state of facts much like this, in Minneapolis Mill Co. v. Wheeler, 31 Minn. 121, where it was held that the owner of premises was liable for their unsafe condition, though resulting from the negligence of a third person; but that he could recover a full indemnity from that third person, as they were not in pari delicto. The difference in the extent of the remedy between the two cases is due to the fact that in the latter case the negligence was passive, in the former active.

Copyright

The same body has decided in Leslie v. Young, [1894] App. Cas. 335, that the mere publication, in any particular order, of the time tables issued by railway companies, cannot be claimed as a subject matter of copyright by a publisher of a tourist's handbook, if no more has been done than to copy them in their order, leaving out such stations as the author sees fit.

According to the Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, a corporation may vote, at the elections of a competing corporation, on stock held by the former in the latter, in Corporations spite of a law of the state to the contrary, where the competition affects interstate commerce only: Clarke v. Richmond & W. P. Terminal Ry. Co., 62 Fed. Rep. 328.

It has been decided by the Court of Appeals, in England, that when a debenture, issued by a company by way of floating security, contains a covenant for the payment

Debentures of the principal money, on a specified day, though without any stipulation making the money immediately payable in the event of a winding-up, the occurrence of a windingup before the specified day will render the money immediately payable, and will entitle the holder of the debenture at once to realize his security for the full amount of principal, interest, and costs: Wallace v. Universal Automatic Machine Co., [1894] 2 Ch. 547. The same point was previously decided in Hodson v. Tea Co., 14 Ch. D. 859. See also, In re Panama, New Zealand and Australian Royal Mail Co., 5 L. R. Ch. 318.

Devise

The Supreme Court of New Hampshire has very justly ruled, in Cresser v. Wallace, 29 Atl. Rep. 842, that a devise to a married woman, to have and to hold to her sole and separate use, free from any interference or control of her husband, and to her heirs and assigns, gives her a fee, not a life estate, with remainder to her heirs; and they will take by descent, not by purchase, on the ground that the clause "to her sole and separate use, etc.," does not in any way qualify or limit the estate granted.

Elections

The adoption of the Australian ballot system, in spite of its many advantages, has given rise to a vast deal of litigation over points that had theretofore been pretty well settled; and has also unfortunately called forth many conflicting decisions. One of the most vexed questions has been that which would seem to be the most simple,-the marking of the ballot, and the consequent validity or invalidity of the vote. In the most recent case on the subject, Curran v. Clayton, 29 Atl. Rep. 930, the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine held that, under a statute requiring a cross mark in the square at the right of the name of the party, or individual candidate, ballots marked as follows should be rejected: 1. Where the cross mark was placed above the name of the candidate, and not in the appropriate place at the right of it. 2. Where there was a cross mark above, and one below the name of the candidate, but none at the right. 3. Where the cross mark was placed at the left of the candidate's name. 4. Where there was a cross mark under the party name at the head of the ticket, and one at the left of the name of a candidate of another party. 5. Where there was no cross mark, but a short straight line, drawn across the square at the right of the party name at the head of the ticket. 6. Where there was a cross mark in the square at the right of the name of each candidate of one party, with one exception, and a cross mark in the square at the right of the party name on another column.

In all these cases, except the last, there could be no reasonable doubt as to the intention of the voter; but the court, dis

regarding the plain intention of the statute, which is to give the voter a right to vote freely, without fear of intimidation, or deprivation of his right of free suffrage, deliberately assumed that the sole object of the act was to secure secrecy in voting, and that as the peculiar marks might possibly be used, by prearrangement with the election officers, as a means of identifying the ballot, they were therefore contrary to the spirit of the act, and rendered the ballot void. There never was a clearer instance of the confusion of the means with the end. The intent of the act was to secure a free vote; the secrecy provided for was the most effectual means of securing that freedom. It is little short of absurdity to claim that an independent voter would deliberately furnish means to identify his ballot. But even if he did so, it would be a most roundabout way of accomplishing what he could do by simple word of mouth, without let or hindrance-tell for whom he voted. If secrecy was the only thing desired, why did not the legislature forbid him to disclose his vote orally?

But the same misapprehension exists elsewhere, notably in Indiana: Parvin v. Wimberg, 130 Ind. 561; S. C., 30 N. E. Rep. 790. The Rhode Island courts are a little more liberal, and, while insisting upon a mark to the right of the name, are indifferent to its position, whether within or without the square: In re Vote Marks, 17 R. I. 812. The same is the consensus of opinion in the lower courts of Pennsylvania: Louck's Case, 3 D. R. 127; Weidknecht v. Hawk, 13 Pa. C. C. 41; York Election, 13 Pa. C. C. 205.

