EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

ficulty of ascertaining the exact truth is the constant necessity of passing judgment upon a subject of which the man on the street has but the most superficial knowledge, and one which its specialists must admit as yet has few rules clearly defined and those almost impossible of accurate application. As Mr. Adams stated in his article in our January number, our Courts are constantly trying to decide upon an individual's state of mind. Psychology, there fore, has much to suggest to the lawyer. Whether we can safely apply in our trials the principles that are being evolved in this new science is another question. At times, how ever, cases arise in the decision of which this learning may be of vital importance. In the January number of the Times Maga zine Prof. Hugo Munsterberg calls this forceably to our attention in an article on " Untrue Confessions," suggested by the remarkable story of a conviction for murder in Chicago last summer upon a confession which most people now believe to have been made by a temporarily unbalanced mind. The striking feature of the article, however, is the unex pected clearness with which the author works out his contention that the weakminded defendant subjected to a sudden mental shock while undergoing rigid police examination be came temporarily unbalanced and subject to influence of suggestion which produced the somewhat incoherent confession upon which he was convicted, but which he afterwards repudiated. That such confessions are not unknown in our criminal reports is shown by a contribution by John F. Geeting, the editor of American Criminal Reports, to a recent pamph let entitled " Making of Men " published by the Central Howard Association; and the story of the Boom Murder case was related not long since in our columns. Although many of these, as Mr. Munsterberg shows, are to be explained upon different grounds, the fact remains that the line between sanity and in sanity can be but uncertainly described, and even in the proper field of rationality there are variations of mental states which seriously affect the credibility of testimony. The prob lem of the lawyer is how far these variations can be effectively distinguished without reduc ing our courts of justice to laboratories for' dabbling in the occult.

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AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION The Executive Committee of the American Bar Association announces that the next annual meeting will be held at Portland, Maine, on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, August 26, 27, and 28, 1907. The reason assigned for selecting the first days of the week is that the International Law Association is considering holding its meeting in America this year and the suggestion has been made to that body to hold its meeting at Portland on the last three days of the same week. AN ENGLISH VIEW The London Law Times considers it sig nificant that there is more public effort in America than in England to declare and up hold a standard of professional ethics, more readiness among leaders of the profession to exercise active influence for good over the whole body, and more apparent interest in the profession as a profession. Perhaps a study at closer range of the rank and file of the American Bar might lead him to doubt the universality of the interest of our lawyers in ethics that might interfere with their income, but it is fortunate indeed that there are so many of our lawyers to whom these questions are of vital interest and who are willing to sacrifice much valuable time to advance the cause. To these this commendation from the Bar of the mother country should be a great gratification. OUR CONTEMPORARIES. The opening of the new year brings changes in the management of two of our contempo raries. Mr. Charles E. Grinnell of Boston, who was formerly an editor of the American Law Review, has resumed that position and we are glad to welcome so able an editor again to the field of legal periodical literature, in confidence that the Review will continue the same high standard of excellence which it has maintained in the past. The Corporation Legal Manual Company announce that it has purchased the American Lawyer, which in future will be published in connection with the Corporation Legal Manual and the Manual Corporation Law List Quar terly. Mr. Chapin will remain editor-in-chief of the American Lawyer and will have associ ated with him, Mr. John S. Parker, Mr. Edward Q. Keasbey and Mr. J. C. Clayton.