"The statement of the fact, however, sinks before the statement of the law, which requires immeasurably higher powers, and is a rarest gift, being in all great masters one and the same thing, in lawyers, nothing technical, but always some piece of common sense, alike interesting to laymen as to clerks. Lord Mansfield's merit is the merit of common sense. It is the same quality we admire in Aristotle, Montaigne, Cervantes, or in Samuel Johnson, or Franklin. Its application to law seems quite accidental. Each of Mansfield's famous decisions contains a level sentence or two, which hit the mark. His sentences are not always finished to the eye, but are finished to the mind. The sentences are involved, but a solid proposition is set forth, a true distinction is drawn. They come from and they go to the sound human understanding; and I read without surprise that the black letter lawyers of the day sneered at his 'equitable decisions,' as if they were not also learned. This, indeed, is what speech is for- to make the statement," etc.

BOILEAU,

educated to the law, excuses his desertion to literature, in his first Satire:

"Shall I hereafter act another part,

Phoebus abandon for Bartholu's art?
Turn o'er the Institutes, thumb Littleton,
And draggling at my tail a dirty gown,
Pick up for every cause a double crown?
But at the very thought I start, and find
The Bar and I shall ne'er be of a mind.
Can I in such a barbarous country bawl,
And rend with venal lungs the guilty hall;
Where innocence does daily pay the cost,
And in the labyrinth of law is lost;

Where wrong by tricks and quirks prevails o'er right,
And black is by due form of law made white;

Garvin outnoised by Graham yields the prize,

And Ciceros are formed o'er mutton pies?

E'er I a thought like this can entertain,
Frost shall at midsummer congeal the Seine;
His Holiness shall turn a Protestant,

Beecher wear lawn, and Tyng the younger cant." The translation which I quote has dashes in place of the proper names, and I have ventured to supply the names which I think the poet must have intended.

In the eighth satire the following occurs:

"No eagle does upon his peerage sue, And strive some meaner eagle to undo;

No fox was e'er suborned by spite or pay,

To swear his brother fox's life away;

Nor any hind, for impotence at rut,

Did e'er the stag into the Arches put,

Where a grave dean the congress might ordain,
And with that burlesque word his sentence stain.
They do no dreadful quo warranto fear,

Nor courts of sessions or assize are there,

No common pleas, queen's bench or chancery bar;
But happier they, by nature's charter free,
Secure and safe, in mutual peace agree,
And know no other law but equity."

"What would he think, upon a lord mayor's day,
Should he the pomp and pageantry survey,
Or view the judges, and their solemn train,
March with grave decency to kill a man?
What would he think of us, should he appear
In turn, amongst the crowds, at Westminster,
And there the hellish din and jargon hear,
Where Spencer and his pack, with deep mouth'd notes,
Drown Billingsgate and all its oyster boats?
There see the judges, serjeants, barristers,
Attorneys, counsellors, solicitors,
Criers and clerks, and all the savage crew,
Which wretched man at his own charge undo?"

In his epistle to the Abbot des Roches the poet says:

"Dost think, thou champion of thy church's rights,
That justice follows if the law invites ?
Would'st thou thy proud rebellious monks chastise?
Believe me, 'tis a dangerous enterprise.
Can Ausanet, tho' feed, secure the cause,

Convince the judges and compel the laws?
Tho' just thy suit, ne'er think it will succeed.
In vain the law directs, and lawyers plead.
Don't imitate the fools whom lust of gold
Provokes, and makes 'em in a process bold;
Don't at thy cost the greedy bench enrich,
Nor let litigious hopes thy mind bewitch;
For he who in a suit his weapon draws,
Is often beggar'd, tho' he gain his cause.
But who, the lawyers say, would lose his right?
The law has no respect for muck or might.
At Caen they preach this doctrine, where the son
The father follows, and is soon undone.
At Mons betimes the sire this lesson reads,
The son's soon taught, and son the sire succeeds.
But thou on this side of the Oise wert bred,
And wilt not with their follies fill thy head;
Nor wilt thou, like some hot incumbents, squeeze
The clowns, nor sue a peasant for a piece.
Nor e'er the law has ta'en its costly course,
Make bawling Mazier and Corbin hoarse.
No, no-but if thou e'er should'st long to fee
A lawyer, pr'ythee, first consult with me,
And if I can't these wicked thoughts disperse,
Read this old tale, which now I tell in verse:

"It happen'd in a former wrangling age,
An author writes (no matter for the page),
Two travelers, for breakfast ready found
A fat stray oyster lying on the ground.
Says one, 'tis mine, the other says the same,
And hot they grew, and hunger fann'd the flame.
Who should come by, while they debating stand,
But Justice, with the balance in her hand.
To her they both applied. She heard the cause,
And found them bent to leave it to the laws.
She weighed the matter, and to end it well,
Opened the fish, and gave to each a shell,
Thus,' having swallowed it at once, she cried,
'We judge the cause, and thus the goods divide.
What, but for fools, would law and lawyers do?
'Twas a good oyster, gentlemen, adieu.'

