CONVICTION OF AN ENGLISH COUNTY

COURT JUDGE.

On Tuesday, Mr. R. V. Williams, County Court judge and a magistrate, was summoned before the magistrates of Rhyl, by Edward Powell, a car driver, for an assault. The defendant was in court before any of the other magistrates arrived, and, on seeing the complainant enter, said to the police "Is that the man?" On being informed that he was, the defendant went on to say: "I sentence you to seven days' imprisonment in the gaol at Mold. You interrupted me when I was coming to this court, and by Act of Parliament I have the power to send you to gaol without any evidence or any inquiry whatever. But I will tell you the story. I came here with a very spirited horse, and I was close to the curb stone, on the right side of the road, and you were coming on the wrong side. I called upon you to go on and you told me to go on instead."

Powell-No; nothing of the sort.

Mr. Vaughan Williams- You utter the grossest falsehood. After calling to you I merely touched you lightly on the shoulder with the whip, which I had a perfect right to do, or to use any force necessary to remove you; but I merely touched you lightly with my whip to make you go on, and you have had the audacity to issue a summons against me.

The Clerk (Mr. George) remarked that the proceedings were entirely irregular, as the chairman had not arrived.

Mr. Vaughan Williams- Who are you? I will not submit to this. If you open your mouth in this matter again I will send you, in company with this man, to Mold to gaol. Who is the chairman of this Bench? The Clerk-Sir Piers Mostyn, Bart.

Mr. Vaughan Williams- Well, I wish he was here to snub you.

Some of the magistrates having by this time arrived, the clerk said he would leave his case in the hands of the magistrates.

Mr. Vaughan Williams (pointing to Powell) then said: Take this man to gaol; and I must now ask that this summons, which has been most improperly issued by one magistrate against another without due inquiry -I must ask that it be struck out and every sign of it obliterated from the books of this court.

The magistrates then agreed to go on with the business of the court, and, in the absence of the chairman, Mr. T. G. Dixon took the chair.

Edward Powell said that on Friday, 21st Aug., he was driving along the street, by the Mostyn Arms, on his own side, and Mr. Williams shouted at him to get out of the way, and then gave him a severe blow over the face with his whip, and made a wound upon his nose, which bled very much at the time.

A Police-officer gave corroborative evidence. Mr. Vaughan Williams's defense was substantially the same as the statement he had previously made.

After a short consultation with the other magistrates, the chairman said the case was a very painful one, but they considered that the assault had been committed, and, looking at the position of the gentleman who committed it, they felt bound to inflict the highest penalty - £5 and costs.

Mr. Williams-I shall appeal to a higher power. The Chairman - We shall have great pleasure in granting you a case.

The Clerk- Unfortunately you have not the power. There is no appeal.

Mr. V. Williams - Then I shall not pay.

The Chairman-In default there will be fourteen days' imprisonment.

Mr. Williams then walked out of the court by a private door, followed by a police officer, by the instruction of the inspector.

The decision of the Bench was received with cheers, which were soon suppressed. — Oswestry Advertiser.

As an appendix to this we quote the following from the Solicitors' Journal:

"We learn with amazement that the incident we commented on last week is not quite the joke we took it to be. The carman, for the assault upon whom the Denbighshire County Court judge was recently convicted, has, if the almost incredible statement published by the local papers be true, been actually imprisoned under an order made by the judge, whilst filling the double character of member of a bench of magistrates and defendant on a criminal charge, and at the same time seeking to exercise the powers conferred by statute on a County Court judge whilst administering the business of his court."

NATIONAL BANK - JURISDICTION OF FEDERAL COURTS.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT-WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN.

MAIN, Assignee, v. SECOND NAT. BANK OF CHICAGO. A national bank cannot be sued in the federal courts, outside of the district where it is located. Service on the cashier when found within another district, does not give jurisdiction.

Manufacturers' Nat. Bank v. Baack, 8 Blatchford, 137, approved.

