K. C. Hotel Co. v. Sawyer, 534. Karney v. Vale, 355. Kane v. Clough, 229. Kansas Ins. Co. v. Croft, 118. Kellogg v. St. P. & M. R. R., 305. Kennedy v. Langdon, 373. Kenner v. Harding, 116. Kermeyer v. K. P. R. R., 171. Kenworthy v. Ironton, 24. Keyser v. Cannon, 92. Keokuk Northern Line Packet Co. v. City of Keokuk, 504. Kilgour v. Gockley, 235. Kimball v. Town of Rosendale, 372. King v. Bangs, 20. King v. George, 68. Kinnear v. Mackey, 262. Kistner v. Newhouse, 497. Mass. Life Ins. Co. v. Eshelm Meeker v. Chicago Cast Steel Co., 235 Melendy v. Rice, 67 Merchants' Bank v. Petersberg R. R., 74 Meredith v. Chancey, 331 Merrill, in re, 136 Merritt v. Converse, 516 Middleboro Shovel Co., in re, 482 Miller v. Baschore, 20 44 v. Bogart, 455 44 v. Hardin, 72 v. Miller, 215 " v. Sullivan, 460 Miller's Appeal, 450 Miller & Peters' Man'f. Co. v. Dubrul, 467 Milton v. Coffelt, 474 Miner y. Bennett, 42 Mitchell v. Comm'rs of Leavenworth Mohon v. Harkreader, 194 44 v. Virginia F. & M. Ins. Co., 188 64 v. Thompson, 255 Mortimore v. Slater, 68 Morville v. Am. Tract Co., 274 Munson v. Commrs. of Morris Co., 70 McBride v. Ritz, 454 McClure v. Tp. of Oxford, 47 Neal v. Keller, 455. Neb. R. R. v. Van Deusen, 430. 534. Nelson v. Liverpool Brewing Co., 312. Newark S. & S. R. R. Co. v. Commrs Newcomb's Heirs v. Newcomb, 188. Nord v. Marty, 370. Northcutt v. Buckles, 416. Northern Kas. Loan Co. v. Oswalt, Norton v. Dorsey, 474. v. Schertz, 235. Pettis v. Johnson, 70. Phelan v. Iron Mountain Bank, 351. Phillips v. Dickerson, 170. Phoenix Life Ins. Co. v. Baker, 394. Phoenix Ins. Co. v. Lanier, 437. Pier v. Amory, 372. Pickman v. Trinity Church. 23. Pitts., Ft. Wayne & Ch. R. R, v. Pitts., Cin. & St. L. R. R. v. Flem. McDonald v. English, 271 Pitts., Ft. Wayne & Ch, R. R. v. Ha- v. Milwaukee Co., 117 McHenry vs. La Societe Francaise, 477 McLean v. Dow, 490. McMasters v. Aĺsop, 94 McPherson v. A. & P. R. R., 488 Nason Manuf'g Co. v. Jefferson Med. Nat. & Prov. P. G. I. Co. v. P. I. Co.,138. zen, 98. Pitts., Ft. Wayne & Ch. R. R. v. Place v. Gould, 515. Player v. Lippincott, 260, 297, 323. Plumb v. Bay, 233. Poleman v. Johnson, 236. Pollard v. Bowen. 93. Porter v. Triolo, 235. Potter v. Myers, 429. Powell v. Powell, 194. Prather v, The People, 116. Pratt v. Eaton, 71. Pratt v. Taunton Copper Co., 261. Satterfield v. Jefferson Co., 414 Sawyer v. State Board of Health, 242 Sav. Bk. v. Kercheval, 489 St. Louis A. & T. R. R. v. Thomas, 392 St. Louis L. & W. R. R. v. Maddox, St. Louis L. & W. R. R. v. Miller, 171 St. Louis & Utah Silver Mining Co. v. Stocks v. City of Sheboygan, 372 Waite v. Dawley, 190 v. Towner, 206 Welch v. Goodwin, 119 Wilson v. Comrs. of Cowley Co.,314 Winne v. Colorado Springs Co., 234 Wolbach v. Lehigh Bldg. Assn., 188 Wright v. London Omnibus Co., 68 Yewksbury v. Schulenburg, 94 Zeigler v. Day, 432 MR. JUSTICE MILLER. The recognized eminence of Justice Miller of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the his judicial circuit includes the state in which this journal is published, and a number of states in which it has extensive circulation, have induced us to present our readers with an excellent engraving of that distinguished jurist, also a brief biographical sketch of him, both of which we have been kindly permitted to copy from a highly interesting and meritorious work containing the biographies of the chief justices, and the present associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, published by W. H. Barnes & Co., Washington. The engraving, not having been received at the time of our going to press, will be sent with a future number, Samuel F. Miller was born in Richmond, Kentucky, April 16, 1816. His parents were in poor circumstan ces, and his early education was the fruit of a continued struggle. He graduated in the medical department of Transylvania University in 1838, and practiced medicine for several years; but that profession became distasteful to him; he studied law while practicing medicine, and was admitted to the bar of Kentucky in 1844, and was at once remarkably successful. A Whig in polities and an active friend of emancipation, his surroundings in Kentucky became so unpleasant that, in the spring of 1850, he emigrated to Keokuk, Iowa, where he soon took rank as a leader of the Iowa bar. In July, 1862, he was appointed by Mr. Lincoln an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States-a nomination which was urged by a general expression of the bar of the new circuit which had just been created from the northwestern states, by twentyseven of the thirty-six Senators then in Congress, and by more than a hundred members of the House of Representatives. Concerning