has signed his name or not, and all this in oblivion at once of good faith and sound sense: conduct for the commission of which an English judge would treat the man as a rascal or as an idiot.

THE following interesting account of the recent "Königsberg Trial" is given in The Law Journal (London):

Besides the interest in all things affecting Russia at the moment, the trial just ended at Königsberg, in Germany, brings to memory the great trials five years ago of Zola and Dreyfus in France, and the brilliant defences therein by M. Labori. All three trials bear much similarity, the powerful political bias of the prosecution and the remarkable importance and success of the defence, redounding to the credit, power, and independence of the Bar. Nine accused persons belonging to the humbler classes lay under arrest for nine months on the following charges: First, with being concerned in a conspiracy or secret society for purposes unknown to the authorities. Secondly, that they being German subjects were guilty of acts against the Russian Empire and the Czar, which would have been accounted high treason if directed against a German State or prince, in that they did circulate books and pamphlets inciting to murder the Czar and overthrow the Russian Constitution. Thirdly, that they rendered themselves guilty of lèse-majesté against the person of the Emperor Nicholas II. by circulation of such books and pamphlets. The trial all along was represented by the nonSocialist press, the Minister of Justice, and the German Chancellor as a determined attempt to stamp out a nest of dangerous Anarchist and Nihilist conspirators, and so strike a severe blow at all Social democracy in Germany. The 200 pages in the indictment, the numerous witnesses for the prosecution, the exaggerated statements of Russian officials, and the harsh intimidations of the Presiding Judge and of the Public Prosecutor, revealed nothing more pernicious or dangerous than that these nine accused persons were simple band of illiterate smug

glers. Only on the count of conspiracy did the Court condemn six of the accused to terms of imprisonment from two weeks to three months, and the defence have already lodged an appeal in the High Court for remission of these small sentences. A journal wittily compares the service rendered to the Russian Government by the German authorities with that of a tame bear which, in trying to kill a fly on the forehead of its sleeping master, inadvertently crushes his skull.

The course of the trial (which lasted about a fortnight), the consistent hostility displayed by the presiding judge, the Bench, and the prosecution, towards the accused and their counsel, will be of interest to legal readers, and especially the singular tact, moderation of attitude, and marked ability of Herr Haase, the leading counsel for the defence, Socialist deputy for Königsberg to the German Reichstag. Several interesting incidents arose during the course of the trial. One of the contentions of the defence was that the seditious pamphlets found among the bales of Socialist writings at the homes of the accused were added to their contents after confiscation. This point, however, the defence was unable to bring home to the authorities. The following, however, was very clearly brought home to the Russian Consul at Königsberg. When the bundles of books and papers were, confiscated by the police, selections were sent to the Russian Consul to translate for the German authorities. He was called by the defence, and protested when in the witness-box that he was a very busy man and that he had merely "hastily glanced at the books after dinner." Certain passages of an incriminating nature was then read out to him which he himself had translated from the confiscated papers, and then he was requested to find these passages in the original text. Some of the quotations were found to be purely imaginary, and others were mutilated and distorted so as to represent the Russian official view of revolutionary doctrines. For example, when the original text arraigned the absolutism of monarchic government in Russia, the Con

sul had substituted the personal designation of "Nicholas II." With biting irony the counsel for the defence observed that "the after-dinner glance" which permitted the mutilation of whole passages and the insertion of others, must have been "hasty" indeed. Another interesting incident occurred during the trial. Among the confiscated papers were a number of prints and pictures, chiefly caricatures of the Czar. One of these the President of the Court held up as deserving of particular execration, and condemned it as an example of the means by which the Social Democrats poisoned the minds of the illiterate. Herr Haase informed the presiding Judge that the picture was a well-known caricature that had appeared in the German comic paper Simplicissimus. Another striking incident was the evidence of the Russian Professor Herr von Reussner, Professor of Civil and Criminal Law at the University of Tomsk, a most distinguished legal authority, who has received from the Czar the Order of St. Anne, who voluntarily resigned his chair when censured by the Russian Government for protesting against the wanton illtreatment of his students by Russian soldiers. At the trial he gave a detailed account of the inner social and political life of the Russian Government. His evidence was a remarkable indictment of the abuses and brutalities of the system. His evidence, which occupied the greater part of one day's sitting, read like a page out of the history of the Middle Ages, and is regarded as the great event of the trial. The object of calling him as a witness was to prove the accuracy of a number of allegations against the method of the Russian Government which were contained in the confiscated pamphlets. Another witness nearly as impressive was M. Buchholz who spoke as a man of affairs who had practical experience of the grinding tyranny he described. He told several stories of injustice and cruelty, and pointed out that the murderers of Ministers were the deliberate avengers of their victims, that punishment followed their tyrannous measures as inevitably as effect followed

