The Central Law Journal.

SAINT LOUIS, JANUARY 3, 1879.

CURRENT TOPICS.

Court of Massachusetts, the plaintiff sued for damages on account of injuries sustained by her in escaping from a fire in the defendant's mill, where she was employed as an operator. No question was made that the mill " was strong and well built, safe and convenient for the usual and customary work carried on within it." It had a single stair-case placed within a tower, affording means of communication between the different stories, and of entering and leaving all parts of the mill, which was ample and sufficient under all ordinary circumstances, taking into view the character of the business and the number of persons employed." The fire was caused by the heating of a mulebearing, and it was not claimed to have originated through defendant's negligence. There were a hose and apparatus for supplying water, which had been, occasionally during the preceding summer tried to see if they were in order, but at the time of the fire they would not work. The plaintiff, failing to effect an egress through the tower, ran to a window, and taking hold of a warp of yarn, let herself down as far as she could, and then dropped the rest of the way, injuring herself very considerably. The court say, ENDICOTT, J., deliver ing the opinion. "The negligence imputed to the defendant is two-fold; first, that no proper and sufficient means of extinguishing the fire, if it should occur, were provided; and, second, that there were no sufficient means of escape in case of fire. If the fire had occurred by the negligence of the defendant, a liability might have arisen, on the ground that a person injured while attempting to escape a danger caused by the negligent act of another may maintain an action for the injury. And it may be that when a fire is a casualty peculiarly incident to, and reasonably to be antici

In Cruz v. Martinez, Supreme Court of California, November term, 1878, which was an action in ejectment to recover possession of lands within the limits of the "Pueblo lands," of Los Angeles, it was admitted by plaintiff to a plea of the statute of limitations, that the defendant held adversely for more than five years before commencement of suit. The "City of Los Angeles" succeeded to the "Pueblo of Los Angeles," at the same time succeeding to the title of the Pueblo lands." The Board of United States Land Commissioners afterwards passed a decree confirming the title of said lands in the "City of Los Angeles," entered February 5th, 1856. An appeal was taken from this decree to the United States District Court, which confirmed the grant of the land commissioners, February 1st, 1878. A patent was issued for said lands, August 9th, 1866, to the mayor and common council of the city for its "Pueblo lands," and was recorded in the proper book in the general land office on the same day it was issued. Plaintiff offered to prove that the survey recited in the patent had not been published as required by law. The evidence was rejected, NILES, J., observing that "it is not required to recite that the survey had been published, and assuming that the law required a publication of the survey, it will be presumed, in support of the patent, that the proper officers of the land department, determined prior to the signature of the patent, that the due publication of the survey had been made. The ques-pated in the prosecution of a particular busi

tion whether they erred in such determination is not open to inquiry in this action. Upon that question the patent is conclusive upon the city, and also upon the plaintiff claiming under her." See Chipley v. Farris, 45 Cal. 527; Johnson v. Fowsler, 13 Wall. 72; French v. Tyan, 93 U. S. 169; La Roy v. Clayton, 2 Sawyer, 496; Dell v. Mador, 16 Cal. 324; Durfee v. Plaisted, 38 Cal. 80; Miller v. Ellis, 51 Cal. 74.

In the case of Jones v. The Granite Mills, recently decided by the Supreme Judicial Vol. 8-No. 1.

It may

ness, the employee is bound to take proper
precaution against its occurrence.
also be his duty to have proper means and ap-
pliances at hand to check it speedily when it
does occur, on the ground that his failure to
do so may bear upon the question whether he
is responsible for the fire itself; and it might
in some cases be difficult to draw the line
between the precautions necessary to prevent
its occurrence and those necessary to check it
in the outset.
No evidence was
offered tending to show that the defendant
failed to take proper precaution to prevent fire,

or that the hose, tanks and other appli- "that the lawyer alone is exempted from this

ances for extinguishing it were not
all that under any circustances would
be required, The evidence offered was
simply that the water did not run when the
fellow-servants of the plaintiff attempted to
use it. This was not sufficient proof of negli-
gence to charge the defendant.
Cooper v. Hamilton Manfg. Co. 14 Allen,
193; Kendall v. Boston, 118 Mass. 234; Joy
v. Winnisimmet Co. 114 Mass. 63; King v.
Boston and Worcester R. R., 9 Cush. 119;
Allen v. New Gas Co. L. R. 1 Ex. D. 261.
The other question is of a some-

what different character. *
* We know
of no principle of law by which a person is
liable in an action of tort for mere non-feas-
ance by reason of his neglect to provide
means to obviate or ameliorate the conse-
quences of the act of God, or mere accident,
or the negligence or misconduct of one for
whose acts towards the party suffering he is
not responsible.
It is no part of
the contract of employment between master
and servant so to construct the building or
place where the servants work that all can
escape in case of fire with safety, notwith-
standing the panic and confusion attending
such a catastrophe."

*

power of regulation by the general assembly. This exemption he derives from the privilege to practice his profession at all, dependent upon his license as an attorney at law. In the technical sense of the word, the sense in which it is used in the statute, he is no lawyer without a lawyer's license to confer that privilege upon him. The license of an attorney at law creates his occupation simply. If he does not engage in its practice, he is not bound to pay the license demanded by the statute If he does, then he must do so under the law which prescribes the conditions upon which the occupation may be engaged in or carried on." Saffold, J., while admitting that a lawyer could not claim any exemption from taxation, on account of his license, dissented from that part of the opinion of the majority in which it was held that for failure to pay the tax he might be imprisoned, for the reasons (1) that evil intention was an essential ingredient of a crime, and delinquency in tax paying did not amount to this; and (2) that the Constitution prohibited imprisonment for debt. In Goldthwaite v. City Council of Montgomery, Id. 486, a conviction under a city ordinance of like tenor was affirmed. In Louisiana, a somewhat similar law was held constitutional, the court in one case saying, that the argument that the permission to practise

law constituted a contract between the State and the attorney which could not be interfered with by the legislature, did not merit a serions reply. The further contention, that the statute was an encroachment of the executive upon the judicial department, was dismissed in a single sentence. "We think, by the act in question, the legislature has adopted stringent measures to compel the payment of taxes by those exercising trades or professions; but in what manner it limits the power of the courts, we are yet uninformed." State v. Waples, 12 La. Ann. 343; State v. King, 21 La. Ann. 201. A legislative act, similar in its provisions to the ordinance in the Missouri case, was held constitutional in Stewart v. Potts, 49 Miss. 749. In the Lawyers' Tax Cases, 8 Heisk. 565, the Supreme Court of Tennessee held that a statute of that State, imposing a tax on lawyers, was unconstitutional. The arguments and opinions

Upon the question of the power of the legislature or of a municipality to require the payment of a license tax as a condition precedent to the exercise by an attorney of the right to practice granted to him by the court, and its power to enforce such payment by fine or, imprisonment-the question decided by the Supreme Court of this State in the case of State v. Sternberg, published in this issue the authorities are far from unanimous. In an early case in this State this power was sustained in a very feeble and unsatisfactory opinion. Simmons v. State, 12 Mo. 268. In Cousins v. State, 50 Ala. 113, the revenue law of the State prescribed a penalty of three times the amount of the license against any one engaged in any business or profession without such license as required by the act. The defendant was convicted of practicing law without a license, and on appeal to the Supreme Court the conviction was affirmed. "It is contended," said the court | in these cases are very lengthy, covering over