The Practice Act of June 1, 1872, does not change this rule, nor enlarge the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

Motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction, the defendant being a national bank, located and doing business in the city of Chicago, State of Illinois, and service having been had upon John P. McGregor, the cashier, who was found within the district.

Tenneys, Flower & Abercrombie, for the motion, cited Crocker v. The Marine Nat. Bank of New York, 101 Mass. 240; Cook v. State Nat. Bank of Boston, 50 Barb. 339.

H. S. Orton and W. F.Vilas, contra.

Opinion by HOPKINS, J. March, 1874.

In the argument filed in support of the motion it is claimed that a national bank cannot be sued in any court out of the judicial district where it is “located" or "established." I do not think the general banking law admits of such an interpretation. The eighth section of the act of June 3d, 1864 (13 U. S. Statutes at Large, 101), provides that such corporations "may sue and be sued in any court of law and equity as fully as natural persons."

I do not think the provision in the fifty-seventh section of the act restrictive of this general authority, but that it was intended rather to enlarge the operations of the twenty-first section of the Judiciary Act of 1789 (1 U. S. Statutes at Large, 78), and to confer upon such organizations the right to sue and be sued in the federal courts, in the district where located, by a citizen of the same district; and I fully concur with Judge Blatchford's views expressed in his opinion in the Manufacturers' National Bank of Chicago v. Baack, 8 Blatchford's C. C. Rep. 137, that the banks organized

under the general banking act of Congress are to be deemed residents or inhabitants of the State and district where they are "located" and "established." The provisions of the act referred to by him are sufficient to warrant that conclusion, and if this were the only point I should have no hesitancy in overruling the motion.

But there is a question arising under the provision of the eleventh section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which, as interpreted by numerous decisions of the federal courts, seems to me to constitute an insuperable objection to the plaintiff's right to prosecute this defendant in this court.

That section provides that "no civil suit shall be brought before either of the courts (Circuit or District) against an inhabitant of the United States, by any original process, in any other district than whereof he is an inhabitant, or in which he shall be found at the time of serving the writ." That the defendant was not an "inhabitant" of this district when this suit was commenced, is too plain for discussion. The remaining question is, was the defendant found "here at that time?"

The defendant, as before stated, was "located" at Chicago; that was its habitation; that does not move around with the person of its officers; the corporation is not migratory. It could not of its own will, and without authority of law, change its location to this State. Therefore, I must hold that this court has no jurisdiction over this defendant; that it was not "found" here within the meaning of that statute. In the case of The Bank of Augusta v. Earle, 13 Peters, 519, the court says, in speaking of locality of corporation: "It must dwell in the place of its creation; it cannot migrate to another sovereignty." This, it is true, was said of a State bank, but the same may with equal propriety be said of a national bank. They have a local habitation, an office, and place of business within a State or district as much as a State bank. Justice Nelson, in Day v. Newark India Rubber Manufacturing Co., 1 Blatchford, 628, and in Pomeroy v. New York & New Haven R. R. Co., 4 id. 120, examined this question very fully, and arrived at the conclusion in both cases, notwithstanding there was a statute of the State of New York authorizing service to be made upon officers of such foreign company within the State, which would give the State courts jurisdiction of the corporations, that the corporations were not "inhabitants" of the State, and were not "found "there because their officers and agents resided or came into that district; that the officers were not the corporations, and the corporations were not, therefore, found within the district.

This is a jurisdictional question, and “ State laws can confer no authority on this court in the exercise of its jurisdiction, by the use of State process, to reach either person or property, which it could not reach within the meaning of the law creating it." Toland v. Sprague, 12 Pet. 328.