his eminent services on the Supreme Bench of the United States, the limits of this sketch will only permit us to allude to a few salient points which mark his great strength of reasoning and independence of character. Among these we may name his steady opposition to the validity of the railroad-aid bonds, with which the money markets of the country have been flooded, beginning with his dissenting opinion in Gelpke v. Dubuque, 1 Wallace, 506, and ending with that in Johnson v. Cass County, 5 Cent. L. J. 506; his opinion in United States v. Holliday, 3 Wallace, 407, holding that the act of Congress prohibiting the sale of spirituous liquors to Indians extends to a case where the liquor was sold within the territorial jurisdiction of a state; his opinion in Crandall v. Nevada, 6 Wallace, 35, holding that a state can not levy a tax on public carriers for conveying passengers through such state on the way to another; his opinion in Lot v. Hinson, 8 Wallace, 148, and Woodruff v. Parham, 8 Wallace, 123, and Welton v. State, 3 Cent. L. J., 116, holding that a state can not levy a tax discriminating against the products of another state; his opinion at circuit, in the Clinton bridge case, 1 Wolworth C. C., 150, holding that it is not only the right, but the duty of Congress to control and regulate all railroad traffic when it exceeds the bounds of a single state; his memorable dissenting opinion in the first legal-tender case, Hepburn v. Griswold, 8 Wallace, 603, which afterwards became the doctrine of the majority of the court; his judgment in Watson v. Jones, 13 Wallace, 679, that in all questions of ecclesiastical doctrine, discipline and government, the decisions of the highest tribunal of each denomination will govern the court, without further inquiry as to their soundness; and, most important of all, his opinion in the Slaughter-house Cases, which, without doubt, will be accepted in all future time as an authoritative declaration of the effect of the recent constitutional amendments upon our political system. The law creating the electoral commission imposed upon Judge Miller most important duties, which, as he foresaw, would subject him to much abuse, in whatever manner he might perform those duties. His strong sense of the danger to the best interests of the country did not permit him to decline, though it was with the utmost reluctance that any of the judges who were on that commission consented to a service so foreign to their ordinary duties, for which they were to receive no other reward than the approval of their own consciences and the most undiscriminating and coarsest censures of the disappointed party. The record of the secret sessions of that commission shows that the argument of Judge Miller on the Florida case (the one which the friends of Mr. Tilden considered as the strongest), presents the propositions on which that and all the other cases were finally decided, and they appear to have been adopted by the majority. The evidence of this is found in the fact that Mr. Justice Miller was named first on the sub-committee which in each contested case was appointed to put in form "the decision and the brief grounds thereof," which, by the act of Congress, the commission was required to report to the two houses of Congress. Absorbing as have been his judicial duties, Judge Miller has found time to continue the edition of the reports of the supreme court begun by Judge Curtis, down to the first volume of Wallace. His head-notes have great clearness and precision, and are a valuable reading of the cases. During two sessions he delivered series of lectures to the law students of Georgetown College, on constitutional law, equity jurisprudence, and the jurisdiction and practice of the federal courts. An address delivered by him to the graduating lawclass of Iowa University, in 1868, was most admirably practical and instructive. The degree of doctor of civil law has been conferred on him by Georgetown College, and the degree of LL. D. by the Iowa College and the University of Iowa. We have heard but one expression as to the personal qualities which mark his social life. They attract the esteem and admiration of all brought into relations with him. Few men in the country have a wider circle of true admirers, and to none are friends more sincerely and ardently attached. The No sketch of Judge Miller would be complete without some allusion to his relations to the circuit. circuit to which he has been assigned is known as the Trans-Mississippi circuit, and it embraces the States of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas and Colorado. Judge Miller habitually attends