required for officers and prisoners, and a multiplicity of articles for the admiralty, war department, postoffice and other public departments.-Canada Legal News. The writer has often been asked whether photography can lie. The fact that it now plays an import. ant part in life renders the question rather a serious one, and one that I am certain many would like to have answered. Well then, photography can lie and be bad enough to bring a blush to the cheek of the worthiest disciple of Ananias. The wonderful strides made by photography during the past few years have not only enabled men to achieve great things by its aid, but it has also unfortunately assisted others to deceive anddefraud their fellow creatures. Photography assists the forger in so closely imitating bank notes as to deceive the most experienced, but it also assists the scientist to detect these forgeries, and in some cases has aided justice to discover the offender. An amusing case appeared some time ago in one of the law courts. It was a dispute between two persons about a wall. The plaintiff complained that the defendant's wall obstructed the light to which he had a right. Defendant denied the charge. The most amusing part of the case however was when the complainant handed the judge some photographs of the obstructing wall, and the judge observed that it was evident from them that the wall certainly did obstruct the light and was apparently of unnecessary height and size. Then up rose the counsel for the defendaut, and with a smile handed the learned judge his photograph of the same wall. In the first set of photographs the wall was of immense size, towering above all the winds; in the second however it was of liliputian dimensions, a most insignificant thing, unworthy of any dispute. these different effects can all be brought about by using Now lenses of different angles, that is to say, lenses which collect or throw a more or less amount of view on a plate of given dimensions. A wide angle lens is one that includes a lot of view in a picture, and as the angle is a long way different to that of the human eye, the picture in no way gives a correct representation of the scene. Readers should beware of house agents' photographs of the houses and property they have for disposal. They are nearly all taken with a wide angle lens. With such an instrument it is possible to make chess with himself and looking on at the game. There plate and makes the exposure, and it was quite possi ble to include the same person in the picture in a arranging them together and rephotographing them. blotches in the face, make the mouth a little smaller, | darker, and the nose a bit shorter. the eyes brighter and perhaps the eyebrows a bit Large lumps are then carved out of the waist, and the figure otherwise improved. When the finished portrait is handed over to her ladyship she is charmed with it. Perhaps the appearance is not exactly the same as that showu by her looking-glass, but she consoles herself with the reflection that photography cannot lie-oh, dear no; impossible!-London Tit-Bits. LESSONS IN SHORT-HAND. CONDUCTED BY ELDON MORAN. A practical course for only $2. HORT-HAND is coming so much into demand that we have decided to publish a course of lessons for the benefit of our readers. It pays to know shorthand. A stenographer is required to-day in every business house, and the supply of competent writers is not equal to the demand. Besides short-hand is useful as an accomplishment. Every business and professional man would find a system of brief writing useful almost every hour. Teachers however are very scarce. On this account the usual charge for instruction is too high. Recog nizing the importance of this subject, and the need of a cheap course, one especially adapted to the young, and which may be pursued at home, we have decided to publish this series of lessons. We have secured the services of one of the most skilled and best known of American teachers of stenography to take charge of our special class. twelve lessons, giving the popular Pitman system in a Our short-hand series will comprise a course of nutshell. With short-hand the best results can only be obtained when the pupil receives individual lessons from a practical, living teacher. And it is just this that we offer every person that joins our proposed class. It may seem remarkable that we can offer a course of individual lessons, to be received at home by each class member, for only $2. Here is the plan. The pear from time to time in these columns. This will printed explanations and engraved plates will all ap serve as a text. The author of the series, whom we have engaged to conduct our class, will give a course of twelve lessons by mail, that is, by means of written letters, to each student. Prof. Moran is making a corrected, mistakes pointed out and explained, ques great success of this plan. Every exercise is carefully tions answered, lesson keys and blanks furnished. The professor's letters will be found not only highly instructive but friendly and encouraging. Each member will also within proper limits be introduced to other students living in other States with whom he may correspond, making use of short-hand ALBANY, N. Y. WEED, PARSONS & Co. have always been, are put on the defensive by the disclosures involved by the compliance with the Corrupt Practices Act in this State. The statements filed by such candidates at the late election show that in many instances very large sums of money have been spent by them to make their calling and election sure. In this district, Judge Herrick, who was practically as certain of election as of the