inquiry concerning the rights of others constitutes notice of everything which such inquiry, pursued in good faith, would disclose.— Twitchell v. Nelson, Minn., 155 N. W. 621.

96. Parent and Child Custody of Child.-A husband who procured a divorce without making any effort to obtain the custody of a minor child could not, by divesting himself of all his property, escape his obligation to support such child.-White v. White, Mo. App., 180 S. W. 1004.

a

97. Partnership-Action Against.-Where partnership and the two persons composing it are sued, and each individual separately files a demurrer to the petition, which is overruled, they may except without joining the partnership as such in the bill of exceptions.-Higdon v. Bell, Ga., 87 S. E. 385.

98. -Test of.-The primary basis of a partnership is the intention of competent parties, manifested by their contract, to become partners by contributing their money, etc.. to a lawful business, in the conduct of which, each shall not only act for himself, but as the agent of all, and shall share in the profits and losses. -Dixon v. Dixon, Mo., 181 S. W. 84.

99. Patents-Infringement.-On an accounting for infringement, as the hearing proceeds, each party should in the first instance pay the costs and expenses made by himself, including fees of the master and stenographer.-Panoulias v. National Equipment Co., U. S. D. C., 227 Fed. 1008.

100. Specification.-A patentee is entitled to all that his patent fairly covers, even though its complete capacity was not recited in the specification and was even unknown to the inventor prior to the issuance of the patent.— Wayne Mfg. Co. v. Coffield Motor Washer Co., U. S. C. C. A., 227 Fed. 987.

101.

Principal

and

Agency Notice.-Where a third person dealing with an agent has actual knowledge of the scope of the agent's authority, or knowledge of facts which would put him on inquiry in respect thereto, he cannot rely on the agent's apparent authority.-City of Portland v. American Surety Co. of New York, Or., 153 Pac. 786.

102. Railroads --- Contributory Negligence.Where, in a traveler's action for injuries from being struck by a train at a crossing, the evidence showed that the plaintiff's attention was directed to an apparent danger and thereby distracted from the probable danger of an approaching train. contributory negligence was for the jury.-Corse v. Philadelphia & R. Ry. Co., N. J., 96 Atl. 53.

103. -Negligence per se.-Independently of a violation of rules, it is negligence for a train to be standing on a main track, 1,000 feet from any switch yard, when another train is due. without any precaution to advise the oncoming train.-Martin v. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co., Mo. App., 180 S. W. 1005.

104. Sales Breach of Contract.-Where the buyer's offer to perform had been ignored, and the seller had stated to him that he would not deliver the hops sold, held that the buyer's failure to make any further offer to perform could not prevent him from recovering for breach of contract.-B. O. Schucking & Co. v. Young, Or.. 153 Pac. 803.

105. -Contract.-Where purchaser of seed potatoes agreed to pay additional price if seller performed agreement as to buying crop grown therefrom, destruction of crop by fire before demand for its delivery held not to defeat liability for the additional price for the seed.-Varney v. Cole, Me., 96 Atl. 232.

106.- -Express Warranty. The warranties referred to in a provision of an order for adding machines, that "express warranties" would not be recognized unless approved by the plaintiff in writing, meant warranties by contract. verbal or written, and not implied warranties arising by operation of law.-Comptograph Co. v. Citizens' Bank of Minot, N. D., 155 N. W. 680.

107. -Principal and Agent.-Where a contract for the sale of cotton contained a "request" that, on the seller's failure to deliver, the buyer would go into the market and buy the number of bales sold, held, that such "request" rather conferred on the buyer the au

109. Statutes Repeal by Implication.-A statute is repealed by implication only where the new statute is clearly intended as a substitute for all previous law on the same subject and there is an irreconcilable conflict between the new statute and the old one.-Beck v. Cox, W. Va., 87 S. E. 492. an

110. Street Railroads Instructions.-In action for injuries to an infant plaintiff on a street railroad's track, the instruction that, if plaintiff was being chased by some one, and ran onto the track and was injured, he could recover if the motorman was negligent, adequately dealt with the issue of the effect of the conduct of the third person.-Altaville v. Old Colony St. Ry. Co., Mass., 110 N. E. 970.

111. Taxation-Tax Deed.-A tax deed is not invalid because the tax sale was made by the sheriff's deputy.-Friedman v. Craig, W. Va., 87 S. E. 361.

112. Trusts Evidence. Where appellant loaned deceased money to enable him to acquire a parcel of land and deceased held the title for number of years in his own name, the inference of a resulting trust is rebutted.-Reminger v. Joblonski, Ill., 110 N. E. 903.

