Page images
PDF
EPUB

11. In citing text-books the number or name of the edition, where there is more than one, should be inclosed in [] just preceding the page or section, thus: 2 Wharton, Evidence [2d ed.] sec. 490.

12. The title of a case should only contain the name of one plaintiff and one defendant, thus: Smith v. Jones, 1 Neb., 4; Peoria Mfg. Co. v. GermanAmerican Ins. Co., 61 N. W. Rep. [Ia.], 467; Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co. v. Douglas County, 4 L. R. A. [Neb.], 27.

13. "Et al." should be omitted from all citations.

14. Do not insert administrator, executor, trustee, or other designation after names in titles.

15. Id. should never be used in citations.

16. The State in which the decision was rendered should be indicated in all citations from State courts of last resort, thus: Smith v. Jones, 4 Met. [Mass.], 823.

17. In citing the Federal Reporter do not indicate the State from which the case was appealed.

18. The titles of cases should be printed in italics.

19. The title of a case should never be omitted from a citation.

Most of the above is quite apt, and whether or not the best form, it is to be said in its favor that if it produces uniformity that will be well. Some of the above recommendations seem, however, not beyond criticism. In abbreviating the name of a railroad company, we submit that instead of saying, for example, Chicago, B. & Q. Ry. Co., it is sufficient to say Chicago &c. R. Co. But we demur, on the one hand, to the habit of the Iowa reporter of calling it C., B. & Q. R. Co., or C., B. & Q. R. R. Co., and using the same initial letter abbreviations for obscure railroad companies; and, on the other hand, to the habit which many reporters are falling into of making it simply Railway Co. There are now so many cases in the books that there is not sufficient differentiation in calling a case, for example, Railway Co. v. Smith, or Railway Co. v. Brown; since there are probably a hundred cases in the American State and Federal reports where Smith or Brown sued a railroad company, and where it got into an appellate court with the names reversed. We cavil at abbreviating the word "manufacturing " into "mfg." That, to us, looks too much like a grocery-keeper's account. The reason why it is proper, as Mr. Campbell suggests, to refrain from using Id. in citations, is that if the brief maker should want to run a case in between the Id. and the previous citation to which it refers, it leads to confusion, in case he forgets to change the Id., by writing out the name of the case,- of which confusion there are frequent examples in text-books. He is right as to abbreviating the word insurance, and as to not abbreviating the word county. County, abbreviated, becomes confused with company; and it is a sufficient abbreviation to say Chicago Fire Ins. Co. So, in the case of

a national bank, it is not necessary to write the word national in full. Chicago Nat. Bank, for example, is quite sufficient. There are so many State reports which still stand in the names of private reporters, that it is better to follow the form of the United States Digest, and put the name of the State after that of the reporter, in all cases: thus Smith v. Brown, 3 Metc. (Mass.) 250; and it may be doubtful whether the same means ought not to be used for distinguishing foreign reports from each other, English, Irish, Scotch, Canadian, etc. To avoid error, Colorado should be spelled Colo.; but Cal. for California has acquired such a pre-emption of the field that we cannot change it to Calif. The same may be said of Mo. for Missouri, which is an abbreviation of an abbreviation, a contraction of Misso., which abbreviation was adopted to distinguish Missouri from Mississippi, which latter was and is abbreviated Miss. It is doubtful whether we ought to use S. C. for South Carolina as long as we use S. C. for same case. We have known confusion to result from it. The late Judge Deady, of the District Court of the United States for the District of Oregon, was, we believe, the revisor of the Code of Oregon. He used to insist upon citing the name of that State simply Or.; and he pestered the editors with objections to the abbreviation Oreg. Irving Browne, when editor of the Albany Law Journal, replied that a man having more experience in the work of an editor would have known that Or. is likely to be confused by some printers with Oh. for Ohio. This suggestion may have been far-fetched; but we have known the three abbreviations, Mo. for Missouri, Me. for Maine, and Md. for Maryland to be confused through illegible writing in MSS. It is perhaps to be regretted that the habit had not obtained of abbreviating Maine, Mai. and Maryland, Mar.; but it is now too late to repent. We have known of printers making confusion between Mas. for Mason, and Mass. for Massachusetts; but this will not happen where there is a clear MS. and careful proof-reading. The same confusion frequently attends Penn. and Tenn. Pennsylvania should be abbreviated Pa. It ought to be added that the use of the typewriter has become so common that there is no longer any excuse, except extreme poverty, for an author, editor, or lawyer, to send an illegible MS. to a printer. There is only one way to avoid errors, and that is to have your MS. typewritten, and paragraphed, punctuated and capitalized with extreme care, and then to insist that the printer go by the only rule that justifies him, the rule to "follow copy." Perhaps it may not be out of place to add that it has become a recent fad to punctuate "long," as it is called by printers, or to omit punctuation marks altogether. In some recent books which we have received from England,

printed at presses having high-sounding names, there is almost an entire absence of punctuation. This cannot be justified on the ground that it is fashionable. Its excuse must be that it is easier for an ignorant person not to punctuate a MS. than to punctuate it. Good punctuation is absolutely necessary to perspicacity. An unpunctuated MS. is like a MS. written in a foreign language, with which the reader may be somewhat familiar, but the meaning of the words of which do not readily catch his understanding. An unpunctuated MS. imposes an extra burden upon the reader in the way of deciphering its meaning, which no author has the right to put upon him.

