Harvey v. Harvey, 383 v. Osborn, 574 Hatch v. Mut. Life Ins Co., 75, 89 Healey v. City Pass. R. R., 570 Hoagland v. City of Sacramento, 521. Holden v. Vaughan's Adm'rs, 573 Home Ins. Co. v. Balt. War. Co., 204 Hope v. International Fan. Soc., 285 Hornor v. Henning. 43 Horrigan v. First Nat. Bk. of Mem- Lake Shore & M. V. R. R. v. McMillan, Lange v. Lycoming Ins. Co., 212 Lewis v. Graves, 167 Life Ass'n of America v. Boogher, 40, Lincoln Co. v. Magruder, 286 v. McLellan, 262 Long v. Comm'rs of Richmond, 333 Louisville & N. R. R. v. Fox, 93 Low v. Cal. Pac. R. R., 487 Lowe v. Williams, 482 Lowery v. City of Delphi, 503 Lowry v. Plitt, 289 Ryan v. Driscoll, 239 Ryerson v. Brown, 160 Safford, ex parte, 472 Schneider v. Piesner, 358 School District v. Randall, 312 Schmucker v. Sibert, 597 Schumacker v. City of St. Louis, 286 Schumaker v. Johnson, 579 Schuster v. Foster, 213 Scotland Co. v. M. I. & N. R. R., 599 Scripps v. Reilly, 128 66 v. Cunningham, 597 Sebrell v. Couch, 479 Seckel v. Backhaus, 125 Seibert v. Cavender, 358 Seifert v. Wittington, 189 Semple v. Atkinson, 599 Senab v. Str. Josephene, 262 Sewall v. Sewall, 455 Sewell v. Defiance Co., 569 Shamleffer v. C. G. P. M. Co., 550 Shaw v. Padly, 548 Sheehan's Case, 524 Shields, in re, 557 Shepherd v. State, 168 Sherman v. Hogland, 406 Co., 212 v. St. Louis Mutual Life Ins. McQuirk v. Cummings, 310 Nance v. Carolina Cent. R. R., 214 Nashville & Chatt. R. R. v. Stevens, 502 Nason v. Best, 192 National Bk. of the Com. v. Mechanics Nat. Bk., 458 Nelson v. Blakely, 215 v. Trigg, 528 v. Vorce, 527 Nesbett v. Campbell, 312 Newall v. Hutchinson, 334 New Lindell Hotel Co. v. Bailey, 405 New Orleans, St. Louis & Ch. R. R. v. New Sombrero Phosphate Co. v. Erlanger, 510 New York W. & S. Co. v. Loomis, 575 North Western Union Packet Co. v. City of Clarksville, 61 North Western Union Packet Co. v. City of Hannibal, 61 Ricketts v. Dorrell, 502 Riggs v. St. L., G. & T. R. R., 599 Rinedour v. Mayo, 569 Roach v. Turk, 502 Roberts v. Cont. Ins Co., 573 Robinson Mac. Works v. v. Chandler, Rochford v. Creamer, 572 Rice v. Hall, 480 66 v. Brown, 551 44 v. Johnson, 383 v. State, 548 Relief Fire Ins. Co. v. Shaw, 578 Reynolds v. The People, 144 Richardson v. Aikin, 143 v. Carroll, 120 v. Carter, 239 v. Cheek, 165 v. Elliot, 464 Rogers v. Ingham, 595 v. Fleming, 571 v. Rogers, 503 66 v. Freeman, 189 v. Garesche, 47 224 The Central Law Journal. prevail on their youngsters to eschew beards, when SAINT LOUIS, JANUARY 5, 1877. CURRENT TOPICS. BREVITY IN LEGAL JUDGMENTS.-Mr. Chief Justice Waite continues to deserve the thanks of the profession for the brevity of his opinions. The following is the text of his opinion in an important land case, recently decided in the Supreme Court of the United States-Berreyesa v. The United States: Notwithstanding the great ability with which this cause has been argued before us on behalf of the appellant, we are unable to distinguish it from a large number of cases to be found in our reports, in which we have felt compelled to decide adversely to claims made under alleged Mexican grants, because it did not appear that a grant from the Mexican government had been deposited and recorded in the proper public office among the public archives of the republic.' -(U. S. v. Cambuston, 20 How. 64; U. S. v. Castro, 24 How. 349; U. S. v. Knight, Adm., 1 Black, 251; Peralta v. U. S., 3 Wall. 440." THE BAR AND THE MOUSTACHE.-An edict lately issued by the Minister of Justice of France, recalls the anomaly which authorities of European countries have often recognised between the moustache and the advocate. Of late years, says an English journal, the authorities of the Faculte de Droit have connived at the wearing of these so-called unprofessional ornaments, and grave professors, it remarks, have even carried into the lecture room the forbidden embellishment. But the head of the department of justice has interfered, and learned counsel will no longer be permitted to dispense with their razors, despite a considerable amount of grumbling on their part over the order. The archives of the English Inns of Court are full of decrees against the beard and moustache. In Henry VIII.'s time an order was issued that the gentlemen of the Inner Temple " should reform themselves in their cut or disguised apparel, and not to have long beards." Ten years later the authorities of Lincoln's Inn decreed that no member of the society being in commons, or at his repast, should wear a beard; and who so did, to pay double commons or repasts in this house during such time as he should have any beard.” In Queen Mary's time the members of the Inner Temple were forbidden to wear beards of more than three weeks' growth, under a fine of twenty shillings. During the same reign, in Lincoln's Inn it was enacted that such members as had beards should pay twelve pence for every meal they took unshaven. Under Elizabeth and the first of the Stuarts, lawyers were subject to similar restrictions. But, says Mr. Jeaffreson, in his book about lawyers, "fashion is all powerful, and however grandly the benchers of an inn might talk in their council chamber, they could not Vol. 4.