Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/424

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Editorial Department.

Ahegg, who recently murdered his daughter. He was sentenced at the Assize Court, at Schwytz, to be guillotined, whereupon a local society for the abolition of the punishment of death ap pealed against the sentence on the ground that, according to law, condemned criminals must be beheaded by the sword. The Court of Appeals decided that their view of the law was correct, and this causes a dead-lock, as no man can be found in Switzerland to carry out the sentence of the law in the manner required.

The following " Fraud Upon an Insurance Company," which is taken from the " Deutsche Tabak-Zeitung," is certainly just a little too good to be true. A cunning fellow, who wanted to smoke the best cigars at the cheapest possible cost, bought 1,0oo cigars of the highest quality and corresponding price, and immediately in sured the whole stock. When he had smoked the last of them, he demanded 750 marks from the insurance company on the ground that the whole of his insured stock, ten boxes of cigars, had been consumed by fire! The Solomonic court decided in favor of the plaintiff. The company then brought an action of conspiracy against the smoker, accusing him of having intentionally put fire to his own cigars, and deliberately destroyed his property. Hereupon the same wise court condemned the insured smoker to three months' imprisonment.

The Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut, in Chamberlain v. Hemingway, has decided that a treadmill is not a highway; saying, " A man can take as many steps on a treadmill as on a highway, but he cannot perform a journey on it. The treadmill is not a highway."

In State v. Hawley, 63 Ct., the court deter mines the old question of the guilt of our first parents; saying, " Adam and live were both guilty."

Associate Justice Harlan, of the United States Supreme Court, in a recent address to the gradu ates of the University of Maryland Law School

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said : " At this particular period in our country's history, and in view of the profession you have chosen, I cannot do better than to say something about the Constitution of the United States — how it was framed and adopted by the people. I have often been surprised to find lawyers who have not read the Constitution, although it might be read in the time passed on the street discuss ing the last baseball game."

A strange story is told in connection with the finding of a will that was filed in the Probate Court of an Ohio county, and the readers of The Green Bag may be interested in the account of the manner of finding the will as related by a brother of the deceased, and in a copy of the will itself. The brother tells the following marvelous story as to the manner of finding the will. He says that on Tuesday night, June 17, he and his fam ily could get but little rest owing to unaccount able noises in the house. Doors slammed and peculiar knockings disturbed their slumbers. Towards morning Mr. B got up to investi gate the mystery. A rummaging sound seemed to issue from one room, and he opened the door and looked in and was astounded to see what appeared to be the form and face of his brother Dan bending over a desk in the corner. He summoned courage to ask him what was wanted, and the reply was, "Those papers." The form was luminous, and when it had uttered these words it faded before his eyes and disappeared. Mrs. B was of course told the story and she was very careful to stay away from that particular room. When her husband returned she was a badly frightened woman and told him that she had heard peculiar sounds in that room during the day, as though caused by lifting the desk lid and letting it fall. He then resolved to make an examination, and after rummaging through the desk the will was found. The will itself is a literary curiosity. "Bucyrus Crawford County May the 211885 this is my last will and testament after my dith first my detts are god to be paid then the car (photograph car) and the machinery goyes to will n B and my Cloth (clothes) to J P B and to L Mollenhaph Absolom is to git ten dolares i place of cloth (clothes) he cand ware eney of them and