The Black Maria has a very interesting history, for in that very prison wagon some of the Chartist prisoners had ridden to prison, their crime being love of free dom. The origin of the name is not so well known as the history of the wagon. The term originated in this country. When New England was filling with immi grants from the old country, a negress, named Maria Lee, kept a sailors' boarding house in
Boston. She was a woman of Amazonian strength and helped the authorities to keep the peace. Frequently the constables in voked her aid, and the saying " Send for Black Maria " came to mean " Take him to prison." The sailors returning to England frequently used the phrase, and so in the course of time the name of Maria Lee, shortened and altered to Black Maria, became the name of the prison carriage, and has re mained so until this day.
CASES FROM THE OLD ENGLISH LAW REPORTS. By Max A.III. Robertson.
CONTRACTS IMPOSSIBLE OF PERFORMANCE.' WE have nothing to indicate the respec tive callings of the parties to this case, nor the motives which led them to enter into the peculiar contract which it was ad mitted they did enter into. Both parties may have thought that he was driving a good bargain, and that he had got the better of the other. Certain it is that the defendant had not studied the arithmetical progression. No man would willingly agree to supply 524,288,000 quarters of rye for the sum of five pounds, even on the terms that twosixths of that sum should be paid before the commencement of the delivery. But one would like to know whether the plaintiff realized, when he made the bargain, that he was entitled, on the strict construction of the contract, to an amount of grain which would certainly have taxed the agricultural resources of England, even if the defendant's counsel was not wholly justified in asserting that there was not so much rye in the whole world. But while we are left to speculate on the 1 Thornborow v. Whitacre; 2 Ld. Raym., 1164 (1705).
motives and attending circumstances that led to the formation of the contract, its terms happily preserved in all their specious sim plicity and apparent innocence. For the magnificent sum of half a crown in hand, paid, Whitacre agreed to deliver to Thorn borow 2 grains of rye com on Monday the 29th of March, 4 grains on the Monday next following, 8 grains on the subsequent Mon day " ct progressu sic deliberaret quolibet alio die Lunae successive infra unum annum ab eodem 2g Martii bis tot graua secalis qnot die Lunae proximo pracccdente respective deliberanda forent." The balance of the purchase money, amounting to four pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence, was to be paid—mark the plaintiff's caution—on the completion of the contract by the defendant. Such were the terms to which the parties bound themselves, and to an uneducated farmer, in the early years of Anne, we can imagine they apeared tempting. With the characteristic brevity of the old time reporter, Lord Raymond does not vouchsafe any information as to the perform
