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the chain about every serf throughout all the Russias. The fall of the Bastille aroused her fear and indignation and forever shattered all her dreams of betterment for the burgher and the peasant. "She, who had been the friend and disciple of the French specula tive writers, now wished to be reënveloped in the ages of barbarism . . . and the legislatrix of the North, forgetting her own maxims and philosophy, was no longer any thing more than an old cybil." So complete was her volt-face that she publicly con demned even the American Revolution, which she had formerly pretended to ap prove, called Washington a rebel, declared that no honorable man could wear the or der of Cincinnatus, and forbade the insignia to be worn by the few Russians upon whom it had been conferred. No more reform measures were insti tuted, and the ancient administrative and ju dicial vices were permitted to reappear with out rebuke, while she furiously entered into the Polish intrigues and imprisoned or ex iled every Russian author of liberal word in speech or book. THE Free Church of Scotland case calls forth the following sharp comment from the Law Magasine and Review (London) : To the vast majority of the Scottish peo ple, apart altogether from religious creed, the result appears in the light of a great wrong committed in the name of the law. Whatever may be said of the law, the judg ment of the House of Lords is glaringly in equitable, for let us see what it means. It means that a minority represented by 27 out of 670 members of the Free Church Assem bly of 1900 are to have the whole church funds and buildings, variously estimated to be worth between seven and ten millions sterling, handed over to them to propagate the narrow Calvinistic doctrine of Predesti nation. It means that the well-appointed churches of the cities and large centres, now held by the United Free Church, are in fu ture to be controlled by ministers and elders from remote highland parishes, who certain ly could not be comfortable in the posses
sion of organs or choirs, or cushioned pews or stained glass windows, all of which are, in their opinion, the direct inventions of Satan. It means that only one out of every thirty-six of the churches will have a con gregation of worshippers, for it is notorious that the huge money and property bribe which is now daily dangled before the erring majority has met with scant response. It means, finally, that the educational colleges of the church at home, and its whole mis sionary enterprise abroad are paralyzed, for they cannot be maintained without students and missionaries, and of these only an in significant sprinkling belong to the victo rious minority. . . . There is, however, one aspect of the case which we cannot altogether ignore. It is said that gifts should, as far as possible, be regulated by the donor's intention; but is it possible to believe that any considerable section of those who from 1843 onwards contributed money and property for the es tablishment and enlargement of the Free Church intended that they and their suc cessors should be bound by the letter of a dogma, which, however it may have suited the age in which it was framed and the men tal temperament of the trainers, was, 'in many parts, utterly revolting to nine-tenths of those who, since the great disruption, built up the Free Church? . . The decision is to be regretted, not only because it in troduces into Scotland a state of chaos which only legislation can remedy, but be cause it strikes at the foundations of equity, and destroys, or at least seriously imperils, the long-established legal principle that in the interpretation of a gift the donor's in tentions are of the first importance. "PUTTING in One's Own Case on CrossExamination" is the title of an able article by Professor John H. Wigmore, Dean of Northwestern University Law School, in the Yale Law Journal for November. To quote from the article: The Orthodox Rule and the Federal Rule. The great question that arises as to the scope of the cross-examination is whether the opponent may, upon the cross-examina