On other questions they are not agreed: some hold the cross immaterial: Weidknecht v. Hawk, supra; and that it is sufficient to mark the ballot with a perpendicular stroke: Hempfield Election, 14 Pa. C. C. 577; S. C., 3 D. R. 499 ; others insist upon the cross mark as the palladium of their liberties, or the well-known straw which the drowning man trusts to for salvation, and reject ballots marked with two horizontal lines in the circle intended for the mark: East Coventry Election, 3 D. R. 377. Some admit the validity of a cross mark without the square or circle, if close to the name of the candidate or party: Louck's Case, 3 D. R. 127; others

reject it unless within the circle : East Coventry Election, 377. But the most hopeless conflict is over ballots marked as in the sixth instance in the case under discussion, both after the name of the party and the name of a candidate of another party. Common sense would indicate that the voter intended to vote for that candidate, at any rate, and such has been the decision in some cases: Weidknecht v. Hawk, 13 Pa. C. C. 41 ; Twentieth Ward Election (No. 2), 3 D. R. 120. Legal acumen, however, which is not necessarily synonymous with law, in its boasted capacity of the perfection of human reason, would have it different, and would reject the vote for that office altogether: In re Election Instructions, 2 D. R. 1.

In marked contrast with this futile splitting of hairs and consequent nullification of the legislative intent, is the admirable decision in Woodward v. Sarsons, 10 L. R. C. P. 733. which holds that the main object of the ballot acts is to secure the carrying out of the intent of the voter, and that anything that goes to show that intent clearly is a valid marking; and that therefore ballots marked with two crosses, or three, instead of one, with a single stroke, a straight line, a mark like an imperfect P added to the cross, a star, a blurred or ill-marked cross, a pencil line through the names of candidates not voted for, a cross to the left of the name, and even a ballot paper torn in two longitudinally down the middle, are good. A comparison of the lucid opinion in which this doctrine was asserted with the abortive efforts at special pleading in the cases cited above makes one blush for his country. One American judge, however, has been found with sufficient judgment to approve this decision, and to assert, expressly on its authority, that a ballot without cross marks, but with the names of candidates erased with lead pencil, was to be counted for those whose names were not erased: Coleman v. Gernet, 14 Pa. C. C. 578; S. C., 3 D. R. 500.

The Circuit Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, has recently decided a very interesting point of law in Mitchell v. Marker, 62 Fed. Rep. 139, to the effect that a carrier by elevator, though not an insurer of the safety of his

Elevators

passengers, is yet bound to exercise the highest degree of care, as a carrier by railway or stage coach; that this rule applies not only to the vehicle and machinery, but to the control and management of the means of transportation; and that it is the duty of the person who operates the elevator to give passengers a reasonable time to obtain a balance on entering the car, before beginning a sudden and rapid upward movement, having a tendency to disturb the equilibrium of one yet in motion.

In the opinion of the Superior Court of New York City, pictures painted on canvas, and cemented to the ceiling, are fixtures, and are subject to the lien Fixtures of a mortgage on the building: Cohn v. Hensey, 29 N. Y. Suppl. 1107.

According to the Supreme Court of South Carolina, when a debtor, with intent to defraud his creditors, compromises claims with his debtors, who have no knowledge or notice of such fraudulent intent, the compromise will not be set aside: Anderson v. Pilgram, 19 S. E. Rep. 1002.

Prand

Game Laws

The Supreme Court of California has added itself to the list of those courts which hold, in contradiction of every principle of reason and justice, that a statute, prohibiting the sale of game out of season, applies to game brought from without the state, with the exception of that sold in the original package: Ex parte Maier, 37 Pac. Rep. 402. This train of decision was set on foot by Chief Justice Coleridge, in Whitehead v. Smithers, 2 C. P. D. 553, on the totally inadequate ground that "it may well be that the true and only mode of protecting British wild fowl from indiscriminate slaughter as well as of protecting other British interests, is by interfering directly with the proceedings of foreign persons. The object is, to prevent British wild fowl from being improperly killed and sold under pretence of their being imported from abroad." But unhappily for his lordship, no ordinary man would ever suspect that fact from the wording of the act.