cause. The whole legality of this prosecution for sedition is questioned by lawyers. The Russian Consul-General at Königsberg supplied the German authorities with a translation of the Russian Criminal Code, showing that the essential condition of the validity of legal proceedings in Germany for sedition against the Czar and his empire is that reciprocal treatment shall be meted out by the Russian Government for similar offences within its jurisdiction. The Russian Consul-General omitted, however, the saving clause, which demanded that the reciprocity in question must be explicitly guaranteed by act, statute, or treaty. Such an understanding only exists between Russia and Austria. The German authorities blindly accepted the Consul-General's assurances without further inquiry, and on the seventh day of the trial the testimony of experts proved that reciprocal treatment was not guaranteed, and frantic inquiries to all the Foreign Departments of State confirmed the discovery.

The real defendants in this remarkable trial were not the nine poor prisoners in the dock, but the Czar and his Government, and all interest during this trial was diverted from the peasant prisoners to the internal state of Russia. This change of interest was the work of the admirable Bar employed for the defence. In legal acumen, in dexterity in catching a point and manipulating it, in all the qualities that go to make able cross-examiners and forceful advocates, they were the superiors of the Crown lawyers, and in knowledge of law-German and Russianthey were the superiors of the Bench.

AN electrocution at Sing Sing is thus described in the Law Times:

The toilet of the chair is a somewhat dread ordeal. First comes the barber, who crops the hair close to the scalp, and shaves on the left side of the head a space about the size of a five shilling piece. A bath follows, and the prisoner is next led to a cell where he puts on the last suit he will ever wear. The right leg of the trousers has the outer seam ripped

from about the ankle to the mid-thigh. And now give him fortitude, for his hour is verily

come.

The incandescent lamps blazing in the death chamber testify that the great dynamo 200 yards away is ready to do the bidding of the executioner. As the condemned man enters, these lamps are turned off, and the current now brings darkness. In the middle of the room stands the chair, furnished with solid straps, and the metal cap at the back to receive the head. A few seconds and the man sits pinioned in the chair; he can move but a fraction of an inch. Behind the chair stands Davis, the executioner, who draws back the murderer's head and fits the cap over it. Not a word is heard except the chaplain's recitation of the service for the dead. When the head is made fast, and the face compressed by a band, Davis steps to the front of the chair and rapidly surveys the body straps. All is complete. The warden's signal to the executioner is scarcely perceptible, and Davis throws the lever on the switchboard. Behind a screen another official turns on the power, and the current of death flows through the rigid frame in the chair. The flesh and muscles of the murderer suddenly swell, and the leather bindings groan. Silence succeeds, and a doctor now comes forward to the chair. Fifty seconds pass, and at a sign from the doctor the current ceases and the stethoscope is applied. Two doctors join the first; the result of their conference is reported to the warden, who makes his silent signal as before, and a second time the figure in the chair-inanimate to all appearance now-is swept by that resistless current. This time there is no response. Is the victim dead? No one truly knows, but it is seemingly a corpse that falls from the loosened fastenings, and it is certainly a corpse that is laid some hours later on the dissecting-table.

THE unfortunate position of "The Dog before the Courts" calls forth the following protest from The New York Law Journal:

There is a custom-more honored in the

breach than the observance-for judges when a dog case comes into court to try to be funny. Some passable humor has been evolved, but most of the effusions are trite and flat. We respectfully suggest to the judiciary of the land that the traditional obligation of writing a "comic" in every dog case be now considered fully discharged, and that from this time forth man's best animal friend, when he is haled into court, be treated with the seriousness and respect which he would demand and which really are his due.