recent eclipse, found it necessary or discreet to spend between $5,000 and $6,000 — more than the governor-elect spent, and just about $1 per head for his majority. This included considerable sums to certain editors. In the city of New York, where the Tammany candidates were much surer of election than of the eclipse, the case is still more flagrant. We extract the following from a reputable city newspaper: With the single exception of Judge Gildersleeve, each of the Tammany candidates for judicial office in this one county spent more money than did Mr. Flower (according to his affidavit) in his canvass for governor in the whole State. This is a very abominable and indecent showing. No judicial candidate ought to be required or permitted to spend one cent to procure his election, nor for election expenses. There ought to be one corner in the Augean stable of modern politics kept tolerably clean, and it should be the judicial corner. We earnestly protest that we have no partisan bias in this matter. If republican candidates have spent considerable sums of money for this purpose they are just as reprehensible, and if their names come to us we shall publish them. We cannot be blind to the danger that this practice puts judicial candidates under very improper obligations to individuVOL. 44 No. 21. als. Nor can we hesitate to say that in our judgment a man who hands over $10,000 or $5,000 to the bosses of his party for election purposes is not fit to be a judge, nor would the people anywhere out of the city of New York have the smallest confidence in his integrity. He may think he is above partisan bias in his office; he possibly may be so; but the public will not think so, and his office is degraded and his usefulness seriously impaired. Since writing the foregoing we are informed that "Mr. McCrea, a republican, who wanted a civil justiceship, paid to various organizations $6,500." The world is growing very short of historical rascals. It is really pitiful to see how most of its past pet scoundrels are being exculpated. It has been customary for three or four hundred years to regard Richard Third and Henry Eighth as two of the grossest villains in history, but Mr. Froude has just reburnished the aureole which some years ago he laid around the head of St. Henry and now Mr. Elias A. Calkins has volunteered to smooth down the traditional humps, mental and physical, of the terrible Richard. The hump, it seems, was only a high shoulder, and the accounts do not agree as to which shoulder it was. Our impression is that it was the right, and that it was a mere gentle elevation attributable to excessive use of the scepter. But how can there be any thing certain about Richard's hump, when nobody is certain about Byron's foot? This defense is in the introduction to the play of Richard Third, which forms the fifteenth volume of the Bankside Shakespeare. Mr. Calkins, who is unmistakably a lawyer, is by no means violent or unreasonable in his views. He admits that Richard could "hump himself," in the western phrase, but inclines to think that some of the devilry attributed to him was the work of unfriendly historians, and of his crafty successor. There is little contemporary evidence. He, as well as Walpole, is by no means clear that Richard murdered the princes. Mr. Calkins argues that as these children had been declared illegitimate by Parlia ment, Richard needed not to destroy them for his own protection. But so long as they existed they would furnish an easy nucleus for rebellion, Gairdner, from whom Mr. Calkins quotes (misnaming him Gardner), does not acquit Richard of this murder. Mr. Calkins' views are merrily caricatured by an acute Shakespearian who writes to us: "In the Introduction Col. Calkins shows what a gentle, sweet and modest man Richard III was; how kind to his wife, and how the deep sorrow of his life. - the gloom over his otherwise grateful task of making everybody happy was the sad death by diphtheria of those two young babes in the tower. He had always been afraid of the dampness of the place; had even hesitated sending them there on that account, but the least he could do was to have the drainage thoroughly overhauled, his life work, which Queen Elizabeth's ancestor, Richmond, so thoughtlessly interrupted. At any rate this is the drift of Col. Calkins' introduction, though he may have omitted the diphtheria episode." Mr. Calkins attributes the entire play to Shakespeare, despite Mr. Lowell's opinion to the contrary, and we shall cast in our vote with Mr. Calkins. (Lowell's lecture on Richard Third, soon to be published, will be looked for with interest.) The introduction is interesting pictorially, as well as critically and historically, for it presents several curious portraits of the royal bogey, with some fac-similes of his hand writing. Mr. Calkins closes with a trumpet-blast of contempt and defiance of Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, which we heartily applaud. We really wish old Dick could be "himself again" for one short hour, so that he could have up the impudent doubter, and serve him as he did Buckingham. Mr. The first publication of any collection of legal words and phrases, so far as we know, was begun in this journal some years ago, and resulted in a volume entitled "The Judicial Interpretation of Common Words and Phrases, by Irving Browne," published in 1883, and now published by the BancroftWhitney Co., of San Francisco. This volume had somewhat of a humorous cast, and embraced considerable extracts from judicial opinions. This was succeeded by Mr. John D. Lawson's "Concordance of Words and Phrases construed in the