held that they could not do so, even though it facilitated the escape of prisoners, because the easement which the public have in a highway does not merge in the fee of the servient estate, when acquired by the state: Peo. v. Marin Co., 37 Pac. Rep. 203. It might have been urged with equal truth that the state in its corporate capacity, as owner of the prison grounds, and the public in its collective capacity, as owner of the easement in the highways, were in the eye of the law distinct entities. The state can sell the grounds used as a prison; it cannot barter away the easement of the public in the streets. Husband and The Supreme Court of Nebraska holds that, notwithstanding the married women's acts, the husband may recover to the extent that the injury sustained by the wife incaWife pacitates her from performing the duties that reasonably devolve upon her in the marriage relation, such as her services and companionship: Omaha & R. V. Ry. Co. v. Chollette, 59 N. W. Rep. 921. This is based on the decision of the Supreme Court of Iowa, made years ago, in Mewhister v. Hatten, 42 Iowa, 288. The wife meets with equal consideration. The Supreme Court of Arkansas will permit her to claim a homestead which she continues to occupy with her family after the husband has become a fugitive from justice: Hollis v. State, 27 S. W. Rep. 73; and the Supreme Court of Missouri will not allow nonresident creditors a remedy against a married woman, also non-resident, which the laws of that state deny to residents, on the rather flimsy principle that the lex fori governs as to remedies: Ruhe v. Buck, 27 S. W. Rep. 412. But by the lex loci contractus she was liable to suit; and on the authority of Hill v. Chase, 143 Mass. 129; S. C., 9 N. E. Rep. 30; and Baum v. Birchall, 150 Pa. 165; S. C., 24 Atl. Rep. 620; as well as of the other authorities cited by Sherwood, J., in his dissenting opinion, the decision seems unsound. The same court did better when it held, in Porter v. Reed, 27 S. W. Rep. 351, that married women, though under disability, are proper defendants to a suit in equity to prevent multiplicity of actions. Insurance The Supreme Court of Texas seems to stick in the bark when it claims that a fire insurance policy, containing a clause that it shall at once become null and void, and the unearned premiums be returned, if the premises become vacant without consent of the company, is avoided by a vacancy of three days, incident to a change of tenants: East Tex. F. I. Co. v. Kempner, 27 S. W. Rep. 122; but the Supreme Court of Nebraska is unquestionably right in deciding that, when a policy provides that no action shall lie unless begun within six months after the loss, and that the damages are payable sixty days after satisfactory proofs of loss are furnished, the six months' limitation does not begin to run until the expiration of the sixty days: German Ins. Co. v. Davis, 59 N. W. Rep. 698. Interstate The Supreme Court of the United States, over the dissent of Chief Justice Fuller and Justices Brewer and Jackson, has recently decided that the provisions of § 12 of the Commerce Interstate Commerce Act, authorizing circuit courts, on refusal of any person to obey a subpœna issued by the interstate commerce commission, to order such person to appear before the commission to give evidence, and to punish a failure to obey such order as a contempt, are constitutional: Interstate Commerce Commission v. Bruneau, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1125. The whole proceeding bears a suspicious resemblance to an attempt to do an illegal act by legal means; and it would be hard to find an analogy to it that has stood the test of investigation. It is to be feared that in this, as in so many other recent cases, both in federal and state courts, the court has been misled into considering the end, rather than the means by which it was to be attained. The Supreme Court of Nebraska has allowed itself to be persuaded into a reaffirmance of the strictly logical and legal, but wholly inequitable doctrine, that when a judgJudgments ment is rendered in a suit begun before the term, its lien relates back to the first day of the term, and is prior to that of a mortgage executed during the term, but before the rendition of judgment: Norfolk St. Bk. v. Murphy, 59 N. W. Rep. 707. To their honor be it said, Ryan and Ragan, CC., dissented. If it is really impossible for the courts to break away of their own motion from doctrines like these, the legislature should be at once informed and convinced of its duty to take the matter in hand. Landlord and Tenant The same court holds that, when there is a contract between the owner of land and another person, by which the latter is to cultivate the land and harvest the hay grown thercon for a share thereof, but the relation of landlord and tenant is not created, and there is no specific agreement as to the possession of the land, the parties become tenants in common of the crop; and if one seizes the whole, either before or after severance, and disposes of it in denial of the other's right, the other may maintain trover for his share: Reed . McRill, 59 N. W. Rep. 775. The Supreme Court of Minnesota has decided that neither a mortgagee in possession, nor an assignee of rents growing out of a lease assigned to him as security, has such an estate as brings him in privity with the lessee