kee county. In 1859, he was elected judge of the supreme court, and held that position until 1864, when he entered the army as lieutenant-colonel of the 43d regiment of Wisconsin infantry. He continued in the service until 1867, when he returned, and was again elected to the supreme bench. He was an able lawyer, and a learned and upright judge.

The Hon. William P. Lyon, of Racine, has been appointed by the governor to fill the vacancy on the supreme bench, made vacant by Judge Paine's death.

AMASA COPP.

Amasa Copp, Esq., died at Wakefield, N. H., on the 7th inst., in the eighty-second year of his age. Mr. Copp was a lawyer of great ability in years gone by, and had a high professional reputation throughout his state. He was a graduate of Dartmouth college.

BOOK NOTICES.

The Law and Practice in Bankruptcy: with the Bankrupt Law as amended and the Rules and Forms, together with Notes referring to all Decisions reported to December 1, 1870, to which is added the Rules of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. By Orlando F. Bump, Register in Bankruptcy. Baker, Voorhis & Co., New York. Few lawyers are able to devote to bankruptcy the time necessary to become versed in even the most ordinary questions arising under the law, and yet they are almost daily called upon to advise upon questions involving large amounts. The result is, either that their client's rights are jeopardized, or else the client is advised to consult some one who has made the subject a speciality, and, perhaps, in the end, becomes the client of the one who has carried him safely through a matter so important in his business affairs. What we have needed is a thorough, well-digested, and accurate treatise upon bankruptcy, with a full index, so that any practicing lawyer can, in a few moments, ascertain the law upon any question provided for by the statutes or settled by the courts. This we have in the volume before us. This is the third edition of Mr. Bump's work. The first edition of even the ablest author is rarely as good as the second. Mr. Bump's first was good, but he has made immense improvements in the present. It has grown from 200 or 300 pages to over 600.

Reports of cases in Law and Equity determined in the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa. By Edward H. Stiles, reporter. Volume 6, being volume 27 of the series. Ottumwa: Published by the reporter.

Mr. Stiles does his work uniformly well, and, both in head notes and statements, leaves us little to desire. The most important opinion in the volume is that of Hanson v. Vernon, in which arose the question of the constitutionality of an act authorizing local taxation in aid of railroads. The opinion of the court was delivered by Chief Justice Dillon, and is a very able and elaborate review of the authorities and of the fundamental principles underlying the right of eminent domain. The court decided (Cole, J., dissenting), that the act was unconstitutional. Since the retirement of Judge Dillon from the supreme bench, that court has, in the case of Stewart v. The Supervisors of Polk county, arising under a similar act, reversed its former decision, and sustained the constitutionality of the act. The doctrine of the case of Hanson v. Vernon has been sustained by the supreme courts of both Wisconsin and Michigan.

Abbott's Practice Reports, No. 2. Vol. 9. New York: Dlossy & Co.

Howard's Practice Reports, No. 2. Vol. 40. Albany: William Gould & Sons.

The American Law Review, January, 1871. Boston: Little, Brown & Company.

Our quarterly contemporary has been very tardy in its coming, owing, probably, to "prior engagements" of Uncle Samuel's servants. But, late or early, it is always welcome. The number before us is one of the best-we had almost said the best-that we have seen. The new editors Messrs. Sedgwick and Holmes-have apparently got "settled" in their chairs, and have put their hands to work in downright earnest. The "Summary of Events" is unusually good, and the "Book Notices" are, in the main, judicious and vigorous. The principal article in the number is a very able and well-considered "The Burden of Proof in cases of Negligence," paper on written, we believe, by the Hon. Edmond H. Bennett, of the Harvard Law School. The purpose of the article may be gathered by the extract given below. After an elaborate review of the authorities, the writer proceeds: "Are we not justified, upon this review of the authorities, in concluding that, in all actions on the case for negligence, either against bailees for hire, or others, the burden of proving the fact of negligence is always on the plaintiff; that the fact of an injury or accident is not, in and of itself, always prima facie proof of such negligence; and that even when prima facie evidence is offered, the burden of proof, in the accurate sense of the phrase, is not thereby shifted upon the defendant?"

The writer inclines to the same opinion as to the burden in actions on the implied contract of a bailee. The other leading articles are "Expert Testimony," "Contraband of War," "Ultra Vires."

