SPECIAL ADDRESS. the right of a client to make unfair contracts with his lawyer. If the client has persuaded his lawyer into the contract by false statements of the value of the property, or its cost, or of offers which have been made for it, or misled him by glittering representations of future events, he is not even blamed by the law for doing so; but is merely considered as having exercised the legal privilege, which is a birthright from the common law, of indulging to a certain extent in falsehood and deceit. If the lawyer is a young, inexperienced tyro at the bar, the client may outwit and outmatch him with the wiles learned in long business experience, and retain all the benefits which his actual superiority as a bargain hunter enabled him to secure. The law may be no respecter of persons, but here is certainly a class of cases in which there is one rule for one man and another rule for another. In the cases in which this rule is applied, it is often said that contracts between attorney and client are viewed with suspicion, that the presumption is against the attorney, and that he is required to affirmatively sustain the transaction. If these expressions were taken as indicating that there is any presumption, or even ground for suspicion, against the honesty of attorneys in their dealings, an injustice would be done the profession, which would be greater because of the true basis upon which the rule is founded. It is not that lawyers are presumed to have less honesty or fairness than other men, but they are required, by positive rule, to exercise those qualities in a greater measure. Laymen are permitted to discriminate between legal right and moral wrong, and their lawyers often secure for them in court decrees whose wide departure from actual justice is patent to all. But the case of a lawyer whose dealing with his client is questioned by the latter, is tried in the forum of conscience and decided with the guiding light which its dictates furnishd. It is recog nized that his influence over his client creates a situation in HORACE KENT TENNEY. which unfair dealing would be quite possible, and difficult of detection. Such unfairness would not, with other men, be a violation of the rules of law. But the lawyer is governed by a rule which does not apply to other men, that of fidelity to his client against every one, even himself. In the observance of this rule the mere absence of positive wrong is not enough: those to whom it applies are required to be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion, and to avoid even the appearance of evil. They cannot shape their conduct by the rules which guide other men, and mere silence on the part of a lawyer may be held to be a fraud, where the positive misstatements of a layman would be sanctioned by the judgment of a court. The standards of one are not high enough for the standards of the other, and the rules which apply to the lawyer form a code of ethics as well as law. I speak of this rule with reference to dealings between attorney and client as one which is a credit to the bar, because the bar has created it. Its existence is not due to legislative enactment, supplying the deficiencies of the common law; but it is a part of the unwritten law itself. Our old friend Blackstone says "the decisions of the courts are the evidence of what is the common law." The judges whose decisions have, by formulating, almost created the common law, were themselves lawyers keenly alive to the requirements of professional obligation, and jealous of the honor of the bar. This rule is thus the deliberate, outspoken judgment of the bar, establishing the standards for its own conduct. May we not, without vain glory, take pride in the fact that we have set for ourselves a standard so high that we do not expect others to conform to it? SPECIAL ADDRESS. SPECIAL ADDRESS. JOHN H. S. LEE, OF CHICAGO. My subject is the question, whether or not a parent is liable at common law on a charge of manslaughter for negli gently omitting to furnish medical attendance to his child of tender years, where the failure so to do was caused by the religious disbelief of the parent in the efficacy of medicine, it being admitted for the purposes of this paper that the death of the child resulted or was hastened by the lack of such medical attendance. This question circumscribed though it is, divides itself into several distinct propositions. First, is religious belief a defense for the failure to perform a legal duty? Second, is there such a legal duty resting upon the parent to furnish necessaries to his child? Third, is medical attendance, at common law such a necessity? Taking these questions in the order named, How far, if at all, is religious belief a defense to the performing of an illegal act, or the omission to perform a legal duty? It is admitted that under the law of the various states, an individual is entitled to the free exercise and enjoyment of relig ious profession, and worship without discrimination or preference and the constitutions of the various states provide, as does that of our own (1) that no person shall be denied any (1) Constitution of Illinois, 1870, paragraph 3. JOHN H. S. LEE. civil or political rights, privilege or capacity on account of his religious opinion. It is only when religious convictions become crystallized in acts or omissions, and such acts or omis sions are contrary to law that the question now under consideration presents itself. Numerous decisions have been handed down by our courts upon this subject, and so far as we have been able to find, in every case where the question has been squarely presented, the courts have said that a person is not excused from doing an act which a state can and does prohibit under its criminal or police powers, simply because the doing of the act is a part of the offender's religious belief. Thus, in the oft cited case of Reynolds vs. United States, 98 U. S. 145, the defendant attempted to defend a charge of bigamy under the plea that he was a Mormon, and that, under the religious tenets of the Mormon church, bigamy was not a crime. The Court, however, held "That religious belief can not be accepted as a justification of an overt act made criminal by the law." To the same effect are other decisions noted below, which time forbids me to present. (1) If religious belief is no excuse for the performance of an illegal act, no logical reason appears why it should be such for the omission to perform a legal duty, and that such is not the case, is decided in the case of Regina vs. Downes, 13 Cox Criminal Cases, page 111. In that case a statute has provided that it was an offense for a parent wilfully to neglect to furnish medical aid, among other things, to a child. The defendant offered his religious belief as an excuse for an omission to perform his duty, but the Court held "that where a legal duty existed, a religious belief was no excuse for an omis sion to perform that duty." The essential thing is therefore, the existence of a legal duty. Whether that duty arises by vir (1) Haywood vs. Haywood, 74 Texas, 414. In re King, 46 Fed., 811. Davis vs. Beason, 133 U. S., 639. State vs. White, 64 N. H. Rep., 48. Commonwealth vs. Plaisted, 148 Mass., 375. Scales vs. State, 47 Ark., 476. SPECIAL ADDRESS. tue of an express statute or by the common law would seem necessarily to be unimportant. In Queen vs. MacKekequonak, reported in 2 Canadian Criminal Cases, 138, the defendant attempted without avail to contend, that religious belief might be offered as a defense for the failure to perform a duty where that duty arose only under and by virtue of the common law. Passing then, to the second portion of our question, "Is a parent at common law under a legal obligation to furnish necessaries to his child?" Some cases will be found which apparently decide that while at common law the husband is bound to furnish necessaries to his wife, no such obligation rests upon him to furnish such to his children. These cases will, however, we believe, be found to be cases in which the question has arisen in a civil suit brought by a third person for necessities furnished by such third person to the child. Such civil liability resting upon the parent to reimburse third persons presents a very different question from that presented in a consideration of criminal liability of parents for a failure on their part to perform a duty. Blackstone, Volume 1, 446, referring to the duties of parents says, "By begetting children, they have entered into a voluntary obligation to endeavor so far as in them lies that the life which they have bestowed shall be supported and preserved." That such a legal duty rests upon the parent has been decided in numerous cases. Thus in the case of Regina vs. Hook, 4 Cox Criminal Cases, 460, the Court held, that a parent who has the means to supply necessaries but withholds the same with the wilful determination to cause death, death resulting, is guilty of murder, and if the withholding is negligent, but not wilful, the parent is guilty of manslaughter. And so in Regina vs. Beer, a comparatively late case cited in Canada Law Journal, Volume 32, page 416, the Court said, "It always was the law of England that the parent was bound to furnish necessaries to his infant child, and he was |