In matters of legal substance also a cavalier and inconsequential spirit has been indulged. The dog has too often been viewed as an outlaw among domestic animals. There has been considerable casuistry and quibbling whether a dog can be considered property. Some courts hold that at common law a dog does not constitute property; other courts say that he constitutes a qualified kind of property; while the courts of some of the newer States, that are least embarrassed by precedent, have inclined to look upon the dog as property in the ordinary sense. We think the latter view is the only rational

one.

Where the courts of a State hold that dogs are not property the law should be changed by statute. There is no sound reason why the owner of a dog should not be able to reclaim him by replevin, or recover damages for his conversion, or for his injury or destruction if the same occur without contributory negligence on the owner's part.

THE Foreign Office (says the Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation), has collected some interesting information as to the financial support given in foreign countries from State or municipal funds to dramatic, operatic, or musical performances. There is hardly a country, it would appear, in which such aid is not given in some form or another. France has, in Paris alone, four national theatres, which, in addition to occupying buildings rent free, receive by way of subsidy: the Opéra £32,000, the Opéra Comique £12,000, the Théâtre Francais

£9600, the Odéon £4000, subject to certain conditions. In the provinces popular concerts are also subsidised. In Germany, the Royal Prussian Opera House and Play House in Berlin receive £54,000 from the revenue of the Crown. In Italy, La Scala at Milan receives £3900 a year (for fifty performances), and the theatre at Naples £3200. Portugal has two theatres in Lisbon belonging to the State. Sweden has its Theatre Royal at Stockholm, receiving about £3330, and a Royal Academy of Music; Norway its national theatre at Christiania, receiving £1111 a year. In Switzerland most of the cantons grant subsidies for music. Spain supports a "Conservatorio of Music and the Drama" at Madrid at a cost of about £7300 a year. In Belgium, most of the large municipalities subsidise one or more theatres, and in many cases own them, the management being subject to strict regulations. The Opera House at Vienna was built out of State funds at a cost of more than half a million, and receives a subsidy of £24,000 a year. Hungary has four subsidised theatres. In Egypt, an annual subvention of £5000 is given to the Société Artistique for sixty representations (thirty-six opera, twenty-four comedy) at Cairo and Alexandria. Athens keeps up the tradition. of Pericles-intervallo-by a subsidy of £125 to £250 a year. Denmark and Russia are the two countries which take the subject most seriously. In Denmark, the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, is under the management of the Ministry of Religion and Education and the aim is to produce impartially the best dramatic works of ancient and modern authors and composers. Sad to relate, this elevation of aim results in an annual deficit of about £10,000. In Russia also the theatre is looked upon as an educational institution which ought to be within the reach of all. It is possible to enjoy the opera for 5d., Russian plays for 3d., and French and German plays for 9d. or 10d. To this end three Imperial theatres are supported by the Emperor at St. Petersburg, and three at Moscow, at a cost of £300,000. A sort of People's Palace-"Nazodny Dom"-is also also

maintained at St. Petersburg, Warsaw, and Kieff, under the direction of the temperance societies at a cost of £300,000 a year.

IN the Law Times (London), Wyatt Paine says of "Justice of the Peace in the Olden Times":

