tion, the parties to the marriage have lived apart, and that the other party concurs in the petition.' That is to say, that if two people have married and entered into the most solemn obligation that can possibly exist among man kind, it is enough for them to live apart for one year and both consent to the dissolution of the marriage, and upon that the Court shall pro nounce a decree of divorce. I take that alone — I decline to discuss a great many of the other topics which might fairly be the subject of discussion — I take that alone, and I say that such a provision as that is an outrage upon your Lordships' House, something in the nature of an insult to your Lordships, and it is a thing which I, for one, deprecate most intensely, and I therefore propose to take this course. Of later years it has been the custom that what is, in effect, a postponement of a bill should be moved, and not its rejection. In an earlier period of your Lordships' history it was very common to move the rejection of a bill, and I propose to move the rejection of this bill. I should have thought it would have been more in accordance with the ordinary practice of your Lordships that I should move an amendment to the second reading in order to introduce the word ' rejection '; but on looking up the precedents, I find it is more usual, first of all, to negative the motion for the second reading, and then subsequently to move the rejection of the bill. I propose to take that course [cheers]. "The Lord Chancellor then put the question, ' That this bill be now read a second time,' and the motion was negatived. "The Lord Chancellor — I now move ' That this bill be rejected.' "The motion was agreed to amid cheers." The matter attracted very little public atten tion, and it seemed to be generally agreed that the decision of the Peers was an emphatic demonstration that there are limits to the toler ance of an English legislative assembly, and that there are some affronts to its moral sense which it declines to treat merely with good-humored contempt. It will be within the recollection of the Ameri can people that Earl Russell was sentenced by the Lord Chancellor, as Lord High Steward, to a term of imprisonment for bigamy committed in the State of Nevada.
LITERARY NOTES. Readers of The Green Bag will recall with pleasure the article in the November, 1901, number on " Webster as an Orator," which was an extract from the " Webster Centennial Ora tion " delivered by Samuel W. McCall at the Webster celebration at Dartmouth College, in September of last year. This address ' has now been published in book form. The occasion which called forth the address was a notable one, but it can be fairly said that the orator rose to the occasion. Without exag gerating his achievements, and considering in a spirit of fairness the points in his career which are open to debate, Mr. McCall has given us a scholarly study of Webster which has both liter ary merit and historical value. As was to be expected, we find here the same admirable inde pendence of thought and judgment which has been displayed courageously more than once by Mr. McCall in political matters. Mr. McCall's address falls naturally into three principal parts,— the consideration of Webster as an advocate and lawyer, as a political orator, and as a statesman. His great work in states manship is somewhat beyond our field, and the extract referred to above treats of his oratory. We shall content ourselves, therefore, with quoting here, briefly, from what is said of Web ster at the bar. "It can be said without exaggeration," says Mr. McCall, " that more nearly than any other, Webster filled the large circle of requirements for that high place, and that he stands at the head of the whole American bar. . . . He was doubtless excelled in some departments of his profession by other lawyers; Curtis was more deeply versed in the law; Choate surpassed him, as indeed, he surpassed all others, in the con stant brilliancy of his advocacy before juries, although Webster made one speech to a jury [ in the White murder case ] which Choate never equalled." But it is especially of the compari son between Webster and William Pinckney,— the most conspicuous figure at the bar during the first thirty years of the Supreme Court's exist ence,— that Mr. McCall speaks. "They were never, " he says, "fairly measured against each 1 Dan1el Webster. By Samuel IK McCall. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902. Cloth : 80 cents, net. ( 124 pp.)