Judicial Reports, and of Legal Definitions contained therein," published by F. H. Thomas & Company of St. Louis, in 1883, in one large volume. This was a bare lexicon of words and phrases with references to the sources, but very exhaustive. Winfield's " 'Adjudged Words and Phrases, being a collection of Adjudicated Definitions of Terms used in the Law, with references to authorities," was published at Jersey City, in 1882. This was rather fuller than Mr. Browne's and much smaller than Mr. Lawson's, and gave very short extracts from opinions. These were all mainly based on American decisions. Now comes an exclusively English work, entitled, "The Judicial Dictionary of Words and Phrases Judicially interpreted, by F. Stroud, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law," published by Sweet & Maxwell, London, in one comely volume of about one thousand pages. This is evidently a very complete work, and bears evidence of a great deal more editorial labor than any one of its predecessors. Extracts from judicial opinions are very frequent but very concise, and the results are generally stated rather than the discussion leading up to them. Such a work could only be the outcome of many years' research and of a talent for wise selection and pointed and pregnant In this way a single paragraph of half a page boils down and expresses the juice of a great number of cases. Mr. Stroud is a master of this sort of statement, and a judicial dictionary constructed by him on this plan, and based solely on the American authorities would be an invaluable companion to this for the English bar, and extremely useful to the American lawyers. Naturally our reports are much more fertile than the English in definition, and statement. as a whole much more interesting and researchful. We are glad to see that Mr. Stroud announces that such a companion volume is in a forward state of preparation. Messrs. Cowen and Baker about the effect of the The friendly dispute in this journal between barking of the dog in James T. Brady's case is brought to mind by a story which comes to us in noisy legal orator was discomfited by a milder the Kansas City Star. The gist of it is that a very brother who told against him the fable of the lion which consorted with the ass in hunting, and for which the ass brayed so vociferously that the lion avowed that he himself would have been scared had he not known that the roarer was an ass. The ac count proceeds: "The jury began to laugh and the effect of the judge's sonorous eloquence was visibly weakened. He lost the case." We hope that we shall not be met with any infidel doubt of Mr. Cowen of a certain stentorian lawyer of Troy, N. Y., who about this well-authenticated case. It reminds us in trying a case before a witty referee, was offended by his ruling on an objection to evidence without hearing him. Springing to his feet, he shouted your honor, I want to be heard." "So you can," mildly responded the referee, "clear around the square." "But The New York Tribune is certainly an enterpris ing newspaper. It has discovered that Jane Sey Froude would doubtless be curious to learn the mour was one of Henry Eighth's "victims." Mr. grounds of this opinion. The Tribune's London correspondent," G. W. S.," having demolished Mr. Gladstone, now devotes nearly a column to mild ridicule of Lord Coleridge as a literary critic, because his lordship does not hold the same views concerning Matthew Arnold which G. W. S. enterColeridge's opinion on any literary subject with tains. Many even in this country will receive Lord ridicule of Lord Coleridge's modesty or "humility," more respect than that of G. W. S. Mr. Smalley's as he phrases it, is not singular, for it is a quality which he naturally does not understand, or at all events does not evince. After all, what folly it is for one critic to find fault with another for not agreeing with him! Within a few days several new defenses in criminal cases have been invented. In Utica, to a complaint for assault and battery, the defendant set up that he was laboring at the time under an acute attack of dyspepsia. In Pennsylvania, a tramp, in prison, who refused to work, was released on the ground of "persecutional mania," i. e., the hallucination that he was imprisoned and condemned to work solely for the sake of persecution. In Catskill, to an indictment for manslaughter by abortion, the prisoner set up the defense of kleptomania! But it did not succeed. NOTES OF CASES. confirmed. But upon another principle of law the defendant is liable. That corporations may be IN Kramrath v. City of Albany, Court of Appeals, and to be deduced from corporate acts without a bound upon implied contracts made by its agents, I cond Division, October, 1991, it was held that there being no provision in a city's charter limiting Within the practical application of that rule, such vote of the governing body, is now well established. its power to make purchases for fitting up rooms contracts must be within the scope of the corporate for the use of city officers, or prescribing any particular manner for making contracts therefor, the law governing the corporation requires should be powers, and must not be one which the charter or council can confer the power on a committee, and, made in a particular way or manner. Dill. Mun. the city having enjoyed the benefit of the work performed and the goods purchased, it is liable therefor Comm. 291; Bank v. Patterson, 7 Cranch, 299; PeCorp., §§ 383, 384, and cases cited in note; 2 Kent on quantum meruit, even though the order was given terson v. Mayor, 17 N. Y. 449; Gas-Light Co. v. by a single member of the