WHAT DOES" MISC." STAND FOR? - We were puzzled over the citation "Misc.," as frequently used in the General Digest; and we accordingly wrote to our friends, the Lawyers' Co-operative Publishing Company, of Rochester, New York, for an explanation; and they courteously sent us the following:

The citation referred to, Misc., stands for Miscellaneous, the official designation of the lower court series of this State. That is we have Court of Appeals (N. Y.), the General Term Decisions (Hun), and the Special Term, Superior, etc. (Misc.), or sometimes cited by the reporter's name, Delahanty. This latter was a new series, started by an Act of the Legislature a year or two ago which appointed three reporters at good salaries and designated the three official series of State reports. Hun of course, had been theretofore a volunteer series.

WHERE TO LOOK FOR THE LAW.- Our friends, "the Co-op's," of Rochester, New York, have issued a little book of sixty-four pages, beautifully bound, entitled " Where to Look for the Law." It is a brief subject-index of the most useful legal text works. It catalogues briefly, according to the subjects, the legal text-books of to-day, the books which represent the latest and fullest presentation of the law by the text writers. We are surprised at the great number and variety of the "notes" referred to as being in the series published by that house known as the Lawyers' Reports Annotated, and cited "L. R. A.” Concerning these notes the preface to this little book says: "Many subjects nowhere adequately covered by the treatises may be found in the notes of the Lawyers' Reports Annotated; and, upon any specific point therein taken up, all the authorities are presented." From our examination and habit of using the L. R. A., we believe this statement to be substantially true. The L. R. A. and the General Digest, issued by the same publishers, resemble each other in one thing: they show

a marked improvement - a steady and progressive evolution - from the beginning of each series to the present time. This is evidently the result of a thorough system, the execution of which is committed to able men.

"1

THE MONROE DOCTRINE AGAIN. The President and Mr. Secretary of State Olney must be readers of the AMERICAN LAW REVIEW, for they have recommended to Congress the course pointed out by us as the proper one to be pursued, in respect of the controversy between Great Britain and Venezuela. It will be recalled that our language was: "Turning now to the case of Venezuela, it is charged that Great Britain has been continually encroaching upon the territory of that small Republic, and that she insists on still another slice. We are not acquainted with the merits of this controversy; but if, after a full investigation of it by our political authorities, it is found that this is not an effort on the part of Great Britain to reclaim or maintain her own possessions, but that it is an effort on her part to encroach upon the possessions of a smaller power, then it will be our duty to uphold the so-called Monroe Doctrine, and to interfere by force if necessary.' We hope that our British brethren do not misunderstand our attitude and feeling upon this subject. They make a great mistake if they interpret the sentiment of the financial and commercial exchanges of our Eastern seaboard cities, as in any essential degree the sentiment of the whole country. There is reason to believe that better information on the subject has disabused their minds of that notion. They also make a great mistake if they interpret the message of President Cleveland as a mere piece of bluster, intended as an electioneering dodge. The character of President Cleveland is such as to preclude the conclusion that he has considered his own personal interest in this matter. He has too often taken decisive action upon public questions in conformity with his views of official duty, knowing at the same time that the action would be very unpopular, to preclude the idea that he is thus using a great international question to subserve his own personal interest. We trust that our British brethren will also come to the conclusion that no intelligent American regards the Monroe Doctrine as a canon of international law. We simply regard it as a declaration of our own public policy, originally founded, as our learned contributor Mr. Dunnell has so clearly pointed out, upon considerations relating primarily to our own safety, and which we are at any time at liberty to surrender, whenever we

1 29 Am. Law Rev. 420.

2 29 Am. Law Rev. 839.

shall conclude that the maintenance of the doctrine is not necessary to our own safety or in consonance with our own interests. But our British brethren ought clearly to understand that, at the present time, American sentiment in favor of upholding the Monroe Doctrine to the extent of preventing any European power from unjustly encroaching upon the territorial boundaries of an American power, is substantially unanimous. This ought clearly to be discerned in the fact that both Houses of Congress passed speedily and unanimously an act appropriating one hundred thousand dollars for the expenses of the Commission, recommended by the President in his special message, to investigate the question and to advise our Government where the justice of the case really lies. Nor ought our British brethren to mistake our view as to the purposes or powers of this Commission. We do not regard it as being, in any sense, a commission of arbitration. We do not suppose for one moment that any thing which they recommend to our Government will be, by reason of that recommendation, in any sense binding upon Her Majesty's Government. The Commission is raised as a mere means of obtaining information for ourselves as to where the truth and justice of the case really lies,-information upon which we propose to act, or to refrain from acting, as our judgment, our sense of duty, and our interests may subsequently determine. If the British Government were to elect, in accordance with its well known courteous habit of diplomacy, to lay before the Commission all the facts supporting the British view of the question, it would in no sense be regarded as committing the British Government in any way to the conclusions of the Commission. Aside from this, American public opinion is utterly unable to see in the attitude of the President any extension of the so-called Monroe Doctrine. Americans understand, whether correctly or incorrectly, that the British have put their boundary line forward two or three times upon territory not hitherto claimed by them as British territory. They also understand, from the refusal of the British Government to arbitrate the question of the proper boundary line between British Guiana and the Republic of Venezuela, except within certain limits, a disposition to maintain its view against the weaker power by force if necessary. Assuming that Venezuela is right and that Great Britain is wrong, therefore see in this nothing more nor less than a proposal on the part of Great Britain to acquire territory from a weaker power by mere conquest. The subterfuges, if such they are, which lead up to that conquest, do not make it any the less conquest. Such subterfuges have been practiced by conquering nations throughout all history. We end by saying that there is no considerable opinion or feeling in the United States in favor of war with England, unless we are driven to it by

we

« PreviousContinue »