In the first epistle to the king, Boileau speaks of-
"The costly quarrels of the wrangling bar,
More fatal than the bloody feud of war."

The following translation of a Latin epigram by this poet closes the list of his contributions to my subject:

“Upon a young lawyer, the son of a country beadle: "While the fierce beadle's brat does loudly bawl, How silent are the mob, how still the hall! Yet think not that his rhetoric's revered, The son is harmless, but the father's feared."

PETRONIUS ARBITER.

I find that this author has a good deal to say about law and lawyers. "Cerberus, forensis erat causidicus," has been thus translated:

"Sure Cerberus a lawyer first must be,

Whose clam'rous mouth would open for a fee;
But, since whene'er he wrangl'd, still he had
Three specious reasons for the noise he made,
To please his client, to inform the court,
And to gain riches for his own support;
Therefore he's doom'd in hell three heads to bear,
And in his mouth three howling tongues to wear;
That the loud eloquence he once could boast
To his own interest, but his client's cost,
Might now be turn'd to dreadful howls and yelps,
The snarling language of illiterate whelps;
And tho' on earth no other bribe but gold
Would make the pieader for his client scold,
Yet now in hell a greasy sop must be,
Instead of coin, the growling puppy's fee."

In his first satire, one of the characters having had his coat stolen, is advised to resort to law to recover it:

"Law bears the name, but money has the power;
The cause is bad whene'er the client's poor.
Those strict-life'd men that seem above our world,
Are oft too modest to resist our gold,

So judgment, like our other wares, is sold;
And the grave knight, that nods upon the laws,
Wak'd by a bribe, siniles, and approves the cause."

But he is afraid of the law, and is "clear for buying it, though we know it to be our own, and rather recover the treasure with a little money than embroil ourselves in an uncertain suit."

MANDEVILLE,

in the "Fable of the Bees," has these Hudibrastic lines on lawyers, in reference to the subject of the registration of voters:

"The lawyers, of whose art the basis

Was raising feuds and splitting cases,
Oppos'd all Registers, that cheats
Might make more work with dipt estates;

As 'twere unlawful that one's own
Without a law-suit should be known!
They put off hearings wilfully,

To finger the refreshing fee;

And to defend a wicked cause
Examin'd and survey'd the laws,

As burglars shops and houses do,

To see where best they may break through."

Further on he says:

"Justice herself, fam'd for fair dealing,

By blindness had not lost her feeling:
Her left hand, which the scales should hold,
Had often dropt 'em, bribed with gold;
And though she seem'd impartial,
Where punishment was corporal,
Pretended to a reg'lar course,

In murder, and all crimes of force;
Though some first pillory'd for cheating,
Were hang'd in hemp of their own beating;
Yet it was thought, the sword she bore
Check'd but the desp'rate and the poor;
That, urg'd by mere necessity,
Were ty'd up to the wretched tree,

For crimes which not deserv'd that fate,
But to secure the rich and great."

*

*

*

*

"The bar was silent from that day;
For now the willing debtors pay
Ev'n what's by creditors forgot;
Who quitted them that had it not.

Those that were in the wrong, stood mute,
And dropt the patch'd, vexatious suit;
On which since nothing else can thrive,
Than lawyers in an honest hive,
All except those that got enough,
With ink-horns by their sides troop'd off."

In his sixth dialogue, this author says: "The study of the law is very crabbed and very tedious; but the profession of it is as gainful, and has great honours annexed to it: the consequence of this is, that few come to be eminent in it but men of tolerable parts and great application. And whoever is a good lawyer, and not noted for dishonesty, is always fit to be a judge, as soon as he is old and grave enough. To be a lord chancellor, indeed, requires higher talents; and he ought not only to be a good lawyer and an honest man, but likewise a person of general knowledge and great penetration. But this is but one man; and considering what I have said of the law, and the power which ambition and the love of gain have upon mankind, it is morally impossible, that, in the common course of things among the practitioners in chancery, there should not at all times be one or other fit for the seals."

