of Common Pleas, shall respectively enter upon their duties on the first Monday of July thereafter."

No provision is made in the new article to continue the old court, and if the article takes effect from January first, it would seem that the recent Court of Appeals' judges have now no power except as Commissioners of Appeals, under the Judiciary article itself. They are the creatures of the old Constitution, and if the Judiciary article in that is superseded by the new article, we are quite at a loss to find any argument to justify a longer existence of the old Court. But salus populi Suprema est lex, and we shall not be surprised if the judges should construe this maxim to justify their continuance till the new Court comes into operation.

Since writing the above we have learned that the Judges of the Court of Appeals have decided, after consultation, to hold the January term of the court, and to hear the arguments in all cases as usual.

-- The sudden death of the Hon. Edwin M. Stanton has struck every one with surprise and regret. Only a little time before his death the announcement was made that his health was improving, and his friends cherished the hope that a long and useful career was before him in the position on the bench of the United States Supreme Court to which he had just been elevated. He was but fifty-four, and few of those who listened to his argument in the Whitney and Morey case before Mr. Justice Swayne, only some ten days before his death- an argument worthy of the palmiest days of the American bar - could have imagined how shortly that apparently vigorous frame and giant intellect were to be laid low. Of Mr. Stanton as a politician and office-holder, we do not propose to speak. It must be left to history to form a just estimate of him in those respects. We of to-day are too much swayed by passion and prejudice to form correct notions as to either his faults or his merits. As a lawyer, his position was established. However much men may have differed as to the propriety of placing on the bench of the Supreme Court a man who had been actively engaged in the political questions of the day, we presume there were very few capable of forming a correct opinion, who doubted either his ability or integrity for the position. Of late years, while not in office, he had devoted his attention chiefly to cases in the United States courts. He was an able lawyer and an advocate of more than ordinary ability. Thoroughly grounded in the principles of the law; clear and quick in the perception of the right, and steadfast in its maintenance; diligent and conscientious in the discharge of his duties, he had worthily won a place alongside of the great lawyers of the country. An obituary notice of Mr. Stanton will be found in another column.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

The design and scope of the LAW JOURNAL are so fully set forth in the Prospectus, which will be found in our advertising columns, that it will be unnecessary for us to dwell on the subject, Horace Smith seems to have had a very poor opinion of prospectuses, for he said of some one that "he lies like the prospectus of a new magazine." However happy may have been the simile in his day, it has not improved with age. Publishers have learned from experience that mendacious prospectuses, like curses, 66 come home to roost." The promises made and plan proposed in the Prospectus of the LAW JOURNAL will be fully carried out. The publishers have undertaken its publication with the usually charitable object of "supplying a want long felt by the legal profession," and it is their purpose to make it, in every respect, capable of accomplishing that object. It is not intended to make it either local or sectional in its character. It is designed for the profession at large, and no reasonable effort will be spared to make it of value to the lawyers of every State in the Union.

It is no part of our plan to report decisions in full, except in special cases where the decision is deemed of great general importance. It would be impossible to give, within the necessary limits of a journal of this kind, but a very small part of the important de

cisions made during the year, and we have therefore deemed it the better plan to give an abstract of all the decisions, sufficiently full to enable the practitioner to comprehend readily the question decided. Should any one desire a full report of any case, he can very readily procure it by sending to the Reporter, whose name is given. The pages of the LAW JOURNAL Will always be open to the discussion of all questions pertaining to the law or its professors, and contributions are invited on all subjects of general legal interest.

It was announced that the first number of the LAW

JOURNAL would appear on the 20th of November last, but a postponement was rendered necessary by reason of the protracted illness of the managing editor.

The present number is sent free to the members of the bar throughout the country. If they desire its continuance, they should forward their names to the publishers at once. The LAW JOURNAL is stereotyped, and back numbers can be furnished at any time.