all the courts in his circuit, so far as his duties in the supreme court enable him to do so. That court usually adjourns about the first of May, and it is the habit of Judge Miller to proceed at once to the circuit, and hold or attend the spring and summer term in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and Colorado. This occupies him constantly until the latter part of July. He usually attends, also, the September term in St. Louis, which occupies him until his duties call him to the supreme court, whose regular session begins in October. His duties on the circuit are only less important than those at Washington; and his labor as circuit justice must be even greater than his ordinary labors as a justice of the Supreme Court. On the dockets of the various circuit courts in his circuit there are from 2,500 to 3,000 cases each year-cases of infinite variety, and many of them of extreme difficulty and of great importance. Some of his most useful and admired Judgments have been written and delivered on the circuit, and may be found in Woolworth's and Dillon's Re ports. He writes with a facility which is as remarkable as the force, strength and clearness of his style. It is a matter of universal regret with the bar that the pressure of Justice Miller's duties on the circuit is such as to preclude him from the preparation of written opinions in so many of the important causes which he decides on the circuit each year. His practice is to deliver his judgments promptly-as soon as he has reached a conclusion satisfactory to his own mind-usually within a day or two after the arguments are finished. He wisely considers that his principal business on the circuit is to dispose of the cases and to prevent arrearages, and it is only in causes of exceptional moment that he conceives it to be his duty to take time to write opinions which would otherwise be given to the actual business of the court. His extraordinary quickness of perception, and the rapidity of his mental movements, combined with his industry and large experience, enable him to dispose of the business of a term with a dispatch that is really extraordinary. He wastes no time, and allows the bar to waste none. No judge is more patient until he has been put in full possession of all of the facts and considerations pertaining to the case in hand, but when he is sure he has these, and when his own mind sees its way clearly to a satisfactory judgment, he does not allow time of the court to be consumed in useless and immaterial discussions. With capacity and disposition to dispatch business rapidly, it is believed that not an instance can be found where he has ever decided a cause until he was master of all the essential facts and arguments on which it depended. Hung juries are almost unknown when he presides at a trial; for he extracts the turning point of the case and then lays down the law so positively and so plainly as to preclude such a miscarriage, which, indeed, when it occurs, is usually more the fault of the judge than of the jury. And no losing party complains, fo he knows that he will get a fair bill of exceptions. This capacity for effectually dispatching business without dissatisfying the bar is the judicial quality for which Judge Miller is justly eminent. He is popular with his bar-a popularity which is based upon their respect for his character, admiration for his abilities, and attachment for his personal and social qualities. No other word will express the sentiments of his associates on the Bench of the Circuit except to say, they love him. The Central Law Journal. law library, like that at St. Louis, he finds himself SAINT LOUIS, JULY 6, 1877. CURRENT TOPICS. THAT the wave of spasmodic virtue which writers have frequently noticed, and the coming and duration of which a distinguished author of the present century showed to be governed by fixed and determined rules, has once more come upon Great Britain, is seen in the recent prosecution of Charles Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant, before the Court of Queen's Bench. The charge was the publishing and vending of an immoral book, that is to say, a pamphlet in which the writings of Mr. Malthus were presented in a popular form. The parties defended themselves with spirit and ability; they brought into court the writings of scores of the world's philosophers, poets and historians from Plato to Darwin, from Juvenal to Byron, from Sallust to Hume. But the tide seems to have been strong enough to carry the jury with it, and a verdict of guilty was returned against both defendants. The chief justice is said to have expressed himself in strong terms in regard