I do not think the Practice Act of June 1st, 1872, 17 U. S. Statutes at Large, 196, changes the rule. That relates to the practice and proceedings in suits against parties, who may be prosecuted in the Federal Courts, but does not profess to enlarge their jurisdiction or to extend it over persons or cases not before within the cognizance of the court. As said in Toland v. Sprague, 12 Peters, 330, "the acts of Congress adopting the State process, adopt the form and mode of service only so far as the persons are rightfully within the reach of

such process, and did not intend to enlarge the sphere of the jurisdiction of the Circuit Courts.”

I think the same construction should be given to the act of 1872 above mentioned, and so construed, it does not relieve the case of the question of the habitat of this defendant being without the district, and not therefore subject to the process of this court.

The motion is therefore granted and this suit dismissed.

BELLIGERENT RIGHTS - EXPORTATION OF ARMS TO SPAIN.

Two announcements have appeared during the past week in relation to Spain that call attention to some interesting questions of international law. Several European governments have recognized the government of Madrid, and have either accredited, or are about to accredit, their representatives to that government. The other announcement is, that Remington's agent has contracted to supply the Madrid government with 150,000 stand of arms. There can be no doubt that this contract is perfectly valid, and can be fulfilled without any danger of interference on the part of our own or any other government. But it is supposed by many persons that the right to supply the Carlists with arms will be affected by the recognition of Marshal Serrano's government. This is an entire mistake. Save only the risk which the vendors or purchasers will have to run of having their importations seized by Spanish cruisers or custom-house officers when in Spanish waters or territory, there is no reason why arms should not be supplied to the Carlists as well as to the Madrid government. England having recognised that government, it must be taken, no doubt, as far as we are concerned, that the Carlists are in rebellion against lawfully constituted authority, but that does not affect the right of private citizens of this country to enter into contracts for the supply of arms with individual Spaniards, even if the destination of those arms is the Carlist army; nor could the English government interfere legally with the exportation of arms for such purposes. It may perhaps be regretted that such is the state of the law, but even if the Carlists were recognized as belligerents, which they are not, the only answer which would be given to any complaint of allowing the exportation of arms would be that given by Lord Palmerston, "Catch them if you can." It is the doctrine of international law as generally understood in the present day that although no armed expedition may be fitted out in a neutral port to operate against a friendly power, yet there is nothing to prevent a subject of the neutral from shipping at a neutral port contraband of war for the use of the belligerent attacking the friendly power. The distinction appears very fine drawn, and Sir R. Phillimore, in his treatise on International Law, is strongly of opinion that in both cases ought the neutral govern ent to interfere, but the distinction is nevertheless made and acted upon. The only penalty which can now be enforced against the shipper of arms is capture and confiscation by the friendly power. It is true that under the customs consolidation act the export of arms, etc., may be prohibited; but this is not a prohibition ordinarily enforced, nor does it now exist. But the Carlists not being belligerents, England has upon her none of the obligations of a neutral, except, perhaps, in the case of an armed expedition being fitted out in one of its ports; nor has the Madrid govern

ment any of the rights of a belligerent on the high seas. Hence the only means which they possess of preventing the subjects of foreign nations supplying the Carlists with arms is by keeping up a rigorous blockade upon the Spanish coast, and by arresting within Spanish waters. Any seizure outside Spanish waters would simply lead to a repetition of the proceedings in the Deerhound. The Carlists, so long as they are not recognized as belligerents, remain, as far as this country is concerned, subjects of the Madrid government, and hence contracts made either with one party or the other cannot be interfered with anywhere out of Spanish territory, they being on the face of them perfectly valid, and their illegality in Spain depending entirely upon Spanish municipal law.— Law Times.

OBITUARY.

BENJAMIN ROBBINS CURTIS.