113. Vendor and Purchaser-Action.-Where a vendor, after contracting to convey on the happening of a certain condition, conveys to a third person and thereby disables himself from of performing. action immediately arises in favor of the vendee.-Boothe v. Dailey, Kan., 153 Pac. 551.

a

cause

114. Adverse Possession.-A purchaser will be required to take a title by adverse possession, especially when he has agreed not to object on that ground.-Stewart v. Kreuzer, Md., 95 Atl. 1052.

115. Rescission.-There was no presumption that the agent of the owner of a quarry. authorized to act in the sale thereof and in regard to perfecting title thereto, was authorized to receive a letter from defendant buyer rescinding the contract and turning back the quarry to the owner.-McAlister v. St. Joseph Street Const. Co., Mo., 181 S. W. 54.

116. Wills-Construction.-It is presumed that, where a word is used in one sense in one part of the will, the same meaning was intended when it was used in another.-Keplinger v. Keplinger, Ind. App., 110 N. E. 698.

117.

Intention.-Courts will give effect to a will expressing an intention to pass a fee simple in addition to the language of a general devise without words of inheritance, which, nothing else appearing, gives only a life estate. --Gibson v. Brown, Ind. App., 110 N. E. 716.

as

118.-Legatee. Testamentary provision, that residue should go to person or institution which should have cared for testator in his last sickness without naming any beneficiary, held to sufficiently make capable of identification the person who had cared for him during his last sickness beneficiary that SO she would take.-Lear v. Manser, Me.. 96 Atl. 240. 119. Life Estate.-Where testator gave, a life estate to his wife in specified property, a subsequent clause giving a sister certain other property "subject to said life estate" did not give the wife a life estate in the property given to the sister, but the latter took the absolute estate.-Riverside Trust Co. v. Rogers, Conn., 96 Atl. 180.

120. -Limitation Over.-Will devising absolute estate to testator's four children. with limitation over on the death of any child without issue surviving to his surviving children, held an alternative gift to testator's children surviving at the death of a child who predeceased him. Duering v. Brill, Md., 96 Atl. 296.

121. Probate.-That testator has made an unreasonable, harsh, or unjust disposition of his property will not authorize revocation of the probate of a will.-In re Blackfeather's Estate, Okl.. 153 Pac. 839.

Central Law Journal.

ST. LOUIS, MO., MARCH 17, 1916.

REFORM OF COURT PROCEDURE AWAITS UPON CONGRESS.

It has been well said that, in the United States, politics cease at the water's edge. So much for a patriotism that is the greatest national defense. With rare exceptions, it is equally true that politics cease at the court house door. So much for a high ethical standard of the bench and bar. When legislating concerning the courts, there is a greater reason that politics should cease at the door of Congress. This much is consonant with high statesmanship and unselfish patriotism. Politics in the judicial department of the government, where and however injected, is a poison more deadly to the body politic than treason, for it is better and far nobler to die at the point of the bayonet than to live in a corruption that is the concomitant of a dependent judiciary.

This country is and has been blessed with a high order of statesmanship, tested under conditions that called for wisdom, tolerance and patriotism. It is not too much to say that just such a condition confronts the Congress to-day.

Thunderstruck by the widespread evidences of a deep seated feeling of unrest and hostile criticism of the courts, that had reached the climatic danger of destruction, through the recall of judges and judicial opinions, the lawyers awoke to the grave responsibility that confronted them to simplify judicial procedure and to elevate judicial standards. Like a great religious revival, there spread over this Republic a patriotic sentiment that has filled the souls of men with the desire for unselfish service.

For the first time in the history

of the world the lawyers agreed. They agreed upon a means, and one well worthy. of their high calling. It was that the present statutory regulation of the trial courts must be done away with and that the Supreme Court of the United States, aided by suggestions from the lawyers, should prepare and put into effect a simple, correlated system of rules for the regulation of the trial courts. In other words, that fect their own efficiency. Congress shall set the courts free to per

That this may be done Congress must enact a simple statute now pending before it. Will the law makers rise to this epochal opportunity? Will they prove as big, broad and magnanimous as the bench and bar? An almost unanimous bar and an organized commerce await, with justifiable confidence, the action of the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate. Will it report the bill or suppress it?

T. W. S.

DAMAGE CAUSED BY CONCUSSION OF AIR FROM BLASTING ON ONE'S OWN PREMISES.