under a lease exccuted by the mortgagor, so as to make him liable upon the covenants in the lease: Cargill v. Thompson, 59 N. W. Rep. 638. The Supreme Court of Michigan has ruled that when, by the terms of a lease, buildings are to be removed by the lessee on expiration of the term, a refusal to permit their removal is a conversion: Osborn v. Potter, 59 N. W. Rep. 606; and the Supreme Court of Nebraska has held that a ratification by the landlord of the unauthorized act of a tenant in erecting buildings, by allowing the cost of the buildings as a proper charge against him on settlement, will render the estate of the landlord liable to a mechanics' lien arising out of the improvements: Scroggin v. Natl. Lumber Co., 59 N. W. Rep. 548. By a decision of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, lessees who are bound to rebuild can recover the full value of buildings from a railroad negligently setting them on fire: Anthony v. N. Y., P. & R. R. Co., 37 N. E. Rep. 780. According to the Supreme Court of Michigan, one who has cut and rafted logs under a contract, by the terms of which he is entitled to retain possession until paid for Liens his services, has a common law lien thereon, if he complies with the contract; and the fact that the owner obtains possession will not defeat the lien, if that possession is tortiously obtained: Haughton . Busch, 59 N. W. Rep. 621. The Supreme Court of Arkansas, after discussing the apparently conflicting cases, has arrived at the conclusion Liquors that a delivery of liquor to one who promises to return it in kind, is not a "sale," if made in good faith; but if it is a mere subterfuge, it is a sale, within the meaning of the statute: Robinson v. State, 27 S. W. Rep. 233. Fairly representative cases are, on the one hand, Com. v. Abrams, 150 Mass. 393; S. C., 23 N. E. Rep. 53; and on the other, Gillan v. State, 47 Ark. 555; S. C., 2 S. W. Rep. 185. The Supreme Court of Michigan has decided that knowledge that the vendee is selling liquors illegally is no defence to an action by the vendor for the price: Gambs v. Sutherland, 59 N. W. Rep. 652; though a contrary doctrine prevails in Massachusetts: Graves v. Johnson, 30 N. E. Rep. 818. Master and The Supreme Court of Nebraska, which has been making law rapidly of late, has ruled that after a contract of hiring expires, the law does not imply that the after services were rendered on the original contract, so as to exclude parol evidence of different terms: Hale v. Sheehan, 59 N. W. Rep. 554. The Court of Civil Appeals of Texas thinks that the legislature has power to declare what class of employés shall thereafter be considered as fellow servants: Galv., H. & S. F. Ry. Co., 27 S. W. Rep. 426; and the Supreme Court of California, that the mate of a ship engaged in carrying freight and passengers between distant points is a fellow servant of a man employed in the steward's department to wait on the officers' table: Livingston v. Kodiac Packing Co., 37 Pac. Rep. 149; though if a mate is not a viceprincipal, it will be hard to define the latter term. Yet the House of Lords treats the master of a vessel as a fellow servant with the seamen: Hedley v. Pinkney & Sons S. S. Co. [1894] App. Cas. 222. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, however, holds that an employé of a railroad riding to and from work on a free ticket given him by the defendant company, is a passenger, not a fellow servant of the crew, during that ride: Doyle v. Fitchburg R. R., 37 N. E. Rep. 770. The Appellate Court of Indiana has decided, rather at variance with the weight of authority, that when a stone, insecurely placed by the order of a fellow servant in charge of the yard, fell on a workman and injured him, the master was liable for his neglect to provide a safe place to work: Blondin 2. Oolite Quarry Co., 37 N. E. Rep. 812; and the Supreme Court of Missouri, that if a railroad neglects its statutory duty to fence its tracks, it will be liable for the death of an engineer due to a collision with a bull that had come on the track through a defect in the fence: Dickson v. Omaha & St. L. Ry. Co., 27 S. W. Rep. 476. Mechanics' As usual, the subject of mechanics' liens bears its share of fruit. The Supreme Court of Illinois has held, that when a corporation is a sub-contractor, a notice signed by Liens it, or its attorney, without the corporate seal, is sufficient: Carey-Lombard Lumber Co. v. Fullenwider, 37 N. E. Rep. 899; the Supreme Court of Washington, that the fact that a person entitled to a mechanics' lien assigns his claim against the owner of the land as collateral security, will not defeat his right to claim the lien, as the assignment is a merely equitable one: Potvin . Denny Hotel Co., 37 Pac. Rep. 320; and the Supreme Court of Indiana, that in an action to foreclose a mechanics' lien, persons to whom the property was conveyed after record notice of intent to file a lien, and who claim to be owners thereof, are proper parties: Vorhees v. Beckwell, 37 N. E. Rep. 811. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, in that mania for spying out unconstitutionality that seems to afflict it, has lately decided that an act providing that no contract between the owner and the contractor shall interfere with the right of a sub-contractor to file a lien, unless he agrces in writing to be bound by the contract between the |