The Hon. Benjamin R. Curtis, who died at Newport on the 15th inst., has filled a very high and honorable place in the legal history of this country for the last quarter of a century. He was born at Watertown, Massachusetts, in November, 1809; graduated from Harvard College in the famous class of 1829; studied law in Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the bar in 1832. He began the practice of the law at Northfield, Massachusetts, but in 1834 he removed to Boston, where he rapidly gained a lucrative practice, and was accorded a leading position among the foremost members of that able bar. His extensive legal attainments, his fine logical powers, his faculty for clear and forceful statements of fact, and his impressive delivery, combined to make him a lawyer and advocate of unusual strength. Upon the death of Mr. Justice Woodbury, in September, 1851, Mr. Curtis was appointed by President Fillmore to fill the vacancy on the bench of the United States Supreme Court. Great as a lawyer, he was also great as a judge, and delivered some opinions which rank with the very best specimens of judicial productions, but the opinion which has been the most widely known and discussed, and which will be the longest remembered, was his dissenting opinion in the Dred Scott case. Professor Tyler, in his "Memoir of the late Roger B. Taney," deems it necessary to assail this opinion, and to prove that it is clearly wrong, according to the Civil law;" but its absolute correctness has been established by a law higher than the Civil, and by an authority more persuasive than Ulpian or Modestinus.

In 1854, began his reports of the decisions of the First Circuit, over which he presided, but which never got beyond the second volume. In 1855, he issued his most important work, being the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, with notes, from the origin of the court to the year 1854, or from 1 Dallas to 17 Howard. This, with the digest which he prepared, was in twenty-two volumes, and embraced the contents of fifty-eight volumes. We are glad to know that this valuable series is to be continued, and by one so able as is Mr. Justice Miller of the United States Supreme Court bench. In 1857, Mr. Curtis retired from the bench, by reason of the fact that the salary was not sufficient to support him, and resumed the practice of the law in Boston. Keeping entirely aloof from politics, he devoted himself closely and entirely to his profession, and was rewarded by one of the most

lucrative practices ever enjoyed in this country. Upon the death of Rufus Choate in 1859, Mr. Curtis was selected to present the resolutions of the Bar to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and he did so in a speech worthy of the great dead.

In March, 1868, upon the impeachment of President Johnson, Mr. Curtis was associated with AttorneyGeneral Stanbury, Mr. Evarts and Mr. Groesbeck for the defense. Mr. Curtis made the opening speech, which was pronounced by the most competent judges to be a masterly effort.

The purity and integrity of his character, both as a man and as a judge, his exalted ability as a jurist, his chivalrous devotion to his profession, and his long and honorable career at the bar, entitle the name and the memory of Benjamin Robbins Curtis, to the love, the respect, the veneration. of every lawyer who honors his profession, and who delights in its traditions.

That a second edition has been called for so soon after the publication of the first is a good indication that the profession understand and appreciate the merits of this work. What has been done on this edition may be best told by Mr. Bliss himself. He says: "There is hardly a page which does not bear the marks of revision and addition. The fact that, while the first edition contained a reference to only two hundred and seventy-two cases relating to life insurance (including therein both the English and American cases) the present edition refers to not less than one hundred and

sixty-three additional American cases since decided, is of itself sufficient to show that a rewriting of much of the work has been absolutely necessary. Some subjects, such as concealment, the reference to papers in the policy and evidence, have been more fully treated than before. Every case cited has been re-examined, every citation verified anew, and every quotation again compared. * ** While the plan of ample quotation from decided cases has been adhered to the volume has been kept within reasonable limits by the omission of the chapter on Guarantee Insurance (as not being of present practical value) and of some historical matter, as well as by the excision from quotations of unnecessary passages and by remanding to the notes some matters of minor importance."

Mr. Bliss is a practical insurance lawyer and as such had an undoubted advantage over the mere theorist in the preparation of a work on the subject; and he has given us the most practical and useful treatise on that branch of the law that we have ever seen - and one really indispensable to any lawyer who devotes attention to insurance litigation.

Last week in noticing 73 Penn. St. Reports, we spoke of the apparent delay in reporting, but we would add, in justice to Mr. P. Frazer Smith, the reporter, that at the time of his appointment there had been a vacancy in the office, covering four terms of the court, there being three terms in each year, and that the cases of those terms had to be brought up by Mr. Smith. But for this arrear the reporter would have kept pace with the court at the rate at which the reports have been issued.

