The Supreme Court of North Carolina.

sided at the Impeachment trial. Whatever feeling there was against the Chief-Justice at the time was largely kept under by the influence of those who had studied law under him. They were numerous and in fluential, and to a man devoted to him. And the public at large, however much they dif fered as to the propriety of his course at this juncture, are disposed, as a magnanimous people, to forget it, and remember only his excellence. With them "Fresh stands the glory of his prime; The later trace is dim." These sketches are not intended as eulo gies, but as history. Though not assuming to sit in judgment upon a matter which is yet debated, still it is proper to notice the event, and to say that on this occasion of his life, whether his action was right or wrong, he did not receive the popular approval which so signally and generally marked his judicial career. In January, 1878, on his way to Raleigh to open the spring term of the court, while crossing the Yadkin River in a buggy, he was stricken with paralysis, and died at Winston, Jan. 5, 1878, in the seventy-third year of his age. His career on the Supreme Court is the .longest in our annals, nearly thirty years; and his opinions are so numerous we can only re fer briefly to a few of them. They are usually as clear as a bell, and evince a strong per sonality in the writer. Wiswall v. Brinson, 32 N. C. 554, is an interesting opinion which holds (Ruffin, C. J., dissenting) that where one is injured by the negligence of a contractor who undertakes to remove a building across the street, the owner of the building is answerable in damages. Mills v. Williams, 33 N. C. 558, decides that the legislature has the same power to repeal an act establishing a county as it has to create or divide a county. Leggett v. Bullock, 44 N. C. 283, rules that as between the parties a mortgage is valid without registration. Capehart v. Mhoon, 45 N. C. 30, discusses the difference between common and special 68

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injunctions. State v. Mclntire, 46 N. C. 1, holds that if it appears from the record and the face of the pardon that the Governor was misinformed, the courts will hold the pardon void. The ruling in Thompson v. Thomp son, 46 N. C. 430, is that the widow is en titled to dower in land covenanted to be con veyed to her husband. State v. Haywood, 48 N. C. 399, is authority that the omission to discharge any duty imposed by law, which concerns the public, is indictable. In Shaw v. Moore, 49 N. C. 25, it is held that one who believes in a Supreme Being who will punish sin in this world, though not in a world to come, is a competent witness. Ashe v. DeRossett, 50 N. C. 299, is upon the difference between remote and proximate cause in an action for damages. State v. Smith, 53 N. C. 132, explodes the old maxim, " Falsum in uno, falsum in omni bus." Morse v. Nixon, 51 N. C. 293, learn edly discusses the right to kill a " chickeneating hog." Melvin v. Easley, 52 N. C. 356, is an interesting discussion, each of the judges filing opinions, as to the validity of sales made on Sunday. Cotten v. Ellis, 52 N. C. 545, holds that a mandamus will issue to the Governor to require him to do an act merely ministerial. After war became fla grant there were many cases of parties seeking to be discharged from alleged illegal deten tion in the army by Habeas Corpus. In all these cases Judge Pearson was a strenuous supporter of the right of the courts to ex amine into the legality of such detention. He held that the writ was not suspended by the emergency of the times. The cases can be examined by those who will turn to them. In re Graham, 53 N. C. 416; In re Bryan, 60 N. C. 1; Gatlin v. Walton, lb. 325; In re Roseman, lb. 368. Davidson College v. Chambers, 56 N. C. 253, is the counter part of the recent great suit in which Cornell University was a party; and the court here also decided that the college could only take so much of a legacy as added to the property it already held would not be in excess of the limit specified in its charter.