A Treatise on the Civil Jurisdiction of Justices of the Peace in the State of New York. By Esek Cowen, counselor at law. Re-written and adapted to the present state of the law, not only in the state of New York, but also in the other, and especially the western, states. By Lewis Kingsley, counselor at law. Albany and New York: Banks & Brothers. 1870.

The book so favorably known all over this state as "Cowen's Treatise," published as early as 1821, nine years before the adoption of the revised statutes, was the first book of convenient size ever published relative to the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, and to the practice in their courts, in which, though small amounts are involved in each case, nearly three-fourths of the litigation of the state is said to be carried on. It was the first fruits of the labors of the able and learned jurist whose reports, opinions, and writings have shed so much light upon the jurisprudence of this state. The book was received, upon its publication, with the greatest favor, and has had, perhaps, the largest sale, in the state for which it was written, of any law book ever published. It is, indeed, a true vade mecum for the justice and the justice's court practitioner; and the instances are not few where lawyers in remote country places have practiced their lives long on no larger library than a copy of the revised statutes and another of "Cowen's Treatise."

The great changes made in the law by the revised statutes rendered a second edition necessary, and the work was well preformed by Sidney I. Cowen, a son of the author, who inherited his father's ability and industry. In that edition the arrangement of the original work was substantially followed, but large additions were made to the text, and the references were brought up to that date. A third edition was afterward published, but as our attention has never been called to it, we cannot say how it differed from the preceding.

The code of procedure rendered a great deal of law, excellent in its day, obsolete, and the “Treatise" did not escape. As a book of practice much of its learning became useless; as a general elementary treatise its whole arrangement became meaningless, for its expositions of the law were classified under the names of the forms of action abolished by the code. A fourth edition was published in 1856, in which the work was rewritten by Mr. William Tracy, and adapted to the changes made by the

code. In this edition the two volumes of Mr. Sidney I. Cowen were reduced to one, by leaving out those portions which had become obsolete, and references were made to the then recent cases.

In this edition Mr. Kingsley has made sufficient additions to the text to justify him in embodying it in two good sized volumes. He has proposed to himself a laborious task, that of not only noting the changes in the law of this state, and the decisions since 1856, but of adapting the work to the diverse laws of the other, and especially of the western, states. And, it seems to us, that this difficult task has been well performed. We have not compared these volumes with the fourth edition, to see precisely where the present editor has made additions to the labors of his predecessors, but the frequent references to statutes of this state, passed since 1856, to late decisions of our courts, and to the statutes and decisions of other states, show that the editor does not claim too much when he asserts that the work has been "honestly, carefully, and laboriously executed."

We can heartily recommend this book to the profession and the public, believing that it will continue, in the future as in the past, to do more than any other work to aid the student and popularize the law.

ANNUAL MEETING OF THE NEW YORK BAR ASSOCIATION.-The Bar Association held its annual meeting on the evening of the 16th inst. The treasurer, Albon P. Man, reported that the receipts of the general fund were $35,342.05; expenditures, $32,257.45; balance, $3,084.60; receipts of the library fund, $10,824.83; expenditures, $9,733.07; balance, $1,091.76; total funds on hand, $4,175.36.

The library committee reported, through Mr. Gerry, that the library now contains 4,000 books, and that it had received, among other gifts, a complete collection of the civil law and the state trials. A resolution of thanks was passed to Nelson J. Waterbury, who presented to the library the Justinian Code in Latin and French, and the Code Napoleon, with all the additions made thereto. Ten new members were elected. The election of officers for the ensuing year resulted as follows: President, William M. Evarts; Vice-Presidents, Samuel J. Tilden, James W. Gerard, John Slosson, Edgar S. Van Winkle, William E. Curtis; Treasurer, Albon P. Man; Corresponding Secretary, William Allen Butler; Recording Secretary, Augustus R. Macdonough. The President re-appointed, with one exception, the committees on amendment of laws, on the judiciary, and on grievances.

THE COMMON LAW.-We live in the midst of the common law; we meet with it when we wake and when we lie down to sleep,- when we travel and when we stay at home. It is interwoven with the very idiom that we speak; and we cannot learn another system of laws, without learning, at the same time, another language. Du Ponceau.

....