CORRESPONDENCE.

ANOTHER CHURCH DISTURBER.

NEW YORK, September 21, 1874.

To the Editor of the Albany Law Journal:

DEAR SIR: In your issue of July 4th last, you reported the cause celebre, of the State v. Linkham, in which the defendant was indicted for disturbing the religious congregation of which he was a member, by his unmelodious style of singing hymns. Your "statement" of the case was pathetic as it was accurate, and you well portrayed the agonized feelings of those who looked forward with most direful anticipations to an eternity to be passed in the society of the discordant defendant.

History, however, repeats itself; and the dissonant Linkham has his prototype, and is but a plagiarist after all-as a reference to the case of Eastham Contra Thomam Milborne, in the proceedings in the court of the arch-deaconry of Essex of May 6, 1615, will show.

Our contemporary church-disturber was not, I believe, charged with the awful and repulsive crime of "spreading mowle hills with a shovell," nor was his enthusiastic method of uplifting his voice likened to the squeaking" of "a gelded pigg," though we may fairly infer that his "tone" was "jesticulus" (if not low,) and his "voyce" decidedly "altitonant; ".and, that the disappointed relators in the North Carolina case may take heart, and feel that, bad as their situation is, it might be worse, I append a brief, but emphatic "statement" of the doings of the contumacious Thomas Eastham Contra Thomam Milborne: "Presentatur for spreadinge mowle hills with a shovell in the church-yard upon the Sundaye next Septuagesima last, being the XIII daye of Februaire, 1613, and that betweene morninge and eveninge prayer; and was then taken at worke by the minister and other of the parishioners, and for that he doth not kneele on his knees in tyme of devine service when as it is fittinge he should and the rather in that he is the parishe clerk who ought to give good example thereby unto others that are negligent therein, and he hath often tymes bene admonished for to kneele by the minister, but he doth altogether refuse it. And for that he singeth the psalmes in the church with such a jesticulus tone and altitonant voyce, viz.: squeaking like a gelded pigg - which doth not onlie interrupt the other voyces, but is altogether dissonant and disagreeing unto any musicall harmonie, and he hath bene requested by the minister to leave it, but he doth obstinatlie persist and contynue therein."

The sentence and ultimate fate of the ungodly Thomas are not chronicled; but they were doubtless severe and terrible. Perhaps, in some Pythagorean transmigration of his wretched soul, it has turned up in the corpus of the fiendish Liukham, to vex the quiet spirits of our fellow-citizens of the pitch and turpentine state; and like Beranger's Juif Errant, he may be condemned to " singe" with a "jesticulus tone and altitonant voyce." Toujours, toujours, toujours, toujours! H. M. LUMMIS.

AN OVERRULED CASE.

SIR: The poetically reported case of The Parish of Shodwell v. The Parish of St. John, Mopping, cited by your correspondent, F. P. M., on page 174 of your last number, has been overruled. See opinion court, in Otsego v. Smithfield, 6 Cow. 762.

J. L. A.

PASSENGERS DYING EN ROUTE.

NEW YORK, September 21, 1874.

Editor Albany Law Journal:

I suggest the following head-notes for any case likely to arise involving the questions raised in your last number, p. 102.

1. It being proved to be the custom to bury at sea the bodies of those dying on a voyage, and the same not being contrary to law or public policy, passengers will be understood as acquiescing therein, unless there be a special contract to the contrary.

2. A dead passenger cannot perform his part of the contract of passage, nor receive performance from the carrier. He ceases to be a passenger, and becomes a corpse, and the contract not being for carriage of a corpse, imposes no duty upon the carrier to keep it on board.

3. There is no rule of law and no custom imposing on vessels any duty to carry extra ice for the preservation of the bodies of passengers dying on the voyage.

