the next term of court in order to give the condemned time to apply to the Governor for a pardon. In the meantime the prisoner may be paroled.

CHAPTER 161

Not satisfied with requiring a husband to provide for his wife and making it a felony for him to leave the State after abandoning her, the situation is still further embarrassed by making the husband or wife a competent witness to testify for or against the other in criminal cases.

CHAPTER 162

This Act is an innovation in that it provides a means by which the minor in fact becomes of age in law and can spend his money earlier than the wisdom of the ages that are gone have thought he should spend it. A method is outlined by which minors, over 18 years of age, may, upon application to Chancery Courts, or Chancellors in vacation, have the disability or minority partially, or wholly removed. It is recited that the public welfare required the enactment of this law also.

CHAPTER 178

This is an Act with a good intention, and is an attempt to penalize those who obtain money by check, draft, etc., on banks where they have no funds on deposit. I am afraid that it is so closely identified with the necessity of establishing fraudulent intent that it will not be effective.

CHAPTER 97.

This Act purports to amend Section 3 of Chapter 1 of the Acts of 1913, Second Extra Session, by adding to the provision requiring the carrier to report to the County Court Clerk the names of persons to whom liquor is delivered a provision to the effect that the delivering carrier shall pay to the Clerk 5c for "each name on said reports". Intrastate shipments of liquor are prohibited in this State. This Act must, therefore, apply

to interstate shipments. No more freight can be charged than is permitted by published tariffs. It decreases the revenue of the carrier by 5c upon each shipment regardless of the amount or weight thereof. In my opinion, it is an attempt to regulate interstate commerce prohibited to a State. Again, in the anxiety and haste to enact another temperance statute, the Legislature either overlooked or ignored so insignificant a thing as that constitutional provision, which requires that an Act which seeks to amend a former law must recite the title or substance of the law amended. Neither the title nor the substance of the amended Act is stated either in the caption or the body of this Act, and, I think, it is, under the decisions of our Supreme Court, unconstitutional for that reason.

This concludes the resumé I have tried to make of those Acts of the last session of the Tennessee Legislature which are of general interest. If I should undertake to complete a performance of my constitutional duty by trying to point out the noteworthy changes in our federal laws since our last meeting, I would expect to be impeached by you in a proceeding less complicated than that outlined in the "Ouster Bill". You must bear in mind that, since last June, the Congress has been in nearly continuous session, having completed an extra session and held a regular one. I am, therefore, by main strength, and because I know you will not object, inviting you to consider the changes and points of interest for yourselves. This you will do, if you have occasion to examine said laws at all, whether I "communicate" the changes to you or not. Suffice it to say, there have been many radical and far reaching changes.

We are living in a war period. The greater portion of the earth is engaged in a conflict unlike anything known to history; unlike, let us hope, anything that future history will have to record. Be it far from me to inject into this meeting anything political. It is no time, no season, for politics. Patriotism demands of every true American that he uphold the hands that are guiding our ship of state. Among all those who are doing this today, no class, no profession, no creed, is more loyal than the profession I am now addressing, a profession ready and willing to advise and counsel, ready to shed its blood, if that be necessary, to protect our honor, ready to unite with every other patriot in singing:

"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world and the child of the skies."

Let us, therefore, be calm, but resolute; sane but firm. Let us ask the Giver of all wisdom, as did Dr. Samuel Johnson when he at one time decided to study law, to enable us to attain such knowledge as may qualify us to direct the doubtful; to instruct the ignorant; to prevent wrongs, and terminate contentions. If we so apply our knowledge, our influence, our professional lives, then we have performed the real function of a lawyer. Nothing short of this can be pleaded "in bar of the judgment of history."

The President: Gentlemen of the Bar Association, we have the honor and pleasure of having with us today a man, who by virtue of his attainment, his character and ability, has been elevated to a place of distinction second to none. To be a great lawyer is within itself a great thing. No man can attain that distinction who has not ability, and whose whole system is not built upon a character beyond reproach. Gentlemen of the Tennessee Bar, I take great pleasure in introducing Honorable Peter W. Meldrim, of Savannah, Ga., President of the American Bar Association.

