McGibbon, a most delightful afternoon was brought to a close."' Then follow the names of an appall ing array of big-wigs, and the statement in conclu sion that " a large number of the players and spec tators subsequently dined at the Forest and Stream Club." The rest is silence. The eminent host writes us: "You will be gratified to observe that the law yers succeeded in defeating their clients." On the contrary, we think it would have been more just for the clients to have beaten for once. It would not have cost the lawyers anything, and would have in vested the relation with a variety pleasant at least to the clients. Recent personal experience has led us to believe that it is less agreeable to be a client than a lawyer. We sincerely hope that the clients took their revenge at the dinner.
NOTES OF CASES. EXCESSIVE FEES. — Judge Hatch of the New York Supreme "Court (well known to the readers of THE GREEN HAG through his able article in these pages on "The Trial of Christ") makes some forcible and well-warranted observations on the subject of attor neys', referees' and stenographers' fees, in Halbert v. Gibbs, 16 App. Div. 126. He says: "In the present case we think that nothing appears which justified the attorney in the abandonment of his client in the midst of the trial. We have rehearsed the facts for the purpose of showing what we regard as the unjustifiable delay in the prosecution of this action and the enormous expense, comparatively, which has attended it. This class of actions, while complicated as to items as a house is of parts, is not, beyond that fact, difficult or extra ordinary. Such actions engage the attention of the courts at each term and are disposed of with but little delay when proper effort is made to that end. This suit has now been before the referee for four years. The fees already paid amount to $6,600 more than the plaintiffs original claim. The item now demanded,by the defendant's attorney is 83,410, making the claims paid and those demanded, of which we now know, the sum of $10,010, and the end is not yet. For a long time the fees of referees led the pro cession of fees and frequently amounted to more than the sums paid to counsel. But the established order cannot always maintain itself. .Stenographers looked with jealous eye upon this fatness of fees. Modestly, but with deter mination, pertinacity and legislation to aid, they crept up, desire ever keeping pace with opportunity, until it has brought them to the top, with appetites whetted and keen 'scent for more. It is the usual thing now that stenogra phers' fees are greater than referees' fees. We read in the present record : 'The referee has been paid about seventeen hundred dollars. The stenographer has received about nineteen hundred dollars.' And more is to come. The defendant surely can testify that the sentimental age, when honor and renown was the motive which brought men to devotion in the law, has passed away. He seems to have
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met only the hardest kind of hard, practical facts, and is at present being ground between the upper millstone of the plaintiff's active efforts and the lower millstone of his attorney's refusal to act, or to permit anyone else to do so. It is these things which bring the administration of justice into disrepute. This practice courts should lay hold of with an iron hand, setting their stern disapproval upon such methods. The system impoverishes litigants, amounts to a denial of justice, and is the cause of just complaint by the the people."
AN ALLOPATHIC VERDICT. — in Krug v. Pitass, 16 App. Div. (N.Y.) 480, an action of libel of a physician in his professional capacity, the report does not show what the libelous words were, except that Follett, J., in a dissenting opinion, says: "As I read the article, the only expression that can be construed to refer to the plaintiff in his professional capacity is, ' Can we trust the health ot ourselves and our families to the care of such a man as Dr. Krug, who hates us in such a manner that he would drown each of us in a spoonful of water? From this we infer that the Doctor was a homoeopath, but the verdict was not of that order, for it was $6,250 and the court sustained it! The case is poorly reported. It is not even disclosed in what the article was pub lished, although it is inferable that it was in a news paper. "WINE v. WATER." — Under this head the "Albany Law Journal " recently gave a very amusing speech of a humorous lawyer in response to a toast, in which he held a brief for Wine, and ingeniouslyshowed that Water had been more destructive to the human race than Wine. In looking over 16 App. Div. (N.Y.) it seems that honors in that volume are about even, for there is one case of damages for injury by a beer-wagon and one by- an ice-wagon.
EXPOSING SERVANT то INFECTION. — In Kliegel v. Aitkin, 35 L. K. A., 249, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin have recently held that a master is liable for exposing to a contagious or infectious disease a servant who is ignorant of the danger and unable to know of it by the exercise of ordinary care, and who thereby contracts the disease, if the master knew, or in the exercise of ordinary care ought to have known, of the danger, and did not warn the servant. The court relied on Gilbert v. Hoffman, 66 Iowa, 205; 55 Am. Rep. 263, a case of a guest at an inn getting small-pox from another guest there, and Smith v. Baker, 20 Fed. Rep. 709, a case where defendant took his whooping children to a boarding-house, where they communicated the cough to the child of the housekeeper and kept away other boarders.
