versing with jurors while they are in consultation as to their verdict. According to this account, Gerard asked the sheriff why a certain jury hung fire, and he replied : " There is a man on that jury who says he will never find for the plaintiff because he wears a gold-headed cane. Girard told him to go back and tell him it was brass; he went, and the plaintiff got a verdict in five minutes. But though Mr. Curtis has some fault to find with the administration of criminal justice, he has nothing but good words to say of the judiciary of the city. In fact, according to his generous estimate, there cannot possibly be another such gifted Bench in this country. He calls the roll of these magistrates, and sizes them up with adroitly varied and laudator)' adjectives after the manner of Mr. John W. Donovan. With some of his opinions we should not disagree in the main — such as his estimate of Judge Van Brunt, Judge Pryor, Judge McAdam, ex-Recorder Smyth, and some others — but once in a while we recognize the disadvantage of having always lived in the rural dis tricts, as when, for example, he assures us that Judge Barrett " is intellectually the peer of any jurist in the country." It also fills us with surprise to learn that there is any incompatibility between courtesy and legal learning, as seems to be implied in his statement that " Judge Bench is a gentleman of the old school of manners, but is justly esteemed as a very learned and accurate lawyer." Even the police justices come in for good words, but we note the omission, unintentional we trust, of the hon ored name of Justice Pat Dyvver, who is certainly just as much "a self-made man " as the somewhat better known Judge Friedman. Mr. John R. Fel lows, the public prosecutor, certainly ought to "set it up" to Mr. Curtis, who says he has " never seen or met his equal," and that " many innocent men have been made the victims of his power." We only wish that Fellows would convict more of the guilty ones. It would seem that the best hope for innocent or guilty in New York, so long as Fellows is on deck, would be in retaining Mr. Curtis and instruct ing him to " appeal to the religious sentiments of the jury-"

NOTES OF CASES. Obscene Literature. — In the matter of the Worthington Company, New York Supreme Court 32 L. R. A. 11o, it was held that Payne's "Ara bian Nights," Fielding's " Tom Jones," the works of Rabelais, Ovid's "Art of Love," the "Decameron" of Boccaccio, the "Heptameron" of Queen Margaret of Navarre, Rousseau's "Confessions," "Tales from the Arabic," and "Aladdin," are not so immoral that a receiver will be prevented from disposing of them

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when found among the assets which come into his hands. The Court very discreetly observed : "What has become standard literature of the English language — has been wrought into the very structure of our splendid English literature — is not to be pronounced at this late day unfit for publication or circulation and stamped with judicial disapprobation as hurtful to the com munity. The works under consideration are the product of the greatest literary genius. Payne's ' Arabian Nights ' is a wonderful exhibition of Oriental scholarship, and the other volumes have so long held a supreme rank in litera ture that it would be absurd to call them now foul and un clean. A seeker after the sensual and degrading parts of a narrative may find in all these works, as in those of other great authors, something to satisfy his pruriency. But to condemn a standard literary work because of a few of its episodes would compel the exclusion from circulation of a very large proportion of the works of fiction of the most famous writers of the English language. There is no such evil to be feared from the sale of these rare and costly books as the imagination of many, even well-disposed, people might apprehend. They rank with the higher lit erature, and would not be bought nor appreciated by the class of people from whom unclean publications ought to be withheld. They are not corrupting in their influence upon the young, for they are not likely to reach them. I am satisfied that it w<>uld be a wanton destruction of prop erty to prohibit the sale by the receiver of these works — for if their sale ought to be prohibited the books should be burned; but I find no reason in law, morals or expediency why they should not be sold for the benefit of the creditors of the receivership. The receiver is, therefore, allowed to sell these volumes." This seems very good sense. Unless it is the prop er rule, it will become difficult to know where to draw the line. Under any other rule the taint of obscen ity would condemn the Old Testament, " Othello," all of Sterne's works (except his dull sermons), " Hum phrey Clinker," and many other well approved classics. It would seem a good test that nothing should be deemed obscene now unless it was deemed obscene when it was written. Judged by that standard none of the above named classics are obscene. On the other hand they afford invaluable historical pictures. The purists would be much better employed in sup pressing that which is written at the present day and is now deemed obscene. There is plenty of it. The classics in question are of no greater immoral influence than the statue of the Apollo Belvidere or Rubens' sprawling naked women.

Corporeal Inspection. — We find the following in an exchange : — "Lately in an English court, in the course of the hear ing of an application, the plaintiffs solicitor asked his honor to make an order for a special inspection of a woman's mouth for the purpose of examining a set of false