BAXTER,

In his Christian Directory, giving directions to lawyers about their duty to God, says: "Be not counselors or advocates against God, that is, against justice, truth, or innocency. A bad cause would have no patrons if there were no bad or ignorant lawyers. It is a dear-bought fee which is got by sinning; especially by such a willful, aggravated sin as the deliberate pleading for iniquity, or opposing of the truth. Whatever you say or do against truth, and innocency, and justice, you do it against God himself. And is it not a sad case, that among professing Christians there is no cause so bad but can find an advocate

for a fee? I speak not against just counsel to a man that has a bad cause (to tell him it is bad and persuade him to disown it); nor do I speak against you for pleading against excessive penalties or damages; for so far your cause is good, though the main cause of your client was bad; but he that speaketh or counselleth another for the defense of sin, or the wronging of the innocent, or the defrauding another of his right, and will open his mouth to the injury of the just, for a little money, or for a friend, must try whether that money or friend will save him from the vengeance of the Universal Judge (unless faith and true repentance, which will cause confession and restitution, do prevent it). To deal freely with you counselors, it is a matter that they who are strangers to your profession can scarce put any fair construction upon, that the worst cause, for a little money, should find an advocate among you! This driveth the standers by upon this harsh dilemmato think that either your understandings or your consciences are very bad. If, indeed, you so little know a good cause from a bad, then it must needs tempt men to think you very unskilled in your profession. But when almost every cause, even the worst, that comes to the bar, shall have some of you for it, and some against it; and in the palpablest causes you are some on one side and some on the other; the strange difference of your judgments doth seem to betray your weakness. But if you know the causes to be bad which you defend, and to be good which you oppose, it more evidently betrays a deplorable conscience. I speak not of your innocent or excusable mistakes in cases of great difficuty, nor yet of excusing a cause bad in the main from unjust aggravations; but when money will hire you to plead for injustice against your own knowledge, and to use your will to defraud the righteous, and spoil his cause, or vex him with delays for the advantage of your unrighteous client; I would not have your conscience for all your gains, nor your account to make for all the world."

I must admit, it is to be feared that lawyers are too much like other men; no better than clergymen, for instance, either in judgment or conscience. If there is any efficacy in a particular creed, the vast majority of clergymen must be damned for not being wise enough to believe it; and observation teaches us that they are subject to pecuniary influences, for which I do not say they are to be blamed. We live not in a "Saints' Rest," but in a sinful world, and Baxter is not set to scold Matthew Hale.

BISHOP COLLYER,

In his moral essays, has the following dialogue: "Philotimus. Pray, what is your opinion of those lawyers who appear in a foul cause?

Philalethes. I think if they know it they misbehave themselves, and have much to answer for. What can be more unaccountable than to solicit against justice, and lend the credit of our character to an ill business? To throw in dilatory pleas and false suggestions — to perplex the argument or entangle the witness? To make a mercenary noise against right or reason? To misapply precedents and statutes, and draw the laws into a conspiracy, to endeavor to surprise the judge and mislead the jury? To employ learning, and

lungs, and elocution to such purposes as these, is to disgrace the bar and mismanage to a high degree.

Philot. Must the counsel start at every dark appearance, and the client be dismissed at the first information? that is hard: a cause which has an ill face at first, clears up sometimes in the court, and brightens strangely upon the proceedings. This observation prevailed with Sir Matthew Hale to discharge his scruples and practice with more freedom.

Philal. I grant this reverend judge relaxed a little, and gave his conscience more reason you mention. When his business lay at the bar, he made no difficulty to venture through suspicion and dislike; he thought it no fault to bring the matter to an issue and try the strength of either party. But when he once found it work foul and shrink under the test, he would engage no further; nor ever encourage the keeping on the dispute.

Philot. What then - must a man turn away his clients and baulk his profession?

Philal. It is no part of a lawyer's profession to promote injustice, or help one man to that which belongs to another. The laws are made to secure property, to put an end to contests, and help those to right that suffer wrong. They were never designed to entangle matters, to perpetuate quarrels, to enrich any set of men at the damage of the community. To engage in an ill cause, when I am conscious it is so, is, in plain English, to encourage a litigious humour, to countenance a knave; it is to do my best to disseize an honest man of his birthright, and wrest his money or his land from him. If the privilege of practice, if the pretense of taking a fee, will justify us in this liberty, why may not the consideration of money bear us out in other remarkable instances? Why may we not be hired for any other mischief? Why may not a physician take a fee of one man to poison another?"