A ROMAN ADVOCATE

By Peter W. Meldrim, Savannah, Ga.

Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Tennessee Bar Association: In 1902, the President of the American Bar Association was not only a great lawyer, but a finished scholar, a good citizen, and "the most courteous of men and truest friend." In the course of his annual address, Judge U. M. Rose, of Arkansas, said that "Rome still rules the world from the ruins of the Forum". While this was said in a wide sense, yet it is true that there is no place that is so full of absorbing interest to the American lawyer, as the Roman Forum; for, there was much in the life of the Roman Republic that gave inspiration to this American Republic. But, neither with the glory or the

shame of the Forum, nor with the rise or fall of the Roman people, can I speak today, for the field is too broad to be gleaned, within the limits of the hour. All I can hope to do is to sketch the character of the man who was the most conspicuous ornament of that forum, and the most distinguished lawyer of that Roman law, which, in its later development, under the name of the civil law, has become the basis upon which rests the jurisprudence of the Latin, the Slav, the Scandinavian and the Teuton.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was born at Arpinum, the same place where Marius was born, and in the same year with the great Pompey, 107 B. C. It is said, that clouds take shape and form from the surface of the earth over which they pass; it is true that men take tone and color from the times in which they live. To judge of any man, his words or acts, reference must always be had to his environment. Cicero was the natural outcome of the age in which he lived. Belonging to the Equestrian order, he came from the strong blood strain of the Volscian country stock. His father a man of education and accomplishment; his mother a woman of the nobility, and of more than usual strength of character. Cicero, like most of the Roman youth, was ambitious; and at that time in Rome, as we have seen it in this Republic, the stations of honor in the State were best reached through the avenues of the law. There was much in the genius and life of Rome at that time to excite ambition. Every citizen had a voice in the government. The constitution was republican. The citizens were divided into three orders, Senatorial, Equestrian, and the People. Roman citizenship varied in the rights that were accorded to the different classes. In addition to those who possessed the full rights of citizenship, foreigners were granted privileges and protection; the Italians were admitted to citizenship under certain restrictions; the people of the conquered Roman provinces secured lesser civil rights, while to the freedmen or manumitted slaves was accorded more or less political power; but, it is interesting to note, that "their exact status was a standing subject of controversy in politics."

In so complex a system of political rights, there necessarily arose grave questions affecting not only individuals,

but classes, and requiring resort to courts and arms to determine them.

The government of Rome changed from time to time, but generally, we can distinguish in its several forms our own divisions into legislative, judicial and executive. The legislative functions in the days of Cicero were exercised by the Public Assemblies-the comitia, presided over by the consul, praetor, or tribune. These assemblies elected magistrates and made laws. The senate, at first a council, gradually assumed legislative power and discharged executive functions. There was one interesting fact in connection with the Roman Senate, and that was, that a senator was not confined to giving his opinion on the question under discussion. In this respect, Middleton's remark in his life of Cicero appears true, that "Human nature has ever been the same in all ages and nations.'

With the various officers in the Roman state, we have no present concern, but there was one principle applicable to the consulship which was vital to the public life of Cicero, and that was, while a consul could do anything during his term of office and no one could question it, yet, after his term had expired, he could be held answerable for his conduct,

Passing from the body of the Roman people and their officers, a glance must be cast on their courts. Naturally, their business was divided into civil and criminal. Originally, jurisdiction in both civil and criminal matters belonged to the King, but civil matters passed to the consuls and praetors, and important cases were transferred to the assemblies of the people. There was a presiding judge, a jury, the members of which were drawn by lot from the body of jurors, the right of challenge existed, a majority of the jury found the verdict, the president or judge had no vote, and he did not decide the law. The jurors voted by ballot; A. (absolvo) not guilty, or C. (condemno) guilty.

Cicero was not only a lawyer trying causes in the courts, but he was actively engaged in public life, filling the great offices of quaestor, aedile, praetor and consul. How full of difficulty that life was can best be understood when we reflect that two years after he assumed the toga virilis, he saw the first Civil War begin and Marius become a fugitive. He saw