to the injudiciousness of the prosecution, and though sentencing the defendants to a fine of £200 and a six months imprisonment, pending an appeal upon certain legal points, discharged them upon their own recognizances. What effect this conviction will have it is difficult to surmise. The prosecutors will, perhaps, be encouraged to bring other publishers to the bar of the Queen's Bench, as they have already, by threats, forced the withdrawal from circulation of several works of authority and note. But the remarks of the Lord Chief Justice should show them that what an ignorant jury may condemn, an educated gentleman may defend and not consent to lose; and herein, at the present moment, would seem to rest the security of the printing-press in Great Britain. THE TRADITIONAL American style of binding law books in full sheepskin is so abominable, that we wonder that the American bar have stood it as long as they have. It seems to have been resorted to, in the first instance, as a cheap imitation of the full calf in which English law books have been generally bound. Such a cheap device might have been excusable when the country was new; but we have really outgrown it, particularly since there is nothing to recommend it on its own intrinsic merits. In point of fact, sheepskin is not as good binding as muslin; it is not as durable. The strain on the binding of a book is always at the hinges, and a sheepskin cover wears out there at a very premature age. Another objection to sheepskin is that, under the influence of successive moisture and drouth, it crumbles and pulverizes. This is illustrated by the fact that, after a man has worked diligently for two or three hours in a large Vol. 5.- No. 1. as red as a bricklayer and as dirty as a blacksmith. The sides of books don't wear out; the tips outlast the backs by many years. These facts, it would seem, ought to have suggested to enterprising publishers, long before this, that the most useful style of binding,-and one which can recommend itself also on account of its cheapness,-is a binding in calf backs and tips with muslin sides. This binding has lately been tried on a portion of the present edition of Dillon's Municipal Corporations, by Messrs. Becktold & Co. of St. Louis. By a careful selection of leather and skillful manipulation, they have succeeded in producing a binding which we believe to be three times as durable as sheepskin and far more elegant in appearance, while the cost is but very little greater than the ordinary full sheep. We simply call professional attention to the matter because we have often thought, on seeing the cartloads of books almost weekly sent out from the St. Louis Law Library to be rebacked in calf, that it was high time for a change to take place in the manner of binding standard law books. A MEMBER of the St. Louis Bar having been retained to prosecute certain claims against an insurance company, and having proceeded in some of the cases as far as the bringing of the suits, signs an agreement with the officers of the defendant company, in which he agrees with the latter that he will continue the prosecution of such only of the cases already in court as the company directs; that he will give notice to the company of any future claims that may be placed in his hands; that he will not, for two years from the date of the agreement, proceed against the company, and that he will not permit the presentation of claims in his hands against the company except by such means and agencies as the company shall direct or approve. For this he is to receive a retainer of $2,500, and a monthly salary of $300. Such a contract was produced and read during the course of an investigation into the affairs of an insurance company which is now being had in this city; sufficient proof was made of its terms having been complied with on the part of the company; the evidence of the party himself was listened to; he denied neither the contract nor the receipt of the money. We do not desire to enter into details, or to discuss this matter at length. It is a subject which, to a great extent, is but local; it concerns only the bar of this city. To us it appears to be an outrageous abuse of that confidential relation which exists between solicitor and client. This attorney was paid a monthly stipend to prevent his clients, whom he had been retained to serve, from receiving what he had already undertaken to secure for them. We hope that our Bar Association will see to it that this case shall not be allowed to pass unnoticed. Should English precedents be followed-and why should there not be among the profession of this city and state the same regard |