"THE LESSON OF THE MCFARLAND CASE."

Dear Sir: The article on this subject in your number for the 21st of May reminds me of a similar case, which would also go to show the necessity of some law to punish infidelity to the marriage vow.

Phebe Ann F- was the daughter of poor parents, living in the interior of New Jersey. At the age of eighteen she came to the city of New York to earn her livelihood. She was modest, virtuous, and ignorant, but in robust health. She, in the process of time, obtained a situation as waiter in a restaurant near the Fulton market, where the vendors in the market and their assistants were in the habit of getting their meals.

There she became acquainted with a butcher-boy of about her own age, whom, in a short time, she married; that is, she thought she was married, but whether she was or not could not be ascertained. All that she could tell about it was, that she went with the fellow to a man who, he said, was a Methodist clergyman, by whom the ceremony was performed. She got no certificate of her marriage from the clergyman, and could not tell his name, or even the street in which he lived.

She and the butcher boy lived together as man and

wife for several months- she retaining her place in the eating-house, until so far advanced in pregnancy as to be obliged to give it up. They then took board in the neighborhood. Shortly before the time of her expected confinement, she went to New Jersey on a visit to her mother. After an absence of two or three weeks, she returned to town, and went to her old boarding place, expecting to find her husband there.

But on her arrival she found that during her absence he had left the house, had given up his room there, and had removed all the things they had there, including her clothing, and had left no word where he had removed to.

She went to look for him, and knowing that at that time of the day he would be found at the slaughterhouse, she went there. She found him, talking with a young woman, who wore, at the moment, what she recognized as her best dress, one that she had bought with her own earnings before the marriage. After waiting until he got through talking to the other woman, she accosted him, reported her return to town, asked where he had removed to, which he refused to tell, and then asked him for some money, which he declined to give her, and shook her off rather rudely. On her way back to her old boarding-house she bought some arsenic, some flour and sugar, and, on her arrival home she borrowed of the family a tin pan, in which she said she wanted to make a cake for her husband. After making it she borrowed a cooking utensil and baked it. The next morning a young woman was seen talking with this butcher-boy in the market, and was seen to hand him a cake. His companions joked him about it, and he broke the cake, dividing it among them, and ate some of it himself.

They were all soon taken sick, and the suspicion of poison was immediately awakened. He was the only one that died from the effects. The others, after longer or shorter illness, recovered. He lingered several hours, but refused to tell who it was that gave him the cake, saying it had served him right.

The police, however, pursued the inquiry for the woman, and they found he had three wives, so that when Phebe Ann was arrested and taken before the magistrate, she found herself in company with two other wives of his. She admitted to the officer, who had arrested her, that she had done it; the other women were discharged, and she was tried for the murder.

I was assigned by the court to defend her. During the interval between her arrest and trial she gave birth to a dead child in the prison. When the trial came on, she was just recovering from her illness. She was very pale, not particularly good looking, nor very intellectual, but with a sad though calm look.

I had very little intercourse with her, but learned all the facts of her case from the coroner's minutes, and from her old father. I did not set up the defense of insanity; I simply fought the battle on the case presented by the prosecution. I excluded the evidence of her confession, because she had not been duly cautioned before making it, and I went to the jury on the ground of want of sufficient evidence of indentity. The case was a very weak one on the part of the defense; but the jury were absent only a few minutes and returned with a verdict of not guilty.

This was some thirty years ago, and I have never seen or heard of her since.

After the jury were discharged, I asked one of them on what ground they had acquitted her? He answered, "It served him right!"

It would seem that the sex of the prisoner makes no difference in these cases. But in order to prevent this private vengeance, must not the law provide some adequate remedy? J. W. EDMONDS.

CURRENT TOPICS.

We are glad to learn that the Bar Association, recently formed in New York, has laid the foundation of a good law library, at its rooms, No. 18 West Twenty-eighth street, near Broadway. Besides the most valuable elementary treatises, it has purchased the United States courts reports, and the principal reports of the courts of the several states. An order has also been sent to London for the purchase of all the English, Scotch and Irish reports from the Year Books down. This library will be open at all hours of the day, and up to a reasonable hour at night.

