The Legal Secretary of War Jacob M. Dickinson left Washington for Panama April 18 and expects to be back to Washington about the middle of May. Walter Reeves, former Congressman from Illinois and a defeated candidate for Gov ernor, died in Streator, Il1., April 9. He studied law while he taught school, and early came to be regarded one of the leading lawyers of the state. Honorable James Maclennan has retired on superannuation from the Supreme Court of Canada after a long and honorable service at the Ontario bar and on the bench at Toronto and Ottawa. His successor is Mr. Justice Anglin, who leaves the Exchequer Division of the High Court of Ontario to be come a member of the Supreme Court in Ottawa. As a result of the limitation placed upon new business of life insurance companies, the New York Life Insurance Company will on May 31 discharge one thousand of its agents. The order was rendered necessary by the decision rendered April 2 by Supreme Court Justice O'Gorman upholding the constitu tionality of that section which limits new business in any calendar year to $150,000,000.
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It is announced that President Taft's article on his judicial decisions and his election will appear in the June number of The English Review. The May number will contain bis paper on Panama Canal. The Senate on April 19 confirmed the nominations of Ira A. Abbott to be Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of New Mexico and of Aloysius I. McCormick to be United States Attorney for the southern district of California. The firm of Paxton & Warrington of Cin cinnati has been dissolved, and Messrs. Thomas B. Paxton, Thomas B. Paxton, Jr., George H. Warrington, and Murray Seasongood have formed a partnership in that city under the firm name of Paxton, Warrington and Seasongood. Sir Francis William Maclean, K.C.I.E., Chief Justice of the High Court at Calcutta, retired from the bench March 11. His re tirement furnished an occasion for general regret, both in the community and in the profession, as his administration had been marked by eminent services, and some of his decisions had formed landmarks of Indian law.
Federal indictments against Governor C. N. Haskell of Oklahoma and others charged with fraud in Muskogee town lots, were quashed April 10 in the United States Circuit Court, on the ground that they were returned by a grand jury composed of twenty-three men under the Federal law, instead of a jury of sixteen, as provided for by the Arkansas law which was held to be in force in Indian terri tory by Federal enactment. Sylvester Rush, special assistant attorney general, stated that he would again present the matter to the grand jury.
The Boston Bar Association April 10 adopted a code of professional ethics not exactly similar to that of the American Bar Association, going into greater particularity on some topics. The adoption of the code was largely due to the zeal of Alfred Hemenway, the president. Members are required not to aspire to the bench unless they are qualified for judicial position; not to assert in court their personal belief in their client's innocence; not to mix their client's money with their own; not to curry favor with juries; not to connive at chicane; and to appear as lawyers, not as lobbyists, before legislative bodies.
The International Naval Conference, which was in session for an extended period in Lon don, agreed upon a code regulating the rights of neutrals and belligerents in time of war. As to blockade, an important change is made in existing practices. Hitherto, under AngloAmerican practice, a vessel might be seized on any part of its voyage to or from a block aded port. Under the new regulations, the right of seizure is restricted to the imme diate area of the blockading operation. The agreement as to contraband classifies certain articles as absolute contraband, certain others as absolute non-contraband, and certain others as contraband under some conditions.
Federal Judge Smith McPherson, in an amended decree at Kansas City, April 17, reserved exclusive jurisdiction in Missouri's rate cases, and in effect instructed the state courts to keep out of the case. The decree dissolved the pending injunction to restrain the eighteen railroads operating in Missouri from putting the three-cent passenger rate into effect. But the Missouri roads will probably be forced, nevertheless, to establish passenger rates of two and one half rather than three cents. In a supplementary decision handed down April 28, Judge McPherson also de cided that the section of the state statutes imposing penalties was void.
