this order came before Judge Caldwell for revision. He said, in substance, that if the railroad property had been honestly managed, no such application would have been necessary; that the wages of the employés of the receivers would not be reduced except upon sixty days notice to them, and not then without an investigation before the court, in which they should have a full opportunity to be heard and to present their side of the case. He said in substance that the receivers, whom he had placed in charge of the property, were the servants of the court, and that the distinguished railroad attorney, who was making this application, was as much the servant of the receivers as were the men who operated the trains upon the road; and he told him, in substance, to go home and attend to his proper functions, and not interfere with the policy of the court toward other employés of the court's officers, the receivers. On another occasion, when an application was made to him for an injunction to prevent the striking employés of his receivers from interfering with the railway property, he refused it on the obvious ground that no such injunction was needed; since the property was within the custody of the court, and any one unlawfully interfering with that custody would place himself in contempt of the court. These instances, which could be greatly multiplied, illustrate the strong sense of justice, united with a large practical common sense, which are the distinguishing features of this great judge.

Though but sixty-three years of age and still strong and vigorous, he has been on the Federal judicial bench for thirty-two years. He is one of the two living Federal judges that enjoy the honor of holding commissions signed by Abraham Lincoln, the other being Mr. Justice Field. He is one of the few surviving members of the Republican convention which met in the " Wigwam " in Chicago, in 1860, and nominated Abraham Lincoln for the presidency. He subsequently served with courage and distinction in the Civil War, and resigned the office of colonel of a regiment of cavalry to accept the office of United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas. The appointment was very unpopular in Arkansas. The spectacle of a man getting out of the saddle and ascending the bench was looked upon with general aversion and distrust. But Judge Caldwell kept his court out of politics and administered justice with such firmness, impartiality and sound common sense that he soon acquired an affectionate hold upon the people of that State, and there is no more popular man in it to-day. He was promoted to his present position, that of Circuit Judge for the Eighth Federal Circuit, to fill the vacancy caused by the promotion of Mr. Circuit Judge Brewer to the Supreme Bench, by President Harrison. The appointment was entirely unsolicited on his part and was

quite a surprise to him. In fact, he hesitated for 30me time in accepting it, on the ground that it would take him from his home and oblige him to travel over a vast circuit during a considerable portion of his time. But, with the creation of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, he became, by reason of seniority, the presiding judge of that circuit, and most of his judicial work is performed at St. Louis, in that capacity, his associates being Mr. Circuit Judge Sanborn, appointed from Minnesota, and Mr. Circuit Judge Thayer, appointed from Missouri.

In stature, mind and heart, Judge Caldwell greatly resembles Abraham Lincoln. Like Mr. Lincoln, he stands at the remarkable height of six feet four. Like Mr. Lincoln, he carries on his tall frame a very large and massive head. Like Mr. Lincoln, he comes from Virginia ancestors. Like Mr. Lincoln, he has remained, through every elevation of official station, in touch and in sympathy with the common people. So extensive have the public acquired a knowledge of his character in this respect, that there is at the present time a strong, though quiet movement on foot, to make him a candidate for the presidency; and there are well informed politicians who do not hesitate to predict that if those who favor the free coinage of silver put in the field a separate candidate, Judge Caldwell will be the man. The following extract from a private letter received by the author of this sketch on the day of this writing, from a well-informed politician in Chicago, indicates the nature of this feeling and movement: "There was a gentleman in my office to-day, who has been in correspondence with a number of prominent men in the West on political matters in general; and he tells me that in every instance Judge Caldwell's name was the one name placed above all others. The silent mutterings that are now abroad in our land are surely going to break forth by the time the St. Louis convention comes together."

Judge Caldwell is not, of course, a party to such a movement. He rightly takes the view that members of the judicial bench should not be active aspirants for political offices. But if such a nomination were to come to him unsolicited, there are those who believe that he would not feel at liberty to decline it. He does not believe in concealment in political thought or action. So far as we are aware, he has never hesitated in giving frank expression of his views on the political questions of the time. We do not undertake to speak for him, but we believe that the public and private utterances of those views which he has repeatedly made will justify us in stating that they are substantially as follows: (1) He is in favor of the free coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one, and wholly without reference to any action

which other governments may or may not take. He also believes that a law should be passed providing that all debts may be discharged either in gold or silver at the debtor's option, and making void all contracts by which the debtor waives this option. We believe that we state his expressed view on this subject correctly: it is wholly aside from the purpose of this sketch whether we concur in them or not. (2) He is unalterably opposed to remitting the duty of furnishing the paper currency of the country to private State banking corporations, whether with or without the superintendence of the Federal government. On the contrary he believes that the paper currency of the country should be furnished by the general government alone. (3) He is in favor of the passage and enforcement of just and wholesome laws, protecting the people against monopolies and trusts, and controlling, to this end, the exercise of corporate franchises.