The staid benchers and barristers of the Inner Temple, and the high judiciary of England, have recently shown their respect for royalty at the expense of their stomachs. The English papers tell us that, after a grand dinner given the other day by that society, and which was attended by the Prince of Wales, the lord chancellor, the lord chief justice, and other nobles and notables, the whole company retired to the withdrawing room, and smoked with great solemnity, in compliment to the Prince of Wales, who has a penchant for that sort of thing.

A new divorce bill has been reported in the Massachusetts senate, providing that there shall hereafter be no divorce from bed and board, and that, in addition to the present causes for divorce, decrees may be made for extreme cruelty, utter desertion, gross and confirmed habits of intoxication contracted after marriage, or cruel and abusive treatment, by either of the parties. The bill is a wise one and ought to be passed. It would be very difficult to advance any sound reasons in favor of the laws for divorce a menso et thoro which now exist.

Francis Kernan having declined to serve as commissioner to revise the statutes, Governor Hoffman has appointed in his place Nelson J. Waterbury, of New York. David A. Wells, Lucius Robinson and Edwin W. Dodge have also been appointed commissioners to revise the laws relative to the assessment and collection of taxes, under a resolution of the last session of the legislature. The selection of Mr. Wells is particularly fortunate. He has for years made the subject of taxation a special study, and is peculiarly fitted to devise a scheme of taxation adjusted to " our burden and our strength."

Considerable consternation has been created in Michigan by the decision of the supreme court pronouncing the general railroad law, passed at the last

session of the legislature, unconstitutional. Judge GRAVES delivered a dissenting opinion, ably reviewing the constitutional powers of the legislature, and maintaining the validity of the law. As several towns have issued bonds under the law, which have been purchased by innocent parties, Gov. Baldwin has issued a proclamation convening the legislature for the purpose of preparing an amendment to the constitution to be submitted to the people.

The commission to codify the laws of the United States, appointed about four years ago, expired by limitation within the past year. Very little was accomplished by that commission, except what was done by Judge JAMES, of Ohio, who was continually occupied, and by Judge JOHNSON, who labored while his health permitted. Congress was rather inclined to let the commission die, but, upon the suggestion of the importance of the work proposed, created a new commission, and the president has paid Judge JAMES the compliment of selecting him as one of the new commission, and has appointed as his colleagues Benj. Vaughan Abbott, of New York, and Victor C. Barringer, of North Carolina.

A motion, excluding the punishment of death from the new penal code about to be adopted in North Germany, was withdrawn on May 23, in the North German parliament. Herr Bismarck, in opposing tho motion, said that the federal governments had made considerable sacrifices to insure the adoption of the new code, and that if the death penalty were abolished the unity of the law would be destroyed, and two classes of German citizens be established. The North German Correspondence points out that the new code is in many respects superior to the existing laws of Prussia. Its general tendency is to lighten punishment. Should the new code be introduced, "the sum total of the sentences of imprisonment passed in Prussia alone would be annually decreased by thousands of years."

If all French justice be like that administered in the case of workman Chultz v. The Princess de la Moskowa, the Gallic courts merit the same high reputation as those of England. Chultz, it appears, in pulling down the Hotel Lafitte, the property of the Princess Moskowa, found a marble statue plastered up in a wall, and, under the French law of "treasure trove," claimed half the value of the "find." To this the princess demurred, insisting that the statue had, prior to 1814, formed part of the decoration of the palace, but was then plastered up to keep it from falling into the hands of the allies, at that time about to enter Paris. The court decided in favor of the workman, ordered the statue to be sold, and the proceeds to be equally divided between the parties litigant — the princess to pay the costs.

Daniel McFarland, who was recently acquitted of the murder of Richardson, may be as "mad as a March hare" for ought we know, but there is a wonderful "method in his madness." He now turns up in Morgan county, Indiana, and moves the court for

a new trial of the suit in which his former wife obtained the decree of divorce, on the grounds, first, that no proof of publication was ever filed in the case; second, that the defendant never had notice of the pending suit; and third, that he will be able to show that Mrs. Calhoun committed perjury, as a witness in the case.

The English courts have recently dismissed the Mordaunt divorce case, on the ground that the defendant, being insane, could not plead; and now that McFarland has succeeded in establishing his insanity, we should be glad to see this rule of law applied to his case.

