Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 07.pdf/434

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Editorial Department.

pool. Carlyle showed it when he sneered at our war for the " niggers." The English nation has always evinced the same spirit in affairs of state. So Nelson was applauded to the echo for bom barding Copenhagen and burning the Danish fleet because Denmark would not surrender her ships to England as a hostage for neutrality in the Napoleonic war. So she crowded her com merce on China. So she pushed the French out of America and India and off the islands of the sea. So she burned our capitol, and impressed our seamen. So she made war upon the Boers. So she keeps Ireland under the foot of her land lords. So she would have interfered to our national destruction in the Civil War if she could have seen her way clear. The same encroaching and bullying spirit has always marked her counsellors and her people all through her history. She has built herself up by crushing out small and weak nations. She could never be magnanimous to her conquered enemies — she allowed Joan to be burnt, Ney to be shot, Napoleon to be banished. The St. James Gazette says that if Cornell had won the challenge cup there would probably have been serious unpleasantness. We can easily be lieve it. The cup never will be allowed to leave the island. England's motto is " get all we can and keep all we get." She sneers at Brother Jonathan for his love of the "almighty dollar," but John Bull loves a guinea more than five times as much. We have reserved our crowning proof of the legendary character of England's "fair play" — the one most interesting to law yers — until the last. In England a man may have a divorce for his wife's adultery, but a woman cannot have a divorce for her husband's adultery unless it is accompanied by personal cruelty to her.

Judge Ersk1ne. — The tribute of the Georgia bar to the memory of Judge Erskine could have been written by no other pen than that of Chief Justice Bleckley. It contains an accurate, honest and felicitous estimate of his powers and achieve ments, and is imbued with a tender and appre ciative spirit that is peculiar to its author. Several things in it are new to us and striking. It is remarkable that the favorite historical hero of this Irishman should have been Oliver Cromwell. We here learn that the Judge was an expert in

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and a lover of the old science of special pleading. Also that like Lord Chancellor Eldon he " stole his wife." " Falstaff was a perpetual delight to him," says the memorialist; he might have added that he once wrote an essay to prove that the "fat knight " was no coward. Part of this was published in the Albany Law Journal years ago. Only one expression in the memorial grates on us — "wholesome vanity." Wholesome pride would better express the character of his self-re spect, it seems to us, and convey a better idea of the beautiful old man's nature. LITERARY NOTES. The July number of the North Amer1can Re v1ew opens with a discussion of " Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offences," in which Mark Twain satirically protests against Cooper's poverty of invention and dullness of word-sense. The Hon. Frederic C. Penfield, U. S. Diplomatic Agent and Consul-General to Egypt, contributes a highly interesting paper on "Con temporary Egypt," showing the land of the Nile as it exists to-day, while in "Thirty-Years in the Grain Trade," Egerton R. Williams reviews the history of the grain trade in the United States for the last three decades. " How Free Silver would Affect Us," is ably explained by the Hon. Edward O. Leech, late director of the mint, who, writing from the gold stand ard point of view, considers free silver coinage would be a national disgrace as well as a national mis fortune. Two articles by Herbert Spencer are to be pub lished in the July Popular Sc1ence Monthly. One is devoted to the " Dancer and Musician," in his se ries of " Professional Institutions; the other is an oc casional article under the title " Mr. Balfour's Dialec tics," in which he discusses some of the claims con cerning things supernatural made in Balfour's Foundations of Belief. An article of especial interest to the legal profession, is " A Medical Study of the Jury System " by Dr. T. D. Crothers. In the July Arena one of the features to attract attention is the symposium on "The Age of Con sent," to which several well-known representatives of different states contribute. Among those who oppose any change in the present laws, regarding them as adequate and based upon physiological as well as sociological requirements are the Hon. C. H. Robin son of Iowa and the Hon. A. C. Tompkins of Ken tucky. t