The average wage of a skilled artificer or shop assistant in the year of grace 1703 was £4 per annum. A best manservant got £5, a best womanservant, £3, 'second sort not above' £2 10s., 'the other sort' (alas! how well the average mistress of the present day knows that 'other sort') not above £2. A generous magistracy accorded a master carpenter and plumber, working as a jobber, the princely wage of Is. 6d. per day with'The out provisions, or 'with meat' 9d. second sort,' Is. a day, or 'with meat' 6d. Nor was it possible for a generous employer to give higher wages, even if he felt, in the language of Mrs. Gamp, 'so dispoged,' the schedule ending: 'None shall give greater wages than these, so rated as aforesaid, on pain of £5, and ten days' imprisonment without bail. The servant convicted of taking more wages than so rated shall suffer twenty-one days' imprisonment without bail.' Multifarious Multifarious and strange were the general duties of magistrates in the days when Queen Anne was not dead, and legislators had yet to learn that religion cannot be regulated by an Act of Uniformity, or morals by the gentle persuasions of pillory and whipping at the cart's tail. Amongst other things, justices (perhaps because under an earlier dispensation some people had entertained angels unawares) were required to impress upon their neighbors the sacred obligations of hospitality by Act of Parliament, it being provided by I Jac. 2, c. 10 (under penalty of 40s.), that none of the royal servants in their progresses shall be compelled to pay above 6d. per night for a bed for themselves, nor above 3d. for a bed for their servants; and where they pay for their diet, or provender for their horses, lodging shall be provided for them and their servants for nothing.'

Religious persecution was rife everywhere, and prosecutions for ecclesiastical offences numerous, consequently due enforcement of the penal Acts of the period against 'dissenters and such-like vermin' must have occupied a considerable amount of the time and attention of the worthy administrators of the law. . . .

As may be expected, eating flesh in Lent or on fish-days was a heinous offence, punishable by fine or imprisonment, during the happy Carolinian period of English religious freedom; and by 35 Eliz., c. 7 (not then repealed), 'any person suffering such offence in his house and not discovering it forfeited 13s. 4d.' Where, however, a person, 'being sick and in physick and much inclined to sickness and of a weak constitution of body, could not eat or feed upon fish or restrain from eating of flesh,' the archbishop, or the vicar of the parish as his deputy, might grant the invalid a special license rendering him no longer liable to penalties. If however, the interesting invalid, in search of health, ventured to travel on a Sunday and fell among thieves during his journey, his lawful penalties against the hundred were forfeited as a punishment for his wicked and illegal peregrinations.

General warrants at this period were still in vogue, and any two justices desirous of 'flushing a covey' of vagabonds had only to issue a precept under 7 Jac. 1, c. 4, to the constable and headboroughs of the district in which he resided to secure sufficient delinquents to satisfy any reasonable being's judicial cravings. The condign punishments ordinarily inflicted by 'Mr. Justice Shallow' were, however, sometimes tempered by economical considerations, and his wrath against beggars on the highway seems to have applied to the flagitious act in his own immediate neighborhood rather than to begging in the abstract; a special license to beg, under 22 Hen. 8, c. 12, being occasionally granted to a very poor man' upon an information that 'the town where he resided is at present charged with more poor and impotent folk than it is able to relieve.' Two

hundred years since, in spite of the startling lesson of the 30th Jan. 1649, the doctrine of Divine right still flourished, and the healing power of the Creator's vicegerent in cases of scrofula was fully believed in, and often implored by the sick; though, in order that virtue should not go out of the sacred body of the monarch twice, a magistrate's certificate that the ailing child had not already been touched was requisite before the health-giving finger of royalty could be impressed on the unfortunate sufferer from King's Evil.

In spite, however, of this precaution, the supply was not equal to the demand, and Charles II., by Order in Council, established a close time for monarchs, during which their healing virtues were allowed to accumulate.

Even the majesty of death was not exempt from magisterial jurisdiction, a special statute enacting (30 Car. 2, c. 3), under penalty of £5, recoverable by distress, that no corpse should be shrouded for burial in any material save pure wool only. And, in order to prevent any evasion of this postmortem encouragement of the wool trade, the poor body could not receive the last rites of the Church, or rest in holy ground to wait the great awakening, without a magistrate's warranty that it had been duly enwrapped in proper taxpaying cere clothes.

THE following Lawyer's Funny Stories are related by Eli Perkins in the Sunday Magazine:

They told me a story up in Oldtown, Maine, about Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller.

Young Fuller belonged to the Oldtown Debating Club. One evening the debate was for and against capital punishment. The deacon of the church was for hanging, and young Fuller opposed him in the debate.

Deacon Skinner began his debate with a knock-down argument. He held up a big family Bible, saying: "I will read to you debaters who oppose capital punishment what God said to Moses: 'Who so sheddeth man's