a mere formal sign of office. What would a western Democrat say of a sheriff who should appear on the gallows, in exercise of his office, arrayed in anything but his " customary suit of solemn black"? Even the cow-boys would hoot at him. Why should not a judge be as distinctively and solemnly clad as a hangman? The truth is, that the ranting against the judicial robe is simply the outcry of levellers, who struggle to effect their own elevation by the pulling down of others. Part envy, part ignorance, part truckling for political favor, part contempt for all things solemn and sacred, this fierce denunciation of a gown on a magistrate is what one naturally expects only from a socialist, who wants all things in com mon and all things common. His cry is, " One man is as good as another." It is not true — he ought to be, but he is not. We select our judges from the recognized better class of men, and we would put gowns on them as a sort of visible seal of public ap probation of the men themselves and of reverence for their high office. So we cordially approve of what the " Tribune " says : — "Familiarity does breed contempt, and perfect repub lican equality is not incompatible with such distance and reserve as make a court of justice a place where conven tionality gives some stimulus to the sense of reverence for the institution intrusted with the most sacred of secular functions. Perhaps that stimulus is more needed in a de mocracy than elsewhere, because other institutions tend to deaden reverence; and anything within reasonable bounds, like a gown, a crier, a form of address, an impressive room, which tends to make of the courts to men's minds some thing apart from the ordinary public office, is to be com mended." Excess1ve Annotat1on. — Is the excellent " Law yers' Reports Annotated " going to degenerate into a series of text-books? We hope not, and therefore regret to see a " note," in the number of October I, of 1 20 pages, double columns, fine type, on the topic of " Knowledge as an element of an employers lia bility to an injured servant." The opinion in the case covers a little more than a page of the same num ber. The " note" is an exhaustive and very admira ble piece of work, rarely equalled in the annals of annotated reports, but it is not annotation. It is treatise-writing or digest-making. It is magnificent, but it is not war. It needs an analysis or summingup appended, stating the general results. It needs codifying. It undoubtedly is the result of months of research, and must have cost the publishers a great deal of money, and will please the lawyers who de mand every case and the last case, and will enable them to set out a formidable array of authorities on their briefs. But it reminds us of a suggestion squealed out (in our hearing) by Judge Grover, of the New York Court of Appeals, to a learned coun
sel who had cited fifty cases to a single point : "Mr. , you know the court can't look at all these cases. Now will you jest pint out two or three that you set the most store by, and we'll try to look at them." Counsel replied, "The first half dozen will suffice, your honor." The judge settled back in his seat, observing, "Ah, I thought so." We are speaking only for the practitioner. As an annotator we are very grateful for this work; it saves us a great deal. But if the L. R. A. keep this up, the legisla ture may find it necessary to restrain them, as they did the New Hampshire court from publishing vol umes on such questions as killing a mink, etc.
NOTES OF CASES. Elect1on Law — In State v. Bland, Missouri Su preme Court. 41 L. R. A. 297, it was held, two judges dissenting, that the expenditure of more money than the statute permits to secure the nomination and election of a candidate, if made without his knowl edge or consent, will not render his election void. The court uttered the following patriotic senti ments : — "In reaching the conclusion announced in this case, we feel the importance of the questions involved. We realize that pure, fair, and honest elections, untainted by fraud and unstained by even a suspicion of wrongdoing, are the foundations upon which our institutions rest. We appre ciate the especial necessity of rigidly enforcing all constitu tional laws having for their object the protection of the sacred right of the electors to have their wishes faithfully recorded and strictly respected. We understand that the purpose of acts like that of 1893 is to purify elections, by guaranteeing assurance and protection to the law-abiding citizens, and by punishing with symbolic stripe and shaven head, rough fare, and hard labor, all who are so bereft of patriotism, or so impregnated with criminal selfishness, as to pollute the fountain from which spring the liberties of the people. But under the division of powers in our form of government we have no right to trench upon the prerog atives of the other coordinate branches of our govern ment. We have no right to make laws. Our duty and province is ended when we construe and enforce the laws that are made by the legislature, and by as much as we should overstep the boundary lines of our powers, and attempt to invade the province of the legislature, we would be ourselves violators of the Constitution and laws we are solemnly sworn to obey. These truisms in our law are not threadbare utterances. It is as wholesome to re call them to-day as it ever was in our history. They are the alphabet of the language of freedom, and the ultima Ihule of the liberties of our people." But when is anybody punished for fraud upon the election laws? Or if punished, how much does it hurt him? Just now a man is running for lieutenant governor of New York, who was fined a few years ago by the courts for corrupt practice as a high