-No. 1. beards were the mode, or to crop the hair of their heads when long tresses were worn by gallants at court." The French advocate, if he be an imperialist, remembering the face of Napoleon III. may console himself with the reflection that it was the puritan that sheared the curls of the cavalier, and that the moustache is but sharing the exile of his dynasty. RAILWAY INJURIES.-The horrible railroad accident at Ashtabula Creek, by which, probably, one hundred men, women and children were bruised, roasted and scalded to death, is calculated to draw attention strongly to the means which the law provides for the prevention of such calamities. The negligent killing of a human being is manslaughter; but where the negligence is participated in by a numerous body of men, such as the directors, officers and servants of a great corporation, it is almost impossible to fix the responsibility upon. any one person, so as to make him punishable in a criminal court. But while the penal justice of the country has thus been found wholly inadequate to the protection of society in this particular, the remedial arm of the law has been found most effective. The general inclination of juries to award heavy damages for death or injuries received in railway accidents, and to resolve all doubts against the railway companies, and the general disposition of the American appellate courts to sustain such verdicts, have stimulated railway officials to a very great degree of care, but not to a greater degree than the public safety demands. So great has this care become, that it is now stated, on apparently good authority, that, in proportion to the amount of railway travel, railway accidents are more frequent in England than in this country. We are convinced that this is owing to the fact-and it is a shameful fact, if true-that nearly all the English judges are shareholders in railways, and otherwise strongly allied to the interests of capital; and that hence, in the trial of actions for damages against railway companies, they are, in a substantial sense, obliged to sit as judges in causes in the result of which they are interested. This inclines them strongly to lay down rules of law favorable to the corporations, and, in the application of these rules, to favor them still more, as by withdrawing the issues from the jury and granting peremptory nonsuits, or by giving the jury peremptory instructions to find for the defendant. It has thus come to pass that the judgments of the English courts in cases of this character are favorite precedents with American railway lawyers. The beneficial results of the American plan of administering justice in actions growing out of railway negligence, justify, if possible, a more stringent application of the same remedy. The question whether, in a given case, a man or a corporation has exercised reasonable care, is almost always a pure question of fact, and whenever a judge attempts to decide it by awarding a per emptory nonsuit, or by giving peremptory instructions, he clearly and unmistakably invades the province of the jury; and every argument in favor of the propriety of his doing so is an argument against the system of having juries to pass upon questions of fact. We are earnestly inclined to think that legislatures should inflexibly declare the liability of railway companies to make compensatory damages in case of all accidents of whatever description, unless the company can show, by unmistakable evidence, that the accident arose from a vis major entirely beyond any human foresight or control. Has an iron bridge broken down in extremely cold weather? Such bridges must be made of such strength and in such a manner as to resist the severest cold. Has a trestle-work or an embankment been swept away by a sudden flood? Such structures must be made so as to resist the greatest floods. Has a train been wrecked by a latent defect in a wheel? Railroad owners must find means to prevent such latent defects. Has a rail been misplaced by a malicious trespasser? Watchmen must be stationed, as is done in Europe, to prevent such malicious trespasses. In other words, unless the injury has arisen through the irruption of an armed mob, a hostile army, or other like agency beyond the