- One of the most entertaining and valuable books ever written on the Study of the Law, is that by Samuel Warren, the author of "Ten Thousand a Year," and we are glad to know that an American edition of it is about to be issued from the press of Mr. John D. Parsons, Jr., Law Publisher, Albany. We know of no book that we can more honestly and heartily commend to both lawyers and students than this. It is, indeed, as said in Blackwood's Magazine, "a treasury of valuable information and sound advice." The work is the production of a man who has felt the difficulties which he has endeavored to remove; who writes not from hearsay nor conjecture, but from positive and painful experience still fresh in his memory; who knows what the student must feel by knowing what he himself has felt, and who writes to the student as well as for him. A vast amount of time is at present wasted by law students from not knowing how to study and what to study. Mr. Warren's treatise will teach them these things, and will afford them valuable aid in other directions.

-The new Supreme Court Reporter, Mr. Abram Lansing, is engaged in preparing a volume of reports, which will shortly appear from the press of Messrs. Banks. Mr. Lansing, though a young man, is a wellread lawyer and a gentleman of culture, and will do his work well. The fifty-fourth volume of Barbour's Reports is in preparation. We have not learned whether it is Mr. Barbour's intention to continue his series further.

- Mr. N. C. Moak, of Albany, is engaged in preparing a new edition of Van Santvoord's Pleadings. The original work has always ranked high among treatises on the subject, and we have no doubt that its value will be greatly increased by the labors of Mr.

Moak. He is a thorough lawyer, and has the experience derived from long and extensive practice, which, combined, should render him capable of supplying all the shortcomings and deficiencies in the work which he has in hand.

-Montgomery H. Throop, of New York, a lawyer of great ability and culture, is engaged in the preparation of a treatise on the validity of verbal agreements, which will shortly be published by Mr. John D. Parsons, Jr., Law Publisher, Albany. The want of a full, accurate and well-planned treatise upon this subject has long been felt by the profession. The subject is one of the most obscure, as well as the most important, with which a lawyer has to deal. Mr. Throop has all the qualifications necessary to prepare a work which shall supply this want, and we await his book with high expectations.

OBITUARY.

EDWIN M. STANTON.

The Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, for several years Secretary of War, and a lawyer of marked ability and distinction, died at his residence in the city of Washington, on the morning of the 24th of December. The cause of his death was congestion of the heart, superinduced by exhaustion of the vital energies.

Edwin Macy Stanton was the son of Dr. David Stanton, and was born at Steubenville, Ohio, on the 19th day of December, 1815.

At an early age he entered Kenyon college, but, in the course of a few months, was compelled to give up his collegiate studies, on account of the failing circumstances of his father. He then became a clerk in a bookstore at Columbus, Ohio. During his clerkship he studied law, and afterward completed his studies in the office of Daniel L. Collier. He was admitted to the bar in 1836, and began the practice of his profession at Cadiz, Ohio. Shortly after, he was elected Prosecuting Attorney of Harrison county.

In 1842, having removed to his native town, he was chosen Reporter of the Supreme Court of the State, and issued a series of reports known as "Stanton's Reports."

In 1847, he became a partner of the Hon. Charles Shaler of Pittsburgh, and practiced chiefly before the courts of Pennsylvania and the United States District Circuit and Supreme Courts. He was counsel for the Erie Railway Company in the cases which grew out of and were continued by the first "Erie War," and was also the leading counsel for the State of Pennsylvania in the great Wheeling Bridge case. In 1856 or 1857, he removed to Washington, to argue before the Supreme Court in an important case connected with the Mexican boundary question; and, in 1858, was sent to California, as special counsel for the government in certain land cases which involved great public interests. These he conducted with marked ability, and the fees he received for his services were very large. In 1859 he was associated, at Cincinnati, with Mr. Lincoln in the suit arising out of the conflicting interest of the Manney and McCormick reaping machine. He was also engaged as counsel for General Sickles in the famous trial for the murder of Key. In December,