THE UNCERTAINTIES OF JUSTICE.-After all the certainty and rest that can be given to points of law, by either legislative interposition or the authority of precedents, one principal source of disputation, and into which, indeed, the greater part of legal controversies may be resolved, will remain, namely, the competition of opposite analogies. . . . . It is by the urging of these different analogies that the contention of the bar is carried on; and it is in the comparison, adjustment, and reconciliation of these with one another, in the discerning of such distinctions, and in the framing of such a determination as may either save the various rules alleged in the cause, or, if that be impossible, may give up the weaker analogy to the stronger, that the sagacity and wisdom of the court are scen and exercised.-Paley.

PROFESSIONAL DUTIES. — From the opening lecture of the New York University Law School, delivered by Mr. A. Oakey Hall, on Friday evening last, we make the following extract:

"The law student should be taught that though many of his studies grow out of the misfortunes, the errors, and the vices of mankind, the great object of his profession is not, as is supposed by many without, and some within, its pale, to derive wealth or livelihood from those evils, but to mitigate and correct them. He should also be informed that the display of rare ingenuity or of great intellectual power, in forensic discussions, is by no means the most useful of professional labors. On the contrary, he should be instructed that it is an important and very honorable part of the business of a lawyer, by his learning, skill and sound advice, to aid his fellowcitizens in the correct transaction of their affairs, in the solution of difficult questions without resort to litigation, and in the amicable settlement of angry controversies. Above all, he should be impressed with the conviction, that, in conducting such legal proceedings, either in or out of court, as may be necessary to the interest of his clients, he is called to the high dignity of ministering in the sanctuary of justice, and that it behooves him to come to the altar with clean hands,' and ‘a pure heart' that frankness and integrity toward his antagonists are perfectly compatible with the manly support of the rights of his employers; that chicanery and artifice are not only in the long run injurious to professional success, but utterly inconsistent with the first principles of a science whose grand basis is to command what is right, and prohibit what is wrong;' and that to form the character of a great jurist, it is necessary, first of all, to be a good man."

LEGAL NEWS.

Hon. Thomas H. King, a prominent citizen and lawyer of Rhode Island, died at Pawtucket, on the 21st inst.

W. P. Chilton, formerly chief justice of the supreme court of Alabama, died in Montgomery, on the 20th inst.

Hon. Charles Mason, of Utica, late judge of the court of appeals, has been appointed clerk of the United States district court and United States commissioner.

The supreme court of New Hampshire has decided that, to deprive a deserter of his right to vote, the fact of his desertion must have been proved before a court-martial.

The Chicago courts, last year, commenced 8,872 suits, and disposed of 7,947. There were 858 suits for divorceaveraging sixteen and a half every week.

Robt. C. Bellville has been appointed clerk of the United States district court for the district of New Jersey, vice E. Mercer Shreve.

The South Carolina legislature are trying Judge Vernon, of the seventh circuit, on eight articles of impeachment, six of which charge drunkenness.

The Erie railway had in its employ, in 1868, no fewer than forty lawyers, and its litigations during that time cost it, in counsel fees alone, more than a third of a million of dollars.

The house of representatives has adopted the amendment, agreed to in committee of the whole, and noticed by us last week, increasing the salaries of the judges of the supreme court to $8000, with $500 additional to the chief justice.

G. M. Ford, of Chicago, who was appointed as a judge in Wyoming territory, by President Johnson, is supposed to have committed suicide at Vancouver, as some papers which he left indicate that he intended to drown himself. He was seen walking on a wharf on the morning of the 13th inst., and has not been seen or heard of since.

that you would not have ventured to say what is contained in that paragraph to my face, in any company whatever. It seems to be imagined, in some quarters, that, as soon as one can get the control of types and write anonymously, he may publish whatever he pleases about whomsoever he will. For many of the conductors of the public press I have great respect, as for intelligent, cultivated, large-hearted men; but there are others, as you must know, who are "hostes humani generis," and who evidently fancy that, as soon as they can fill the columns of a newspaper, they may put off the character of gentlemen and take on that of ruffians. Such, I hope, is not your opinion;

it certainly is not mine.