DEATH OF TWO EMINENT JUDGES.- After LORD BLACKBURN the next great judge whose loss the profession and public have sustained was Mr. Justice CHARLES DOE, of New Hampshire. This great lawyer died recently at the age of sixty-six. At the time of this hasty writing, the proper material for a sketch of his career is not at hand. Those who have to any considerable extent made themselves students of the judicial reports will recall him as a judge who loved the investigation of legal questions, and who wrought out the solution of every new question with a tireless energy and an exuberance of learning almost exhaustless. Many of his opinions were treatises on the law of the particular subject. As an evidence of this, we recall a single case where he wrote an opinion twenty-five pages in length on the subject of the right of a person to defend his own property, where the action grew out of the killing of four minks belonging to one neighbor, which had escaped upon the premises of another, and were there pursuing his geese.1 In a brief newspaper sketch of Mr. Justice Doe it is said that he was the only New England judge that had ever been quoted in the English courts. This is a great mistake, and it must have been the mistake of some uninformed newspaper writer. While it is true that Mr. Justice Doe was more than once quoted in the English courts, it is also true

1 Aldrich v. Wright, 53 N. H. 398. In Eastman v. Clark, 53 N. H. 277, 290-342,- the substantial question was what constitutes a partnership, and Mr. Justice Doe's opinion is only fifty

two pages long. In Hale v. Everett, 53 N. H. 8, 133-277,- which was a religious squabble, Mr. Justice Doe's dissenting opinion is only 144 pages long. These are specimens.

that many other New England judges have enjoyed the same honor, if such it be. This was especially true of Chief Justice Shaw.

The other great judge who has lately disappeared from our midst was the Hon. GEO. G. WRIGHT, of Iowa. This great lawyer came to the front in a new community, and for this reason more than for another, he failed to make an impression upon the Anglo-American law equal to that made by the other great judge of whom we have just spoken. He was literally a pioneer lawyer. He commenced his career in the territory of Iowa in the year 1840, when that now great and powerful State contained a population of not more than 40,000 souls - less than several of its counties contain at the present time. After being fifteen years a lawyer, he was elected to the Supreme Bench of the State. He continued a member of the court, with a short interval, for twelve years, when he was elected to the Senate of the United States, in which body he served a term of six years. He was one of the few lawyers that have enjoyed the honor of being elected President of the American Bar Association. He was a man of diversified acquirements. He could tell a good anecdote in an inimitable way, and his fund of good anecdotes was almost as inexhaustible as was that of Abraham Lincoln, whose friend and admirer he was. His penchant for telling humorous anecdotes did not, however, obscure the serious and conscientious side of his life. Like some other of the greatest intellects that have adorned the bench and bar in England and America, we allude for example to Earl Cairns, to Mr. Justice Story, and to Charles O'Conor,— he was a professed, undoubting and consistent Christian.

THE EFFECT OF THE INCOME TAX UPON the War WITH ENGLAND. When the Supreme Court of the United States, by a bare majority of its Judges, rendered the Income Tax Decision reversing an interpretation of the constitution established by the court a century ago, when two of its members had sat in the convention which framed the constitution, and overruling its own unanimous decision in a modern case, we expected that the time would come when the country would have an object-lesson concerning the unpatriotic character of these last judicial utterances-if that expression can be applied to a judicial decision; but we did not expect that the object-lesson would come so We are now engaged in a controversy with Great Britain which may possibly lead to a war with that country. The result of a war with the greatest naval power would be to drive our ships into home or neutral ports, to cut off our foreign trade, to reduce customs revenues

soon.

to nothing, and even possibly, to blockade our principal seaports. Our principal banker, England, would be in a state of hostility to us, and we should be driven to raise revenue by every possible expedient. Under such circumstances, the power to lay and collect an income tax, which power we exercised in our late Civil War, might be of vital necessity to the safety of the nation. Nevertheless, because five lawyers against four, in a private litigation concocted between parties both of whom desired to have the decision rendered one way, and which was consequently not a litigation at all,-have held that Congress has no such power, but have, in substance and effect, enjoined the Executive Department of the Government from enforcing a law concurred in by the two Houses of Congress and the President,- because this has been done, it seems that we are to rest content and are to congratulate our public enemies, if such there shall be, upon the extent to which our highest judicatory has strengthened their hands.

PROXIMATE AND REMOTE CAUSE: A STRIKING ILLUSTRATION OF THE DOCTRINE.- Irving Browne, in one of his admirable letters to the Law Journal, of London, gives the following novel illustration of the doctrine of proximate and remote cause:

The most amusing case of proximate cause of injury since the Squib Case is reported from Texas thus: "A passenger, slightly intoxicated, enters the smoking car of a railroad train, and places his baggage, which is in the form of an old tow-sack filled with coffee-grinders, scrap iron, and a jug of alcohol, on the seat beside him, projecting slightly into the aisle. The motion of the train causes the sack to tumble out into the aisle of the car, breaking the jug, and spilling the alcohol on the floor. As this flows along the aisle, another passenger, who is just lighting a cigar, throws a match in the way, and the alcohol burns up to the ceiling of the car; a third passenger, with silk stockings and celluloid cuffs, has his feet, hands, and eyebrows seriously scorched, and sues the railway company for damages. Held: that the contents of the sack being unknown to the conductor, and the passenger's conduct not sufficiently boisterous to warrant his ejectment, it was not actionable negligence unless it was a proximate cause of the injury." But, is not wearing inflammable cuffs contributory negligence? Has a passenger a right to impose this risk on a carrier in order to save laundry charges?