the opinion of the court in that case supported this construction of the statute by the citation of a number of authorities, both English and American.

This is therefore no longer a mooted question in Maryland. When there is a possibility that the services may be performed within a year, the remedy for a breach of the contrate is not barred by the statute. This record contains no evidence which shows that the mill was not purchased on the 8th day of March, 1880; and there is a strong probability that this contingency did occur on that day, as the letter of the defendant informing the plaintiff of the purchase is dated in Philadelphia on the day after. If the parties entered into the contract on the 8th day of March, and the purchase was effected on that day, it was an agreement clearly not within the statute. The absence of proof as to the precise time of the purchase is fatal to the assumption which seems to have formed the basis of the instructions granted by the court below.

From what has been said, it follows that there was error in the rejection of the plaintiff's prayers and in granting the first and second prayers of the defendant. The judgment must therefore be reversed and a new trial awarded.

WEEKLY DIGEST OF RECENT CASES.

MARYLAND,
PENNSYLVANIA,

TEXAS.
VERMONT,

WISCONSIN,

8

1, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 14

10

2.7, 9

3

13.

IMPLICATION OF

FEDERAL CIRCUIT COURT, 1. ATTORNEY AND CLIENT POWER TO COMPROMISE. An authority to compromise can not be inferred from the bare relationship of attorney and client. Persons dealing with an attorney-at-law respecting his client's business may justly infer that he has all the powers implied by the relation, but not that he has the powers of a general agent to com. promise and release debts or transfer and convey the goods or lands of his client. Isaacs v. Zugsmith, S. C. Pa., April 16, 1883; 40 Leg. Int. 335.

of returning it, according to the contract, a subsequent conversion of the property does not amount to larceny. Hill v. State, S. C. Wis., April, 1883; 15 Ch. Leg. N. 381.

4. EVIDENCE-ALTERED INSTRUMENT

TION.

- PRESUMP

Suit was brought on the official bond of a guardian. The name of A written in the body of the bond and subscribed as one of the sureties was in both places erased. Held, that as the bond was on the files of the court, the presumption is that it was the bond approved by the court, and that the alterations were made by the obligors before deliv⚫ ery or presentation for approval. Zander v. Commonwealth; S. C. Pa., April 2, 1883; 40 Leg. Int. 296; 14 Pittsb. L. J. 21.

5. INSURANCE, FIRE-PROOF OF LOSS WAIVERSTATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP.

As a rule the law does not require vain things, and where technical proofs could but re-state information of a total loss, of which an insurance company was already fully advised, to insist upon such technical proofs would be to oppose the barest technicality as a bar to the assured's right to recover a strictly honest claim. The waiver of proofs of loss, required in a policy, may be inferred by any act of the insurer evincing a recognition of liability or a denial of obligation exclusively for other reasons. If the equitable title to a property is in the assured it is equivalent to a fee in making good the statement of "ownership" in the application for the insurance. Pennsylvania Fire Ins. Co. v. Dougherty, S. C. Pa., April 16, 1883; 40 Leg. Int. 334.

6. JUDGMENT-COLLUSION-COLLATERAL INQUIRY. A collusive judgment may be inquired into collaterally. Judgments entered or maintained by collusion or fraud of both parties are to be distinguished, however, from judgments obtained by the fraud of the plaintiff; the former are void as to creditors only, and can be attacked in any collateral proceeding by them, whilst the latter can be attacked by the defendant alone, directly and in the proper court. A judgment confessed voluntarily by an insolvent or indebted man for more than is due, is prima facie fraudulent within the statute of 13 Eliz., c. 6; but then it is only prima facie fraudulent, and the presumption may be rebutted. Meckley's Appeal, S. C. Pa., May 7, 1883; 40 Leg. Int., 336.

7. LIQUOR LAWS TRIAL.

CONSTITUTIONALITY

JURY

Lodge F. & M. Masons, 8 Cent. L. J. 71-72 and note. Vicksburg, Miss. J. D. GILLAND. Answer No. 3. According to the statement B did not assume the payment of the debt due C, but purchased the land with notice of the incumbrance. The land was subject to sale under proper proceedings for foreclosure of lien created by mortgage. If the proceeds of sale be insufficient to pay the debt, the debtor is still liable for the deficiency. R. S. Art. 1340. But if the conveyance from A to B contain a recital and stipulation that the same is subject to the mortgage debt and to be paid by B, then it presents a proposition discussed in 16 Cent. L. J. 79. See also Jones v. Higgins, 16 Cent. L. J. 567 and Elliott v. Sackett, 16 Cent. L. J. 288. S.

SCHOULER'S EXECUTORS AND ADMINISTRATORS. -A Treatise on the Law of Executors and Administrators. By James Schouler, Boston, 1883: Soule & Bugbee.

This volume completes Mr. Schouler's Series on the Law of Personal Property. The three preceding volumes are Vol. I, of Schouler on Personal Property, treating of the Nature and General Incidents of Personal Property, Vol. II, of the same, treating of Gifts and Sales of Personal Property; and Schouler on Bailments. The acknowledged excellence of Mr. Schouler's preceding works on "Domestic Relations" and "Husband and Wife" is a guaranty of the useful qualities of the present work, while the immense volume of the probate business of the country in an indication of the extremely wide field of usefuluess that lies before the book. The work is very handsomely printed and bound.

