make the master " liable to the servant if the cham bermaid put him into a damp bed." But with all his faults Mr. Bishop is decidedly the most original and suggestive writer on law who has illustrated our jurisprudence. If he needs more pa tience and allowance than any other, it must be ad mitted that the exercise of this virtue on the reader's part will bring a plentiful reward. He has written one of the four ablest special commentaries of this country, his work on " Marriage and Divorce," the other three being Pomeroy's " Equity Jurisprudence." Dillon's " Municipal Corporations," and "Thomp son's Corporations." The Decay of Curtesy. — Occasionally an item of American legal news reaches us by way of the London Law Journal, as for example the following: A correspondent sends us the following: " While look ing up a question of law, I stumbled across the following, which is published in the Code of Mississippi as a note to the section abolishing dower and curtesy. It is called a ' Soliloquy of an old lawyer,' and was probably extracted from a brief, for you can hardly imagine that the codiliers would thus have passed their time: ' Venerable relics uf antiquity, you have come down to us from a former gener ation. You have survived the wreck of empires and change of dynasties. Born away back in the womb of time, whereof the memory of man runneth not to the con trary, you have outlived the War of Roses, passed safely through the Protectorate, crossed the ocean, survived the great American Revolution and rode out of the storm of the late war. Whatever attendants were absent from the bridal altar, you two at least were always there; and when the bride and groom mutually murmured, ' With all my worldly goods I thee endow,' you as priest and priestess, sealed the covenant. Like shades you've followed the twain blended into one and when either fell, one of you administered the balm of consolation to the survivor. If pure religion and undefiled be to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, thy mission has been akin to it. Venerable priest and priestess of the common law, fare well! You have been pleasant in your lives, and in death have not been divided.'" Mississippi has also abolished another ancient in stitute, the rule in Shelley's Case. Mississippi was the first state to enact a measure of emancipation of married women from the tyranny of husbands over their estates. So far as we know it is the first to abolish dower and curtesy. Mr. Field's code proposed to do this in New York, but Governor Robinson vetoed it on the ground that the profane hand of the codifier had been laid on that inefficient and inconvenient ark of dower. By the way Mississippi is the only State that ever judicially pronounced that the husband had a right to chastise his wife. Sect. 1608 of the Mississippi code is en titled " Infants not to lie about their ages," and in flicts a penalty on false infants who lie in order to
get strong drink. This is pretty hard on girl infants. The opening sentence of the extract above is a para phrase of Daniel Webster's apostrophe to the survivors.of the Revolution, in his oration on the laying of the'eorner stone of Bunker Hill Monument. By the same code it is a criminal offence to pilfer wool from a dead sheep or milk from a live cow. Mariners are exempt from working on roads, probably meaning roads on land. Divorce is allowed for excessive use of opium, morphine is to be sold only in scarlet wrappers. Target shooting at pigeons is prohibited. Seed cotton shall not be sold at night. Causing death in a prize fight is murder, and boxing pine trees is forbidden. Teaching polygamy is a misde meanor. A judge failing to hold court (except upon account of high water, sickness, or accident) suffers a deduction from his salary, two days for one. Inn keepers shall maintain fire-alarm bells or gongs. Cities may tax corn-doctors, pet bear exhibitors, for tune-tellers, lung-testers, feather renovators, rollercoasters, muscle-testers, and ten-pin alleys (without regard to the number 0/ pins used). Mere fools are not admitted to insane asylums. In the index one entry is puzzling: -Fish, explosives, not to be taken by." Does this mean that fish are not to take ex plosives, or that they are not to be taken by explo sives? If a physician while drunk, professionally kills a person, it is manslaughter. So of the killing of a human being by a dangerous animal carelessly kept by its owner. Physicians may extract teeth without a dentist's license. Enticing away a laborer is a mis demeanor. Smoking-tobacco may not be given to children, but there is no provision as to chewing-to bacco. Dog and cat meat are forbidden to be sold. " Swapping babies " is prohibited.
Didn't recognize Shakespeare. — An account comes from England showing how some English law yers are apparently unacquainted with the chief glory of their country. It is reported that in the pro bate suit of Cartwright v. Cartwright, the will of the testator was impugned on the ground that at the time of its execution he was not of sound mind, memory, or understanding, and the following docu ment, written by the testator, was produced in evi dence of his mental aberration : " Aunt showed your letter with an account of your son's death. It seemed it happened very suddenly. We are sorry to hear of the boy's death. But all must die, passing through nature to Eternity, to die and go we know not where. To lie in cold obstruction and to rot, this sensible warm motion to become a kneaded clod, and the delighted spirit to bathe in fiery flood or to rise in thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice. To be impris oned to the viewless winds and blown with restless