4. Performance of the contract having been prevented by act of God, whether the carrier will be permitted to make gain of the non-performance, or must refund so much of the passage-money, if any, as remains unearned by reason of the termination of the contract, Query? X.

COURT OF APPEALS DECISIONS. The following decisions were handed down in the Court of Appeals on Tuesday last, the 22d inst.:

Judgments affirmed with costs: Francis E. Carroll v. The Staten Island Railroad Company; Tracy v. Corse; Bloomer v. Sturgess; Sanborn v. Leffert; Hubbell v. Linch: People, etc., v. Com. of Taxes; Caswell v. Davis; McEntee v. Harrison; Harris v. Panama R. R. Co.; Wheeler v. Clark; Legate v. Hyde; City of Ogdensburgh v. Lovejoy; McKinstrey v. Sanders; Hall v. President, etc., of Ins. Co. of North America; Rainor v. Porter; Casoni v. Ree; People, etc., v. Stuyvesant; Judson v. Easton; Taylor v. Dodd; Morey v. Webb; The Morris Run Coal Co. v. The Salt Company of Onondaga. -Judgment affirmed: Slattery v. The People. - Judgment reversed and new trial granted, costs to abide event: Pierce v. Tuttle; Torry v. Black; Rose v. Boston and Albany Railroad Company; Reynolds v. New York Central Railroad Company; Allis v. Leonard; Hunt v. Hunt. Orders affirmed with costs: Platt v. Platt: People ex rel. Green v. Dutchess and Columbia Railroad Company; Mayor v. Shuttleworth; Wade v. Cabfleisch. Order of general term reversed and motion for new trial denied, with costs: Stanton v. Miller. - Order reversed with costs: Miller v. Bowles; Appleton v. Bowles. Order affirmed and judgment absolute on stipulation with costs: Prendergast v. N. Y. Central and Hudson River Railroad Company; Tracy v. McManus. - Order of general term reversed and judgment on report of referee affirmed, with costs: Taylor v. Gust; Tyng v. Com. Warehouse Co. Order of general term affirmed and appeal from judgment of general term dismissed, with costs: Southworth v. Bennett.

Order reversed and motion for peremptory mandamus denied with costs: People ex rel. Ryan v. Greene. Motion to dismiss appeal denied with $10 costs, and order appealed from, affirmed with costs against appellants: Barker v. Hoyt. - Order of gen

eral term of Supreme Court granting plaintiff leave to

sue, reversed and case remanded to hear and determine appeal, with costs: The Home Fire Ins. Co. v. Tomlinson. Appeal from order of general term of Superior Court dismissed with costs: Home Fire Ins. Co. v. Tomlinson. Judgment reversed and case remitted to Supreme Court, with directions that a peremptory writ issue requiring the defendant to pay to the relator $1,263.68 and interest from April 12, 1867, with costs: People ex rel. Churchman v. The Board of Trutees N.Y. State Institute for Blind. Judgment of general term and decree of surrogate affirmed without costs as to either party in this court: O'Garra v. Clarkim. Motion denied with $10 costs: Talman

v. Bresler.

NOTES.

Judge Blatchford gave a decision recently in the United States District Court in the case of James S. Aspinwall, a bankrupt, in regard to an obligation on the part of his counsel, Mr. Weeks, to answer certain questions propounded to him as a witness by the register in bankruptcy. Mr. Weeks, it appears, refused to answer on the ground that he was acting as the bankrupt's counsel at the time the events occurred concerning which he was called upon to answer. Judge Blatchford held that while the witness was entitled to claim that he is not required to disclose any information received from the bankrupt which was important to him as counsel in regard to his client's affairs, the privilege does not have the wide scope which seemed to be claimed by the witness. Thus, when the question "What affairs of Aspinwall were the subject of his conversation?" was put, Mr. Weeks' objection that he was acting as counsel at the time was too broad. A designation in some form of what affairs of the bankrupt had been the subject of conversation, does not necessarily require the witness to disclose information involving his privilege. In that view of the question the judge held that the objection was not tenable. The questions were accordingly ordered to be answered.