You

So much for your position; now for my own. assail me for what you call my "professional association with notorious parties, with generally conceded corrupt schemes." Your meaning is cloudy, and I am not sure whether it be that I have a professional association with notorious parties who have "generally conceded corrupt schemes," or a professional association with notorious parties and also "with generally conceded corrupt schemes." You may take whichever meaning you please. If the latter, I must ask you to state what "generally conceded corrupt schemes" I have a professional association with. If the former, then the complaint is of my "professional association with notorious parties," having "generally conceded corrupt schemes," by which I suppose you mean that I have a “professional association” with Messrs. Gould & Fisk, and that they have "generally conceded corrupt schemes." Now, I will not stop to argue with you whether they have "conceded" that they have corrupt schemes in view, or whether, without any concession on their part, it is true in point of fact that they have them. My place to discuss that question is in court, and not before you. But assuming, for the sake of the argument, that they have, I must ask you what you mean by "professional association." Is it giving them legal opinions and arguing cases for them in court? Or, is it something else? If it be something else, I must ask you what that something is, as I do not know. If it be only giving them legal opinions and arguing cases for them, all that I need say is, that I have done not only what I had a right, but what I was bound, to do. If, in giving an opinion, I have perverted or misunderstood the law, point out the instance, and I will admit myself wrong. If, in arguing a cause, I have suppressed evidence or misled the court, point out an instance of that, also, and I will again admit myself wrong. I deny that I have done any one of these things, in any one instance. If you say I have, mention the instance, or admit yourself a false accuser.

You must remember that a lawyer, who is denied the shelter of his professional character, is necessarily put to great disadvantage. His communications with his clients are confidential. He cannot, in most cases, say what advice he has given, because he cannot disclose the information which his client has given him. In that respect his lips are sealed. But if I cannot tel. you now what advice I have given, I am, I suppose, at liberty to tell you what I have not been consulted about; and, availing myself of this liberty, I say to you, that I have never been consulted before

hand about the management of the Erie Railway company, or the issue of any of its stock or bonds, or the payment of any dividend to any stockholder or class of stockholders, or about what is known as the Erie classification bill, or about the gold operations of 1869, or any of the private transactions of Messrs. Gould & Fisk, or either of them, or about any transaction whatever of this company, or these gentlemen, to which, so far as I now recollect, any exception has been taken. If you think there is any defect in the comprehensiveness of this statement, you may question me to your heart's content. My son has shown me the copy of a letter which he wrote you after mine was sent, and which I should think would satisfy the most prejudiced person. But you must judge for yourself. I have no favor to ask, and can afford to wait.

The article in the Westminster Review, to which you refer, is, so far as I am concerned, a tissue of misrepresentations. It was written, doubtless, by an American, and, I think I could show, for sinister purposes. You should know that lawsuits of great magnitude are depending, which that article is well suited, and probably was designed, to affect. If these suits were pending in England, the publication of the article would, for that reason, be punishable as a contempt of court. Here, if a public opinion can be created which shall influence juries or judges to decide in favor of those who write, or pay for, or inspire, this and the like articles, a great deal of money may be made. Do you understand this?

The storm of abuse that is poured upon me is really, however designed, an attack upon the independence of the bar. Such abuse of an advocate is not a new thing in the world. They who hate a client fancy, in their folly, that, if they can frighten his advocate, they may destroy the client, not reflecting that they would thus weaken their own security. When Erskine, defending Thomas Paine, rose to address the jury, he said: "Every man within hearing at this moment, nay, the whole people of England, have been witnesses to the calumnious clamor that, by every art, has been raised against me. In every place where business or pleasure collects the public together, day after day, my name and character have been the topics of injurious reflection." "And for what," he asked; and, thereupon, replied, that it was due to the fact that he had not shrunk from the discharge of a duty, "which no personal advantages recommended, and which a thousand difficulties repelled." Then he boldly vindicated himself, saying, "I will forever, at all hazards, assert the dignity, independence and integrity of the English bar, without which impartial justice, the most valuable part of the English constitution, can have no existence." Do not mistake me by supposing that I am likening myself to Erskine, or my clients to Paine. I am stating a principle in better terms than I can state it myself. I am not insensible to the respect of my fellow men, and, especially, of my fellow members of the bar, who are in the main a noble but much calumniated body of men; but I value still more my own self-respect, and, if I were to be driven by clamor, or by any means whatever, short of absolute force, to abandon my clients, I should lose my selfrespect. That I will not do, be the consequences what

they may. I am resolved, that, so far as I am able to effect it, my clients shall be judged according to the law of the land. I shall, whenever I speak for them in the courts of the country, stand between them and popular clamor, just as I would stand between them and power, if they were menaced by power of any kind, monarchical or republican.