It is a rule sustained by the great weight of authority, that negligence need not be alleged or shown in a claim of liability against one who uses the dangerous agency of powerful explosives in a place or manner where he casts stones or debris upon the premises of his neighbor. But it has been held that for injury from mere concussion of the air or by reason of sound, one is not liable unless the explosions result from negligence and are not the result of blasting according to the usual methods and with reasonable care. This rule finds direct support in Alabama (Bessemer v. Doak, 152 Ala. 166, 44 So. 627, 12 L. R. A. [N. S.] 389) and in New York (Booth v. Terminal Co., 140 N. Y. 267, 35 N. E. 592, 24 L. R. A. 105, 37 Am. St. Rep. 552) and in other states it is fairly deducible

In Louden v. Cincinnati, 90 Ohio St. 144, 106 N. E. 970, L. R. A. 1915 E, 356, it is said: "We are unable to distinguish between a case where a fragment of rock or a portion of the soil is thrown onto an adjoining property and a case where the force of an explosion is transmitted through the soil and substratum, jarring, cracking and breaking it, destroying the foundation of the building and wrecking the building by a concussion of air around it, thereby doing far more injury than a fragment of rock could do. If this terrific force may be set in motion by the owner of one parcel of ground, with full knowledge upon his part that such force will invade, damage and destroy the property of the adjoining proprietor, what difference does it make how this force accomplishes the result, that, in the very nature of things, must have been anticipated?"

munity submits to the making of improvements by adjoining landowners, if they make them in a careful way, but whether careful or not, the improver shall not physically invade his possession. As to what may get into the atmosphere from a neighbor's lawful work done in a careful way he takes his chances. Concussion may get into the air just as germs or contagion may get into it and the neighbor ought not to be held in the one case rather than the other. One has the right to improve his property, but not to invade the property of another in doing so. Does he invade it when he puts something in the air that spreads gradually or spreads in a violent way, amounting to concussion?

We do not look at this matter in a technical as distinguished from a practical way. We think, however, there is some ground for differentiating an injury caused by throwing a missile in the air which injures one in its fall, and doing something on one's own premises which there agitates the air and this agitation spreads to adjoining premises. Both things may be anticipated and both should be guarded against, but in the latter case there may be anticipation by the neighbor which takes the agitation into account. He has no right to expect blasting to be done away with, but he may have the right to insist that it cast no stones or debris on him or on his house. If he may recover for slight damage in the latter case, may he in the other? They seem not to be in the like class of injuries, whether the injuries be great or small.

There is disposition in American courts. to swat whatever has about it the semblance of common law technicality. This, so to speak, iconoclasm may sometimes 'be unreasoning, and in this case it seems to us, that the distinction approved by New York and Alabama courts has something of foundation in what one in a neighborhood submits to in the ownership of his property.

NOTES OF IMPORTANT DECISIONS.

TELEGRAPHS AND TELEPHONES-PRESENCE OF ONE SPEAKING OVER A TELEPHONE.-In Lamar v. United States, 36 Sup. Ct. 256, the Supreme Court holds, that whereever one's physical body may be if he projects his voice over a telephone into another jurisdiction, there to perpetrate a criminal offense, the offense is committed in the other jurisdiction.

Thus in the case above, the defendant was accused of personating an officer of the United States by talking over a telephone to the officer in New York. It is said: "The personation was by a telephone to a person in New York (Southern district), and it might be found that the speaker also was in the Southern district, but if not, at all events the personation took effect there."

This ruling is on the theory that the venue of a crime is in the place in which the completed criminal act is committed. As for example where there was an attempt to commit the crime of advising a voter to register illegally, the writing of a letter to one in another state thus to do, fixes the locality of the crime where the voting is done. State v. Stow, (N. J. L.) 84 Atl. 1063.

Also it has been held that where an accused was charged with obtaining a deed by false pretenses and the deed was executed in Pennsylvania with grantee's name left blank, the filling in of this blank in Missouri made the crime there. S. W. 491.

State v. Marion, 235 Mo. 359, 138

It was, therefore, held that an ordinance for assessing special taxes according to a front foot and an area rule takes property without due process of law, where it is sought to be enforced to a depth of 500 feet as to defendant's tract when lots next to it are included to only about 100 feet and those opposite to it to about 150 feet. Gast Realty & Investment Co. v. Schneider Granite Co., 36 Sup. Ct. 254.

It is stated that this case and others in Missouri reports show that assessments under this ordinance have made upon "tracts not cut into city lots extending back from the streets much farther than the distance within which paving could be supposed to be a benefit."

This ruling must be taken as decisive in favor of land in which injustice is done by the ordinance. It may be that one not suffering by the unjust plan it prescribes would have no complaint against an assessment under it. But it is something of a severe criticism of St. Louis Board of Public Improvements, that it prepared and caused to be adopted "an ordinance that is a farrago of irrational irregularities throughout," as thus the Supreme Court declares it to be.

