the law reports, requisite to enable us fitly to pass judgment of the relative merits of these compilations. The volume before us seems to contain a judicious selection, conveniently arranged.

THE LAW OF HUSBAND AND WIFE. Compiled for Popular Use. By Lelia Josephine Robinson, LL. B., of the Boston Bar. Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1890.

This little work, of which seventy-five pages are devoted to a consideration of the common-law doctrines of marriage rights, and the remaining one hundred to abstracts from statutes of the various

States, gives in its brief compass a good resumé of the law concerning this muchdiscussed subject. We have, on a previous occasion, given our opinion of the necessarily one-sided and not infrequently misleading character of "popular" lawbooks, believing that (as partially admitted by Miss (?) Robinson) in law, above all other matters, "a little learning is a dangerous thing." Still, the present work is ably compiled, and contains much useful information to those seeking general and not professional knowledge concerning the subject of which it treats.

Not unlikely.

Lawyer. Do you swear positively, sir, that you know more than half this jury?” Witness.-Yes, sir; and now that I have taken a good look at 'em, I'll swear that I know more than all of 'em put together. Puck.

There is a grim humor about some of Judge Lynch's executions. A bank presiA bank president in southwest Texas made away with all the funds under his charge and then posted on the door of his institution, "Bank Suspended." That night he was interviewed by a number of depositors, who left him hanging to a tree with this notice pinned to his breast: "Bank President Suspended."

Defendant. Just for the novelty of the thing, your Honor.

Judge.-Novelty! What d' ye mean? Defendant.-Fact is, your Honor, my attorney has had his hands in there so long, I'm tickled to death to get a chance at them myself.

At the trial of a case, a juryman being absent from his seat, all the others being occupied, a dog, looking for his master, quietly took possession of the vacant chair.

"You see, Mr. — " said the judge, turning to one of the counsel, "that the jurymen's seats jurymen's seats are all occupied. Are you ready to proceed?"

The atorney addressed raised his glasses to his eyes, and after a brief survey of the jury-box replied,

"Your Honor, that fellow might do for a judge, but I should hate to trust him for a juryman."

VOL. III.

No. 5.

But few words remain to be added to those so well spoken by my distinguished brethren, in concluding, on the part of the bar, the expression which this occasion calls for. We have thought it well to mark, in a manner significant and conspicuous, the centennial anniversary of our highest and greatest tribunal; to review, so far as the flying hour allows, its eventful and interesting history; to recall some of its memories, cherished and imperishable; and to consider, in the light of a century's experience, what has been and what is like to be hereafter, its place and its influence as an independent constitutional power in the Federal Government of this country.

We cannot forget that in its origin it was an experiment, untried and uncertain. Judicial history has not furnished another example of a court created by an authority superior to legislation and beyond the reach of executive power, clothed with a

jurisdiction above the law it was appointed to administer, and charged not merely with the general course of public justice, but with the limitation of the powers of political government and the adjustment of the conflicting claims of sovereign States. The hundred years

that now terminate have tested the value of all American institutions. Fortunate as they have been for the most part, it will yet be the judgment of dispassionate history that no other has so completely justified the faith of its authors, nor fulfilled with such signal success the purpose of its foundation.

What was that purpose? Not the limited original jurisdiction of the court, dignified and important, but rarely invoked. Not chiefly even its ordinary appellate jurisdiction, extensive and beneficent as it is, most desirable, yet perhaps not indispensable. Not for these objects, great though they are, was it placed, nor did it need to

be placed, on the singular eminence it occupies. Its principal and largest function was designed to be, as it has been, the defence and preservation of the Constitution that created it, as the permanent fundamental law on which our system of government depends.

Had that instrument been left only directory to the Legislature, to be construed and given effect as the exigencies of party or the purposes of the hour might demand; had it been referred to the conflicting determination of various courts, with no supreme arbiter to correct their mistakes or to harmonize their disagreements, so that its meaning might depend upon the State or the tribunal in which the question happened to arise, it would speedily have become the shadow of an authority that had no real existence, fruitful in a discord it was powerless to allay. American experience has made it an axiom in political science that no written constitution of government can hope to stand without a paramount and independent tribunal to determine its construction and to enforce its precepts in the last resort. This is the great and foremost duty cast by the Constitution, for the sake of the Constitution, upon the Supreme Court of the United States.

The jurisdiction of the court over questions of this sort, and the dual sovereignty so skilfully divided between the States and Federation, as they are the most striking, are likewise the only entirely original features in the Constitution. All else found a precedent or at least a prototype in previous institutions. In its other branches it is mainly the combination and adaptation of machinery that was known before. It was to be expected, therefore, that the earliest and most critical exercise of the new power conferred upon the court would be displayed in dealing with

the new form of sovereignty at the same time devised, and bringing into harmony those opposite forces that might so easily have resulted in conflict and disaster. The questions that have arisen in this field have been usually the most delicate, often the most difficult, always the most conspicuous of all that have engaged the attention of the court. While it has been charged with the limitation of many other departments of governmental authority, here have been found hitherto its most prominent employment and the most dangerful emergencies it has had to confront. Here have taken place its most celebrated judgments, the most signal triumphs of its wisdom, its foresight, as well as its moral courage-rarest of human virtues.

It is to this sagacious administration of the Constitution that we are principally indebted for the harmonious operation that has attended the Federal system, each party to be made supreme in its own sphere, and at the same time strictly confined within it, neither transgressing nor transgressed. Looking back now upon this long series of determinations, it is easy to see how different American history might have been had they proved less salutary, less wise, and less firm. The court did not make the Constitution, but it has saved it from destruction. Only in one great conflict, generated by the single inherent weakness of the Constitution, and happily beyond judicial reach, has the court failed to maintain inviolate all the borders and marches of contiguous jurisdiction, and to keep unbroken the peace of the Union.

But it still remains to be observed that the service of preserving through the Constitution the union of the States, great and distinguished as it is, and vital as it is, has been wrought upon the machinery of