I have never cared for popularity. I have met many a scowl in my day;-as when I defended the fugitive slave, or when I inveighed against arrests without legal warrant, under color of the war power, or when I denied the legality of test oaths, or argued against the constitutionality of the military governraents in the south,

Do not imagine that, in fulfilling my duties as advocate, I mean in any manner to abet or justify what I think wrong. You, of all men in the world, ought not to think so. You know, or should know, that after your arrest, which, however provoked, I did not approve, I set myself to prevent a similar act in the future; that I drew an amendment of the code of procedure to effect that object, and urged it upon the legislature, and that, after having failed in my effort the first year, I renewed it the next, and finally got it as it now stands, in these words, appended to section 186: "The defendant may give bail, whenever arrested, at any hour of the day or night, and shall have reasonable opportunity to procure it before being committed to prison."

ers.

After what has passed, you must judge for yourself whether you will publish any and what disclaimYou may publish this correspondence if you please. I should think you would consider it fair to do so. If you do not, I shall think myself at liberty to publish it, unless you object. And if, hereafter, you publish, in your own name or anonymously, any thing else concerning me, I have to ask that you will send me a copy, and that you will give equal publicity to any reply I may make. Very truly yours,

SAMUEL BOWLES, Esq.,

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD.

Editor of the Springfield Republican.

1871.}

THE REPUBLICAN, SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Jan. 3, 1871. Dear Sir,- Of course I could not expect that my explanatory note of the 29th would satisfy you. Had it been possible, to my own sense of truth and justice, to have stopped short at the point that you say would have satisfied you, the imperious tone of your first note would have forbidden it. But I did not suppose that you would be surprised at my opinions. I have found them so common among gentlemen of all professions, and especially among gentlemen of the bar in this state; they have been so often expressed in the independent press of the country, that I had supposed you were familiar with their popularity, and had ceased to be surprised, if not annoyed, by their utterance.

Of course I cannot accept the limitations which you | put upon journalism. The gathering and publication of facts is but one part of its vocation. To express opinions is a higher and larger share of its duties.

The conduct of public men, before the public, is the legitimate subject for their discussion. The lawyer before the court, as the minister in his pulpit, the executive in his chair of state, and the legislator in his hall of assembly - all these are alike public men, and their conduct, in their public vocations, the proper theme of both journalistic report and discussion. Nor is such arraignment the province of the press alone. Without invading the sanctities of private character, or the courtesies of personal life, reason and the habits of civilization give to every man the right to arraign and discuss the public or professional conduct of his fellow men. The politician on the stump discusses his fellow politicians. The minister in his pulpit summons his fellows for inconsistency, or unreason, or infidelity. So the lawyer arraigns his fellow lawyers in court or in public gathering. And each, too, crosses the line of his own profession, and disputes the conduct of men of the other professions. There is no court more thoroughly established than this of public opinion, and no right more finally settled, or more largely improved, than this of the free discussion of the public and professional conduct of all our fellow men; and I am surprised to find you disputing it. Thus, however mortifying and trying it may have been to yourself, there certainly was no invasion of the proprieties of private life, no outrage upon the decencies of the occasion, when, at a public gathering and entertainment of the bar of your own native county of Berkshire, last week, a distinguished citizen of the county, now in public life, alluded to your professional conduct in the same spirit, if not in like terms, to those which in the Republican have aroused your 66 amazement" and provoked your "indignation."

You are more fortunate, I trust, in the statement of your own position. That, certainly, is entitled to every possible respect; and I have neither the disposition nor the power to criticise it in detail. I have "walked backward with averted eyes" through much of the history of your professional association with those notorious clients who have dragged down your professional fame. And I cannot measure the precise extent or character of the services you have rendered them. I can only say, my judgment has been formed from the general observation of your name in connection with their most desperate causes, and with some of the more extraordinary proceedings which have been had in their behalf in the New York courts, as well as from the testimony of some of the local public journals and of prominent members of your local bar, as, likewise, further, from gentlemen of your profession in this State, all of whom would, naturally, watch the details with greater closeness and discrimination than either my ability or inclination allowed. I am glad that you are able to satisfy yourself of the propriety of your conduct. I hope you may be able to satisfy your friends, your profession, and the public. But I must tell you frankly, that if you are right, they are widely and deeply wrong, and you are one of the most misunderstood and best abused men in the country.

It certainly will be a satisfaction to your personal friends to know that you were not associated, in advance, with those most notorious and audacious