PLEADING AND

PRACTICE-AMENDING

SO AS TO BRING ACTION UNDER FEDERAL EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY ACT.-It is held, by U. S. Supreme Court, that where an employe brings an action in a state court against a railroad under state law, he may by amendment to his petition convert it into an action under the Federal Employer's Liability Act and that the doing of this presents no federal question for review by the U. S. Supreme Court. Kansas City W. Ry. Co. v. McAdow, 36 Sup. Ct. 252.

Justice Holmes, in his crisp style of expression, does not greatly argue out the above propositions, but he seems to regard the jurisdiction exercised by state courts under state and federal law the same as being under one law and that the law of the state. He thus cuts a Gordian knot presented by technicality so as to achieve practical results.

He closes his opinion by saying: "But these (technical) questions really are immaterial here since the Kansas statute is so similar to that of the United States that the liability of the defendant does not appear to be affected by the question which of them governed the case. In such circumstances it is unnecessary to decide which law applied."

observation

the safe

thing to do is to allege, at least in state jurisdictions where the law, state and federal, is practically the same, an accident to have hap

pened in interstate commerce, and, if you cannot prove this, you nevertheless can recover under state law. If the two laws are different, then, as held in Wabash R. Co. v. Hayes, 234 U. S. 86, the pleader should have one count under federal law and one under state law.

`BULK SALES ACT-TRANSFER TO CREDITOR NOT WITHIN ITS PROVISIONS.-Iowa Supreme Court believing it not to be the intention of the Legislature, in passing the Bulk Sales Act, to prevent creditors of a merchant being preferred, upholds a sale by a retailer of his stock in bulk to a creditor upon consideration of his debt and his agreement to turn over any surplus from sales to his vendor. Des Moines Packing Co. v. Umcaphor, 156 N. W. 171.

The Iowa statute forbids, other than in due course of business, a dealer to sell, assign or deliver his stock to another without notice being given to his creditors. These words seem to us quite broad enough to cover any transfer to another than in due course of trade, and whatever might be thought of giving a chattel mortgage, it would seem that a straight transfer to another irrespective of what the consideration is comes under the statute.

Let it be granted that a debtor may have the right to prefer a creditor, but, if he does it, he ought to execute his preference in some other way in sale of stock than in a sale, to the making of which a statute affixes conditions to its validity. If he, in making such preference, attempts to surrender his interest in real estate, he must do this in the manner the law for the conveying of such kind of property requires. And if he is a dealer and wishes to prefer one by a transfer of his stock in trade, is he not equally obliged to comply with the law as to such a transfer?

It seems to us that decisions, and these are not unanimous, that he may give to another a chattel mortgage without complying with the bulk sales act, had no bearing on the question before the court. Would it, for example, be held a good transfer, free from the limitations of the bulk sales act, for a dealer to turn over to a creditor in an insignificant sum, his stock in trade and to repay the dealer the surplus? This, however, is the test.

We are far, however, from believing that a chattel mortgagee is protected against other creditors. The nature of the property mortgaged puts him on notice as to possible interests of others. A law sustained as constitutional, as these bulk sales acts have been, ought not to be frittered away as such decisions, as the one here referred to does.

THE LAW RESTATED-AN INTERESTING REVIEW OF AN INTERESTING BOOK.*

BY HON, WENDELL PHILLIPS STAFFORD,

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.

The author of The Law Restated is not to be measured with the law-book makers of to-day. His intellectual descent is to be traced from the greatest in the past. He is a disciple of Bacon, maintaining with him that the body of English law came from past ages, largely through Roman channels: that it is capable of concise statement, and has been thus stated in the Latin maxims, constituting on the whole the most comprehensive and clear-edged summary of fundamental law ever given to the world; that by such a summary the law is best taught and to it all questions are finally to be referred, no matter how remote the deductions at first sight may appear; and above all, that Equity, which is the very life principle of the maxims, is not a mere incident or department of the law, but a moral force pervading all its parts.-not a separate stream, but "a river without a main” finding its way, underneath the surface through the whole field of law, and certain in the end to supersede all narrow and conflicting rules by virtue of its own intrinsic superiority. He also believes with Bacon that the main body of the law when thus stated and taught should be accompanied by the leading cases which best illustrate

*The Law Restated, by W. T. Hughes, is a very curious and interesting little volume of 300 pages of very small type, greatly condensed in statement, and in scope of thought and suggestion equal to ten volumes of any encyclopedia of law.

The author is fortunate in his reviewers, and with his consent we are publishing an appreciation of the new volume by Judge Stafford, not with the thought to advertise the book, but because of the interesting suggestions contained in the elaboration of his thesis by the learned justice.

This volume is published by the author himself and sells for $4.00, delivered. The Central Law Journal Co. has consented to act as one of his selling agents.