NOTES OF RECENT CASES

Co., 188 U. S. 239, 23 Sup. Ct. 298, 47 L. Ed. 460, for persons trained only to the law to constitute themselves final judges of the worth of pictorial illustrations. It is along Fifth Avenue, on Sun day, an avenue of churches, that this advertising panorama of brilliant signs and glaring billboards moves. It is this scheme of beauty which is sacrificed to the demands of modern commercial ism. It is along the entrance to parks and along the parks themselves, preserved to attract lovers of nature and of the beautiful, that these unnatural and inartistic moving picture signs are displayed. But, out of place, disagreeable, and offensive though they are, both to civic pride and aesthetic taste, the ultimate fact remains that no authority now exists which will justify the legal conclusion that the signs constitute a nuisance." PRACTICE. (Exceptions.) Mo. Ct. of App. — The question whether a regular judge who had heard a case could sign a bill of exceptions at the time there was a special judge acting in his stead was decided in Ranney v. Hammond Packing Co., no S. W. Rep. 613. There is a statutory pro vision that if a judge who hears a cause shall "go out of office " before signing a bill of excep tions such bill may be signed by the succeeding or " acting judge." It appeared that Ramey, the regular judge, having heard the cause, was incapa citated by illness. Thereupon Rusk was elected special judge. Before Ramey reassumed his office he signed the bill of exceptions of a case he had heard, which upon presentation to the court at which Rusk sat was allowed. The Kansas City Court of Appeals held this bill not duly authenticated, saying that as there could be but one judge it was out of the power of Ramey to sign the bill, and that the expression " go out of office " need not be confined to death or resig nation but should include the giving up of office in this case. PROPERTY. (Escheat.) N. Y. Sup. Ct. The case of Smith v. Doe, in New York Supple ment, 525, illustrates the occasional hardship of general laws and leaves plaintiff with no apparent means of redress had not the legislature passed a

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special act giving her relief. Plaintiff's husband died, leaving one brother and herself surviving. Decedent's realty passed at once to the brother, subject to plaintiff's right of dower. Subsequently the brother died and the property then escheated to the state, subject to the dower right. The widow, being desirous of having her dower ad measured and paid in bulk, instituted proceed ings for that purpose, making the state a party, and service of summons was acknowledged by the attorney-general. Plaintiff recovered judgment and the premises were sold. The purchasers declined to complete their agreement on the ground that the state was not bound by the proceedings and that therefore the sale did not pass a clear title. The court upheld this contention and denied plaintiff's motion to compel acceptance of title, saying that there was no authority for making the state a party in proceedings for admeasurement of dower; that the appearance by the attorney-gen eral was not binding and created no estoppel against bringing action to recover the property which had escheated to the state. A short time after this decision was rendered, the legislature passed an act ratifying the appearance by the attorney-general and confirming the sale. SHIPPING. (Limitation of Liability.) U. S. Sup. Ct. — A foreign steamship company, as owner of the La Bourgogne, sunk in collision off the Atlan tic coast in July, 1898, in Deslions v. La Compagnie Generate Transatlantique, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 664, sought to obtain the benefit of the laws of the United States limiting the liability of shipowners. It was claimed the collision was caused solely by the fault of the other vessel, but, even if the La Bourgogne was at fault, it was without the privity or knowledge of the company. The United States Supreme Court, after a thor ough discussion of the numerous and important contentions raised in the voluminous record, con cludes that the petitioners were entitled to the benefit of the act limiting liability on making the surrender exacted by Rev. Stat. Sections 428 2-4 28 7 (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, pp. 2943, 2944).