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the tradesman for an assault on the alderman by taking him by the nose, and the plaintiff ob tained a verdict with forty shillings damages. In the course of the trial, the counsel for the de fendant strongly urged the jury that the taking of an alderman of by the nose could not be deemed an assault, it being a customary salutation among the aldermen of that corpora tion, and that those aldermen had been led by the nose for years. THERE is one Iowa lawyer who disregards the ethics of the profession and uses advertis ing of a unique nature. The following is a copy of his latest letter head : Office Over First National

Bank

»__,_ — __-_ ._~-_ TOM H. MILNER / •, rr.,tLawyer

"He that loveth Pleasure shall be a poorman."

_«„„,,,/„,.

Solomon. Practices in every court en this earthly ball. Expert title perfector and buys and sells mortgages and makes loans. Am the red-headed, smooth-faced, freckle-punctured Legal Napoleon of the Slope, and always in the saddle. Active as the Nocturnal Feline. Leonine in Battle, but Centleas a Dove. "FEES ARE THE SINEWS OF WAR."

Mr. Milner's residence is Belle Plaine, Iowa. He is a lawyer of ability, and has acquired a reputation as a criminal attorney. His practice extends all over the State. The letter-head of which the above is an exact copy is the latest edition in his series of unique letter-heads. The edition before contained the epigram, " Red-Headed but not Comely," which, by the way, Mr. Milner has painted on a sign and hung over the doorway leading up to his office. In the upper right hand corner of the sheet was the following : " Better stalled ox and contentment than great riches. Give me stalled ox." Under the name appeared the following challenge: "I am a Legal Napoleon. Have Been in Many Battles and Thirst for More." The letter-heads are preserved as curios in every office in which they may chance, but whether Mr. Milner has found the notoriety thus gained to be advantageous in his profession is a matter upon which the records are silent. IN Curran's last illness, his physician observ ing in the morning that he seemed to cough with more difficulty, he answered : " That is rather surprising, as I have been practicing all night."

LITERARY

NOTES.

THOSE of us who were fortunate enough to enjoy the privilege of listening to the eloquent and scholarly address of Professor Thayer, of the Harvard Law School, in Sanders Theatre on the fourth of February, and the readers of his article on Chief Justice Marshall in the March number of the Atlantic Monthly, have looked forward with pleasure to the publication of his life of John Marshall ' in the Kiverside Biographical Series. This book now lies before us. We find in it one defect — its brevity — a defect attributable to the modest size set by the publishers for volumes in this series. This limitation is exasperating in the present instance, because, we make the guess, Professor Thayer had considerable interesting material which the size of the volume made it impossible to use. The incidents in the life of Marshall are, through the recent celebration, so fresh in our minds that it is unnecessary to mention them here. Nor need we quote from the chapters in which Marshall's opinions and his work and in fluence on the bench are considered, because in the recent Marshall numbers of THE GREEN BAG we were privileged to quote freely on these points from Professor Thayer's Marshall Day address, much, if not all, of which is embodied in the present volume. It was a task of uncommon difficulty which Professor Thayer essayed in writing for the gen eral reader a biography of our greatest jurist. To be sure the earlier years of Marshall's life were filled with public activities; but important as were his public services before his accession to the bench, they are relatively unimportant when compared with his great work as Chief Justice. Among the leaders of our bar no one would be better fitted than Professor Thayer to discuss for strictly professional readers the legal work of Marshall and his influence on our system of law and government; but in the third, fourth and fifth chapters, comprising, roughly. a third of the present volume, he has written what may, perhaps, be termed an essay on Amer ican constitutional law, on Marshall's consti tutional opinions, and on the working of our system of constitutional law, which will be 1 JOHN MARSHALL. BY James Bradley Thay,r. Number 7 in the Kiverside Biographical Series. Boston and New York : Houghton, Mittun and Company. 1901. Cloth : 75 cents. (157 pp.)