committee, or by the janitor Mayor, 3 Rob. (N. Y.) 124; affirmed, 33 N. Y. 309; of the building. The court said: "The appellant's Nelson v. Mayor, 63 id. 535; McCloskey v. Mayor, 7 claim is that the authority given to the committee was one calling for the exercise of judgment and discre- void, and there can be no ratification, and, when When the act done is ultra vires, it is Hun, 472. tion, and could not be delegated. The principle of the mode of contracting is limited and provided for law is well established that public powers or trusts by statute, an implied contract cannot be raised. devolved by the charter upon the common council are to be exercised when and in such manner as it But a corporation, like an individual, is liable upon shall determine, and cannot be delegated. In other of the work performed or goods purchased, when a quantum meruit when it has enjoyed the benefit words, the governing body of the city cannot conno statute forbids or limits its power to make a confer upon one of its committees the power to perform tract therefor. acts which relate to the government of the city. pellant hold to the contrary. None of the cases cited by the apBut that principle has no application to this case. Brady v. Mayor, etc., 20 N. Y. 312; Donavan v. Mayor, etc., 33 id. 291; The leasing or furnishing of a room for the transaction of the city's affairs is a mere business act, and bush, 72 id. 472; Smith v. City of Newburgh, 77 id. McDonald v. Mayor, etc., 68 id. 23; Parr v. Greenin its power to perform it the city differs in no re130; Dickinson v. Poughkeepsie, 75 id. 65; Lyddy v. spect from an ordinary business corporation or an Long Island City, 104 id. 218, were all cases where individual, and it may delegate the power to per- the contracts sought to be enforced were either form such acts to agents or committees. The power ultra vires or were executed in express violation of given to the committee to 'fit up the rooms' conlaw. Here the power to make a contract for the ferred authority to do whatever was necessary to work done existed, and the city, having had the that end. It would doubtless tend generally to an benefit of such work, is liable for its value. The economical administration of affairs if the articles fact that the order to the plaintiff was given by one required should be specifically enumerated by the of the committee, or even by the janitor, as appears council, or a limit put to the expenditure to be to have been done in some instances, affords no demade. But the argument that such general author- fense to the claim. If the council had ordered the ity may lead to extravagance and waste of the mucommittee to purchase coal to heat the public nicipal funds has no foundation in this particular buildings, it would not be seriously claimed, after case, as the committee appear to have kept well the coal had been delivered and burned, that from within the necessities of the occasion, and no comthe fact that the committee permitted the janitor plaint is made that the carpets and desks sold by to give the order to the merchant, the city were rethe plaintiff were not proper, within the require-lieved from paying. Such matters do not belong ments of the resolution, and fully worth the prices charged. It would hardly be practicable for all or a majority of the members of a common council to attend to the details of such purchases, nor can it be said to be unlawful for the committee to permit one or two of its members to make selection of the particular article of furniture required. And when the work and material have been actually ordered by the common council, and the city has had the full benefit of them without objection from any of its officers, very slight evidence is sufficient to support a finding that any irregularities in the committee's action have been waived, and their general acts ratified. Assuming that in this case the committee's action in permitting one of their number to order and select the goods sold by the plaintiff was an irregularity, the evidence is ample to sustain the finding of the court that the acts pursuant to which the plaintiff's claim was contracted were ratified and to the governmental department of the city, and it can afford no defense that the power to purchase was delegated to an inferior agent of the city." In Crawford v. Tyrrell, Court of Appeals of New York, October 6, 1891, it was held, that where complainant's house is rendered unfit and uncomfortable for respectable occupation by reason of the proximity of a house of ill-fame, whose inmates are boisterous and indecent, he may maintain an action to restrain the nuisance, and to recover damages occasioned thereby. The court said: The appellant argues that the plaintiffs could not maintain a civil action of this nature, inasmuch as the damage they suffered was a damage common to the whole community, and not special to them. If that position had been sustained by the facts, I do not doubt but that it would have been the duty of the trial judge to have denied the relief prayed for. The rule of law requires of him who complains of his neighbor's use of his property, and seeks for redress and to restrain him from such use, that he should show that a substantive injury to property is committed. The mere fact of a business being carried on which may be shown to be immoral, and therefore prejudicial to the character of the neighborhood, furnishes of itself no ground for equitable interference at the suit of a private person; and, though the use of property may be unlawful or unreasonable, unless special damage can be shown, a neighboring property-owner cannot base thereupon