The Legal World The bill consolidating and amending the copyright laws was one of the most important to be passed during the closing hours of the 60th Congress. It extends the copyright period from fourteen to twenty-eight years, and gives foreign authors a period of sixty days in which to make arrangements for publication in this country. William Wirt Howe, twice President of the American Bar Association, former general counsel for the Texas & Pacific Railway and the American Sugar Refinery Company, died Mar. 17 at the age of seventy-six years, at New Orleans. He was born at Canandaigua, N. Y., and educated at Hamilton College, Clinton, N. Y. He enlisted in the Union Army at the beginning of the Civil War and rose to the rank of Major. He was the author of several works on civil law. The federal grand jury at New York found a verdict early in March against the American Sugar Refining Company, charged with having evaded import duty by the use of dishonest scales. This involves the payment of $134,116 in penalties. An appeal was taken but the government went ahead with another case involving $1,500,000 on similar charges of false weight. Hon. Charles E. Parker, formerly Presiding Justice of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York, Third Depart ment, died in his native place, Oswego, N. Y., Mar. 2. He was born in 1836 and was gradu ated from Hobart College in the class of 1857. Studying law with his father, John M. Parker, he was admitted to the bar in 1859, and was elected in 1867 to the State Constitutional Convention. In 1883 he was elected County Judge and Surrogate of Tioga County, and in 1887 a Justice of the Supreme Court. In October, 1895, he was appointed by Gov. Levi P. Morton Presiding Justice of the Ap pellate Division, Third Department. He held this place until Jan. 1, 1907, when he retired by reason of the age limit. On the Supreme Bench he made a reputation as one of the most learned and brilliant Justices ever at the head of the Appellate Division. His opinions were notable for the clarity and ac curacy of his reasoning. While occupied by legal problems he frequently relieved his mind by reading dime novels of the "Nick Carter" type. He was much interested in scientific agriculture.
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An important decision was rendered in the United States District Court at Kansas City, Mo., March 8, by Judge Smith McPherson of the United States Circuit Court for the southern district of Iowa, declaring the twocent railway rate laws of Missouri invalid. Judge McPherson regarded the evidence as showing without question that the rates did not allow a fair and reasonable profit. Mr. John F. Geeting delivered a lecture be fore the Law School of Northwestern Uni versity March 22, in which he illustrated what he called some defects and absurdities in the Illinois criminal code, which he de scribed as "a sort of a crazy-quilt consisting of an indiscriminate patchwork. Many of these patches are the result of spasmodic legislation in which previous laws have been lost sight of in efforts to enact new laws to cover particular cases, already within the law." Judge R. M. Benjamin, who went to Bloomington, Ill., in 1856, after graduating from the Harvard Law School and was ad mitted to the bar on an examination certifi cate signed by Abraham Lincoln, delivered an address at the Lincoln centennial at Bloomington recently, on "Lincoln, the Lawyer, and his Bloomington Speeches." Judge Benjamin considers the best descrip tion of Mr. Lincoln as a lawyer that he has ever read to be that by Thomas Drummond, at one time Judge of the United States Cir cuit Court for the seventh district. Judge Drummond thus described Mr. Lincoln as a lawyer: "Without any of the personal graces of the orator; without much in the outer man indicating superiority of intellect; without great quickness of perception, still, his mind was so vigorous, his comprehension so exact and clear, and his judgment so sure that he easily mastered the intricacies of his profes sion and became one of the ablest reasoners and most impressive speakers at our bar. With a probity of character known by all; with an intuitive insight into the human heart; with a clearness of statement which was itself an argument; with uncommon power and felicity of illustration—often, it is true, of a plain and homely kind—and with that sin cerity and earnestness of manner which car ried conviction, he was perhaps one of the most successful lawyers we have ever had in the state."