STEPHEN'S DIGEST OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE. A Digest of the Law of Criminal Procedure in Indictable Offenses. By Sir James Fitz James Stephen, a Judge of the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division, and Herbert Stephen, Esq., of the Inner Temple. Barrister at Law. London, 1883: Macmillan & Co.

This work is not a digest in the American sense of being a collection of references to adjudicated law, but is an attempt at a precise and logical statement of the law, both statutory and benchmade, in the simplest possible language; it is more properly a code in the sense that the Code Napoleon is, except the lack of statutory force. While of unquestionable utility to the English practitioner, we doubt that the American lawyer will find it available, because of the immense mass of statutes peculiarly English, which have been embodied in it.

The case is more like those of services rendered in an emergency, where even voluntary assistance, if followed by a recognition of its value and a promise of reward, has been held to give a legal right.

man.

AMERICAN DECISIONS INDEX. Index to the

American Decisions and the Editor's Notes Thereto, with a Table of Cases R--ported. Vols. 31 to 45 inclusive-1837-1846. By A. C. Free

San Francisco, 1883: A. L. Bancroft & Co.

This is an excellent index of the fifteen volumes of the series indicated. It seems to have been very carefully compiled, and to be complete in every respect. A most useful feature, frequently wanting in other works of a simiiar character, is the table of cases, reported in the volumes indexed. This index, together with the digest to volumes 1 to 30, heretofore noticed (15 Cent. L. J. 220), form a complete guide to the series as far as completed, and add very materially to its value.

The Jerseyman who sued a rude boy for assault and battery of his horse is to be regarded as a sort of private society all by himself for the prevention of cruelty to animals. The main question will be whether he can prove any damages. If the condition of the horse bears no traces of the kick, the question will be whether the pain suffered at the time, or the injury to the feelings of the noble animal, or, in the language of the law, his mental sufferings, or both, will sustain the action. Or perhaps, if the owner himself was present, the indignity put upon him by the onslaught on his steed will entitle him to a recovery. On the whole, we are inclined to think that the interests involved in this action are such that every lover of the equine race must be glad that the legal questions are to be discussed and determined by New Jersey justice.- Daily Register.

TWENTIETH WEST VIRGINIA. Reports of Cases

Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, at the June, August and Fall Special Terms, 1882. Bv Cornelius C. Watts, Attorney General and Ex-Oficio Reporter. Vol. 20. Wheeling, 1883: C. H. Taney, State Printer.

This volume is characterized by exhibiting in an unusual degree the most glaring faults common in published reports, yiz.: inordinately long opinions and excessively diffuse syllabi. The former are strikingly tedious and the latter very frequently occupy a page and not unfrequently two or three pages, which, to a profession burdened with the modern multiplication of precedents and an ever-increasing llood of volumes, will seem simply inexcusable.

NOTES

LEGAL EXTRACTS.

NOVIL ACTIONS. The papers report some actions that are rare, if not quite new. The most noteworthy is the colored boy's action for compensation for furnishing blood, by the operation of transfusion, to the de. fendant when he was asphyxiated. This case is an apt illustration of the way in which every step in the progress of applied science gives rise to new questions. It is said that the action was for goods sold and delivered, and this may not have been an inappropriate form for the pleader to resort to; but it is curious to observe that the novelty of the relation of the parties involves different legil elements. The defendant was asphyxiated and could neither order goods nor request services, nor call a physician who might act as his agent in so doing. Nor did he have any opportunity, on recovering consciousness, to reject the service or return the goods. But these circumstances and others, although they might be regarded as taking the case out of the category of "goods sold," do not necessarily affect the meritorious character of the claim nor deprive it of a legal foundation,

-A fugitive from justice boasted that he was 80 well liked by all who knew him that he never left any place without a reward being offered for his return.

-“Prisoner, how old are you?” “Twentytwo, your IIonor.” “Twenty-two? Your papers make out you were born twenty-three years ago." “So I was, but I spent one year in prison, and I don't count that-it was lost time."

-One finds not infrequently on the title pages of Chinese newly-published books a caution against their unauthorized publication, in some instances threatening the forfeiture or destruction of all blocks that may be cut for their printing, showing at once that literary property is liable to be stolen, and that redress is afforded to authors thus wronged. The penal code, however, will be searched in vain for an enactment on the subject of copyright. Chinese law has never conceived it necessary to specify that particular form of robbery which consists in despoiling a scholar of the fruit of his toil, any more than to name the products of husbandmen and artisans as under the protection of law, all alike being regarded as property by natural right. The offending pub. lisher is arraigned and punished under that section of the code which takes cognizance of larcenies of a grave character, the penalty, to which one who prints and sells an author's work without authority is liable, being one hundred blows and three years' deportation. This right of exclusive publication by an author of his works is held in perpetuity by his heirs and assigns.-Dr. D. J, Macgowan.