any private right of action. It is for the public authorities, acting in the common interest, to interfere for the suppression of the common nuisance. See Francis v. Schoellkopf, 53 N. Y. 152. If the business complained of is a lawful one, the legal question presented in a civil action for private damage is whether the business is reasonably conducted, and whether, as conducted, it is one which is obnoxious and hurtful to adjoining property. If the business is unlawful, the complainant in a private action must show special damage, by which the legitimate use of his adjoining property has been interfered with, or its occupation rendered unfit or uncomfortable. That the perpetrator of the nuisance is amenable to the provisions and penalties of the criminal law is not an answer to an action against him by a private person to recover for injury sustained, and for an injunction against the continued use of his premises in a similar manner. The principle has been long settled that the objection that the nuisance was a common one is not available if it be shown that special damage was suffered. Rose v. Miles, 4 Maule & S. 101; Rose v. Groves, 5 Man. & G. 613; Francis v. Schoellkopf, supra; Lansing v. Smith, 4 Wend. 9. One who uses his property lawfully and reasonably, in a general legal sense, can do injury to nobody. In the full enjoyment of his legal rights in and to his property the law will not suffer a man to be restrained, but his use of the property must be always such as in no manner to invade the legal rights of his neighbor. The rights of each to the enjoyment and use of their several properties should, in legal contemplation, always be equal. If the balance is destroyed by the act of one, the law gives a remedy in damages, or equity will restrain. If the use of a property is one which renders a neighbor's occupation and enjoyment physically uncomfortable, or which may be hurtful to the health, as where trades are conducted which are offensive by reason of odors, noises or other injurious or annoying features, a private nuisance is deemed to be established, against which the protection of a court of equity power may be invoked. In the present case the indecent conduct of the occupants of the defendant's house, and the noise therefrom, inasmuch as they rendered the plaintiff's house unfit for comfortable or respectable occupation, and unfit for the purposes it was intended for, were facts which constituted a nuisance, and were sufficient grounds for the maintenance of the action. If it was a nuisance which affected the general neighborhood, and was the subject of an indictment for its unlawful and immoral features, the plaintiffs were none the less entitled to their action for any injury sustained, and to their equitable right to have its continuance restrained." In Woolsey v. Trustees of Ellenville, 61 Hun, 136, it was held that in an action by a wife against a village for personal injuries sustained by falling on an unsafe sidewalk, evidence of damage to her separate business was incompetent in the absence of allegations in the complaint that she carried on such | a business and of damage thereto. The court said: "The plaintiff was permitted to prove, under the objection of the defendant, that she was carrying on a separate business on her own account, and that the profits of the business were hers. There is no allegation in the complaint that the plaintiff had a separate business carried on, on her own account, or any allegation of special damages on account of her separate business, and we think the admission of this evidence, under the defendants' objection and exception, was error. In the case of Cransky v. Dry Dock & Battery R. Co., 118 N. Y. 304, this direct question was raised, and as it appears to us was definitely settled by the Second Division of the Court of Appeals. In that case, as in this, the action was by a married woman. In that case, as in this, the complaint contained no allegation of special damage, or that the plaintiff was carrying on a separate business; and Parker, J., in delivering the opinion of the court, uses this language: Presumptively, damages for negligently diminishing the earning capacity of a married woman belong to her husband; and when she seeks to recover such damages, the complaint must contain an allegation, that for some reason, she is entitled to the fruits of her own labor, and, if she seeks to recover damages for an injury to her business, she must allege that she was engaged in business on her own account and by reason of the injury was injured therein as specifically set forth. No such allegations are contained in the complaint in this action. Nevertheless, the plaintiff was permitted to prove, against the objection of the defendant, that the evidence was irrelevant and immaterial, and called for special damages not alleged in the complaint; that she was engaged in the dressmaking business; sold fancy goods and dry goods; was accustomed to make from $16 to $20 per week; and that because of her injuries was prevented from working for two months; this was error.' It seems quite impossible, upon principle, to distinguish that case from the one at bar. It is true that the learned judge used this language: The evidence is clearly admissible as descriptive of her condition, and for no other purpose.' But I cannot see that that in any way relieves it from error of its admission, especially as the learned judge, in denying the motion to strike out this evidence, said: 'Nothing is better settled than the fact that a married woman can carry on her own business separately from her husband. I overrule the objection."" |