another is that he prefers to ride in the smoking car when traveling. It is strange that he doesn't want to ride on the cow-catcher. His father is entitled to congratulations on his success in educating him, for according to his account " he has acquired a wonderful knowledge of law." That is more than can truthfully be said of most of us, probably including his biographer. There is in all this account one ground of hope that the young gentleman may grow up as talented as he is now — " he enjoys romping and playing with his young associates." The " Jour nal "' prefaces the biography further with the state ment that it " has procured detailed facts of the young man's birth and brief career," but we fail to find any detailed facts of his birth or anything to in dicate that there was anything unusual, abnormal or prodigious about it, like that of Macduff. Why would it not be a good scheme for Kansas to elect the young man senator or something, to take effect on his attaining the constitutional age? But there! enough! run away, sonny, and don't bother us any more just now. Play tag, or go bed-a-bye, with your pocket Blackstone under your pillow.
NOTES OF CASES. Verbose Instructions. — Sherwood, J., in State v. Frazier, 137 Mo. 339, gave the following humorous vent to his impatience : " The vain repetitions in which the heathen indulge when making their pray ers finds a full equal, if not a superior, in the instruc tions given in this case, twenty-three in number, and covering nearly eight printed pages. There is in the old arithmetics a chapter entitled . Permutations,' in which is taught how often the changes can be rung on the location of a given number of objects. This chapter would appear to have been consulted before ,the foregoing instructions on self-defense were drawn. But ' what can't be cured must be endured,' and so we have to travel over the superficial area of these instructions as did the trial jury in the court below."
Applause in Court. — In Parker v. State, 33 Tex. Cr. Rep. n 1, the court denied a new trial to the prisoner, on the claim that he was prejudiced by applause of the speech of the people's counsel, it ap pearing that the court suppressed the demonstrations. The court said : "A person with death or imprison ment before him would not hesitate to have his friends ready and willing to applaud counsel for the State, with the risk of being sent to jail for contempt. This could all be arranged and executed, and the court could not ascertain the fraud by learning that the ap plause was instigated by the friends of the accused." This would be a very ingenious claque.
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Action for Unauthorized Autopsy. — Readers of the recent article in this magazine on the " Invio lability of the Human Body " may append to it a ref erence to Burney v. Children's Hospital (Mass.), 38 L. R. A. 413, holding that the father of a child has a right of action for an unauthorized autopsy upon the child; citing Larson v. Chase, 47 Minn. 307; 14 L. R. A. 85; Foley v. Phelps, 1 App. Div. 551.
De Minimis. — It is not often that an article by a law student receives judicial notice, and so the follow ing, from Farrington v. Putnam, 90 Me. 405; 38 L. R. A. 339, will be read with curiosity on account of its condescension and the mild damnation of the student's views : — "The complainants quote in their brief an article in the 'Harvard Law Review ' (January, 1896), in which the writer, who was said at the argument by counsel for complainants to be a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, favors, upon the admittedly doubtful question, the view taken in the McGraw Case, and not that adopted by the United States Su preme Court. But the writer makes no allusion to the fact that the opinion in his favorite case was based on certain stringent statutes of New York affecting the testamentary capacity of the testator to give, as well as upon the lack of ability in the donee to receive, while a different question was presented in Jones v. Habersham, 107 U. S. 174, 27 L. ed. 401, in which Mr. Justice Gray wrote the opinion. The writer also asserts that the latter case received but slight con sideration at the hands of the court, he evidently not being aware that the same case was first deliberately considered and decided by the circuit court, where Bradley, J., of the supreme court, delivered the opinion, Gray, J., stating that fact in the first line of his own opinion." Notice of Defect in Street. — In Cummings v. City of Hartford, decided by the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut in November, 1897 (38 Atl. R., 916), it was held that a notice to a policeman of a defect in a street is a notice to the city, where he is charged with the duty of remedying or reporting de fects. It appeared that after sundown, a policeman charged with the duty of remedying or reporting de fects in streets, found a strip of fifty feet long and three feet deep, where a sidewalk had been removed. He placed a feeble lantern at each end of the strip, but there were no lights or obstructions at the sides, and a pedestrian fell in. It was held that the city was liable. The court cites no authorities in point, but the same doctrine had previously been held in Rehberg v. Mayor, etc., 91 New York, 137; 43 Am. Rep. 657; City of Denver v. Dean, 10 Colo.