The law of conspiracy has been illustrated by a recent decision of Baron Pollock, at Manchester, England. Says the Pall Mall Gazette: "The case was a charge of conspiracy preferred by one trade-union against certain members of another. The defendants, who belonged to the Manchester Self-acting Minders' Association, refused to work with a man named Patrick Killion, a member of a rival association, the product of a secession from their own, unless he became a member of the same union as themselves. Their employers were compelled, in consequence, to discharge Killion, and the union to which he belonged preferred the charge in question against the defendants. For the defense it was urged that there was no molestation or obstruction' within the definition of the first section of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which, it was argued, controlled the common law. Baron Pollock, however, reaffirmed the ruling of Mr. Justice Brett, in the gas-stokers' case, in the most uncompromising terms, and illustrated his exposition of the law in a way that is certainly somewhat startling. was,' he said, 'perfectly lawful for one man to say he would not ride in a particular omnibus, or buy bread from a particular baker, but if a body of men agreed together not to ride in that omnibus, or not to buy bread from that baker, that would be an improper interference with a man's earning his livelihood.' If this is good law, it is clear that the farmers of the east

It

ern counties are indictable for conspiracy. They are a body of men who have agreed together, not to employ certain laborers, and, though it would be perfectly lawful for one of them to refuse to employ them, it must be an illegal act, according to Baron Pollock's ruling, for them to combine for this purpose. The decision is capable of further application in a new direction. We understand that a well-known London firm have been obliged to discontinue supplying the Civil Service Co-operative Association, in consequence of the retail dealers in the articles which the firm supply having combined together to withdraw their custom from the firm, unless they discontinue their dealings with the Co-operative Association. These dealers, it would seem from Baron Pollock's ruling, are also liable to indictment for conspiracy."

LEGAL NEWS.

Governor Kellogg, of Louisiana, was formerly a judge in Illinois.

Ex-Judge Hoar peremptorily declines to be a candidate for congress.

An unsuccessful attempt was made on the night of the 5th inst. to burn the offices of the attorney-general of Louisiana.

The Portland Argus states that it has been discovered that, owing to blunders in the legislature, there is not at present, nor has there been for two years, any Maine liquor law, or any law against selling liquor.

Hon. William Dorsheimer, ex-United States district attorney for United States for the Northern District of New York, has been nominated for lieutenantgovernor of this State by the democrats.

Hon. Reverdy Johnson has written a letter to the New York Herald on the Louisiana difficulties. It is the opinion of Mr. Johnson that the question whether a State government is legitimately established is not a judicial but a political one.

Hon. L. Bradford Prince, who was chairman of the judiciary committee of the assembly, has prepared a pamphlet explaining the effect of the amendments to the constitution to be submitted to the people this fall, and urging their approval.

The members of the Boston bar met in the United States Court House on the 18th inst. to take action in reference to the death of Judge Curtis. Hon. Sidney Bartlett presided. Remarks were made by Judge Thomas of Boston; Hons. William M. Evarts and E. M. Stoughton, of New York, and others. A committee was appointed to prepare resolutions for a future meeting.

The inauguration of the new Court of Arbitration in New York city will take place in the second week of October, but the exact day has not been finally decided, as Judge Fancher has not yet returned from his summer vacation. There will be a formal opening in the rooms of the Chamber of Commerce, at which addresses will be made by prominent lawyers and merchants. The forms and rules of practice have been arranged, and are now being printed. In preparing them care has been taken to adhere to the mode of procedure in the State courts, and to make them as brief as possible. Mr. George Wilson, the clerk of the court, will distribute them in a few days to members of the bar, and merchants generally. A number of important cases are ready for trial as soon as the court begins its session.