utmost reach of human foresight or control, the rule should be inflexibly enforced that the happening of accidents is the proof of negligence, and the absence of them the proof of innocence. Subject only to these exceptions, railway carriers should be held to be insurers of the lives and safety of their passengers, and should not be allowed to avoid this liability by contract. Another matter which should command the attention of legislatures, and which we especially commend to the Missouri legislature, just assembled, is the facility with which railroad corporations avoid the payment of such liabilities. A mortgage is placed upon all the railroad property; the bonds are purchased at a small percentage of their face value by the stockholders, or by those of them who are in the ring. As soon as the directors find the corporation loaded down with a sufficient accumulation of these floating liabilities, default is made in the payment of the interest, and suit in equity is brought to foreclose the mortgage. This suit is brought in the name of some one bondholder, for himself and all the others. A committee is appointed to bid for the bondholders at the sale. No person or corporation is able to offer an amount of cash equal to the par value of their bonds, and they become the purchasers. Thus it is that substantially the same persons do duty as mortgagors and mortgagees, and as vendors and purchasers. The property has been regularly sold to foreclose a mortgage, and, in the eye of the law, belongs to a new and different owner. A new corporation is formed with a new name, to whom the purchasing committee conveys it. This purchasing committee receive securities of the new corporation to distribute among the old bondholders according to their proportionate share; and if any of these bonds should, by any accident, have gotten into the hands of widows, orphans, lunatics, or other ignorant persons, and these persons do not appear, within a prescribed length of time, to claim their share of the new securities, the members of the purchasing committee proceed, perhaps, to divide them among themselves, as was done in a celebrated case about which a lawsuit is pending in one of the courts of New York City. Thus a great railroad is put through a sort of a sweat, and, presto! it blossoms out again, under a new name, but owned and operated substantially by the same men that owned and operated it before; with this difference, however, that all its floating debts are wiped out: no compensation to the farmer whose last work-beast has been killed, or whose last stack of grain has been burned by its trains; nothing for the widow whose husband and only support has been killed in one of its accidents; no further installments of pension to the children whom it has maimed, and whose parents or guardians have accepted annuities in lieu of damages. Now, the courts are not to blame for this-not in the slightest degree. They are obliged to administer the law as they find it; and wherever opportunity has offered, they have shown a disposition to stretch the law in favor of the floating creditor. It remains with the legislature to declare a remedy; and a very simple and adequate remedy may be found in the passage of a law declaring all demands of persons or corporations against railroad companies on account of injuries to person or property, which have arisen in and about the operation of railroads, to be liens against the railroad, its property and franchises, which shall have priority as against each other from the date when the injury happened, and which shall be paramount to all the liens arising subsequently to the passage of the act, under any mortgage, deed of trust, or other contract of the railroad company, including mechanics' and material-men's liens. The reason why we would have this lien displace all liens arising ex contractu is this: Where an individual enters into a contract with a railroad company, as a general rule he proceeds voluntarily, lucri causa, and with his eyes open; but where a man is injured by a railroad company, in his person, his family, his lands or his goods, he suffers involuntarily, and his right to compensation is higher in morals, and ought to be higher in law, than in the former case. The one makes his own bed, and must lie in it as he has made it; the other has a bed of thorns made for him by the railroad company, and ought not to be obliged to lie in it. Nor would this be an extraordinary exertion of the law-making power. Liens of this character, though perhaps not so sweeping in extent, are constantly enforced in the maritime courts. If one vessel runs down another at sea through the fault of its master or pilot, the |