It is a rather singular fact that no provision is made by the law of this state, whereby one injured on a highway or bridge, through the neglect of town officers to keep the same in repair, can recover compensation for his injuries. The law makes it the duty of commissioners of highways to repair and keep in order roads and bridges, but it is a matter of grave doubt, under the decisions, whether the duty is of such a nature as to render them liable, in any event, to a civil action for a neglect of it. They are certainly not liable, where it is not shown that they have the requisite funds to repair. And even where they have such funds, it has been intimated, by the highest legal authorities in the state, that no liability attached. That towns are not liable, civilly, for injuries received by reason of the ruinous condition of their highways has been settled beyond question. The wayfarer is, therefore, left to run his own risks, and trust in Providence. It would be well if our legislators, who have such an "insane impulse" to "make laws," would make a law whereby towns should be held to a strict accountability, both civilly and criminally, for the condition of their highways.

The house of representatives have refused to concur in the senate's amendment to the appropriation bill, increasing the salary of the United States judiciary. The majority against the amendment was so large that a conference of the committees of the two houses will not be likely to effect a compromise, and the salaries will remain as at present. We regret this action of the house, as we were hopeful that the time had come when, at least, the judges of the supreme court would receive something like an adequate compensation. We should be glad to see the salary of the chief justice raised to $20,000, and that of the associates to $17,000. The ability and industry which those positions require would enable any lawyer possessing them to make at least that sum in the ordinary practice of the law in one of our larger cities. It seems to us a little anoma lous that while such men as Charles A. Dana, Horace Greeley, George W. Curtis, Theodore Tilton, and other editors of newspapers, receive salaries of from ten to fifteen thousand dollars per year from private corporations, forty millions of people can only pay half that sum to the judges of the highest and most important tribunal in the country.

A case came before Judge ALLISON, of the Philadelphia court of quarter sessions, on the 11th inst., which raised an interesting question relative to the

effect to be given to the statutes of the state of New York. One Rodan was charged with having committed adultery and bigamy. It appeared, on the trial, that he had been married some years ago in New York; that about a year ago he left his wife, and, in company with one Mary Tully, went to Philadelphia, where they have since continued to reside. Meanwhile, Rodan's wife had procured a divorce in New York on the ground of adultery. Subsequent to the decree of divorce, Rodan married the woman with whom he had absconded. The court was in doubt whether or not it could give effect to the New York statute, which declares that where a divorce is obtained on the ground of adultery, the guilty party shall not marry during the life-time of the other party. The crime of adultery is not indictable or punishable in the state of Pennsylvania, unless the offense is committed within its jurisdiction, and there was no evidence in the case of the crime of adultery having been committed in that state. The court reserved its decision.

The arguments put forth in the house of lords against the bill allowing a man to marry his deceased wife's sister, have very much of the "ridiculous" about them on this side of the Atlantic. Like the frog in the ode, the lords said "such very silly things in such a solemn way." Here is the gist of the arguments, pro and con, advanced on the motion for a second reading: The Duke of Marlborough supported the bill. Lord Lansdowne did so on social grounds. - The Bishop of Ely opposed it on scriptural grounds; it would only produce discomfort. - Lord Kimberley combated the arguments used against the bill. - The Bishop of Ripon supported the bill; the word of God not having forbidden the marriage, but tacitly permitting it. The Bishop of Lincoln contended that scripture forbade it. Lord Westbury urged that the present law, as grounded in a misapprehension or delusion, should be expunged from the statute-book. - The Bishop of Peterborough censured Lord Westbury's levity, and regarded the bill as fraught with social evils. Lord Lifford regarded the existing law as founded in an inconsistent and unfortunate legislation. - The Duke of Argyll opposed the bill, and was not convinced that the public generally supported it, The Earl of Harrowby condemned it as opposed to the whole voice of Christendom. - The lord chancellor earnestly opposed the bill as wrong, and as in conflict with the spirit of the nation. - Earl Granville supported it as wise, expedient, and just. On a division, the bill was rejected by a majority of 76 to 74.

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The imperial court of Paris has just made a decision which we commend as a precedent in this country. An Englishman, by the name of Thompson, having cast his horoscope over the financial heavens, discovered, as he supposed, infallible auguries of a rapid rise in certain stocks. Thereupon he ordered a broker to buy for him some £14,000,000 of the stocks, and expended the larger part of his fortune in paying the advances or margin. His horoscope, however, had betrayed him. The stocks fell instead of rising, his margin was exhausted, and a considerable balance would be required to make the broker good. For