TRESPASS.

Improved lands are required by law to be fenced in Pennsylvania. The owner of such lands, which are not fenced, cannot therefore recover for damage done upon them by stray cattle. - Gregg v. Gregg, 55 Pa. 227.

TROVER.- See CONVERSION; REPLEVIN; TELEGRAPH, 2.

TRUST.

1. A testator appointed five executors, and intrusted to their discretion the investment of his estate for the benefit of his heirs. Two qualified, and invested in Ohio State stock, canal, railroad, and bank stocks, and railroad bonds, nominally secured by mortgage on track and rolling stock. Held, that a legatee was not bound to accept such stocks, &c., as and for her legacy, with its accumulations. The discretion of the executors did not extend to such investments. -King v. Talbot, 50 Barb. 453.

2. A trust fund is not liable for services in defending the trustee against proceedings to declare him a lunatic. - Bickham v. Smith, 55 Pa. 335.

UNITED STATES, STATUTES OF.-See BANKRUPT LAW; CONFLICT OF FEDERAL AND STATE AUTHORITY; EMBEZZLEMENT; ILLEGAL CONTRACT, 2; JURY, 1; NATIONAL BANK; PARDON; REMOVAL OF SUIT; STAMP; TAX, 3, 4, 6.

USURY.

1. When a plaintiff seeks to enforce a contract usurious in its inception, the law gives the defendant the right to deduct the statutory penalty, and the plaintiff cannot deprive him of this right by offering to renounce the part of the contract which contained the usury.

The usury is a defence to a suit to foreclose a mortgage, to the same extent as upon the note. - Ramsay v. Warner, 97 Mass. 8.

2. The maker of a note paid a consideration to induce a party to indorse the same, and to procure its discount at a bank. Held, that this did not make the agreement usurious. - Chatham Bank v. Betts, 37 N.Y. 356.

3. A contract was made in Wisconsin for the payment there of money, with ten per cent interest, to a New York bank, and the debt was secured by a mortgage of land in Wisconsin. By the law of New York, contracts for more than seven per cent interest are void. Held, that the contract was governed by the Wisconsin law, and was valid. - Kennedy v. Knight, 21 Wis. 340.

See BILLS AND NOTES, 1, 3.

VARIANCE.

Indictment for murder of H. G. Trobuck. Proof of murder of Gilbert Trobuck. Held, a fatal variance. - Timms v. State, 4 Coldw. 138. See Graham v. State, 40 Ala. 659.

VENDOR AND PURCHASER. -See FIXTURE.

VENDOR'S LIEN.

When a vendor of land, to which he retains the title, assigns the debt for the purchase money, his lien passes with it, unless the same is waived, or it is

otherwise agreed.

Such assignment need not be in writing.-Magruder v. Campbell, 40 Ala. 611. See Day v. Preskett, ib. 624; Dennis v. Williams, ib. 633. VESTED RIGHTS.-See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 2; CONSTITUTIONAL LAW,

WAIVER. - See ATTACHMENT; BILLS AND NOTES, 7; CONDITION; CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, STATE, 3; INSURANCE, 1, 2; JURY, 2, 3; PARENT AND CHILD. WAR.-See BILLS AND NOTES, 4, 5, 9, 10; CONVERSION, 2, 3; LIMITATIONS, STATUTE OF, 3, 4; PRINCIPAL AND AGENT, 1.

WAREHOUSEMAN.-See CARRIER, 13, 14.

1. A slippery ridge of ice upon a sidewalk, over which a person using due care cannot walk without danger of falling, may be found by the jury to be a defect in the highway.-Luther v. Worcester, 97 Mass. 268; Hutchins v. Boston, ib. 272.

2. Plaintiff, being partially blind, was injured by falling into an excavation in the sidewalk of a public avenue in New York. The jury were instructed, that the fact that plaintiff was partially blind and fell into this opening in the daylight was not of any importance; the question was, whether it was so imprudent for the plaintiff to have gone into the street unattended, in her then condition of sight, that it would be negligence on her part to do so. Had the plaintiff sight enough to go with reasonable assurance of safety through the streets if they were kept in good condition? Held, correct; and also that the city was liable, whether the injury was occasioned by an act or an omission of duty on its part. - Davenport v. Ruckman, 37 N.Y. 568.

3. When a horse becomes uncontrollable, through fright or disease, and so comes upon a defect in the highway, the town is not liable for the injury so caused, unless the same would have occurred if the horse had not been so uncontrollable. Titus v. Northbridge, 97 Mass. 258; Horton v. Taunton, ib. 266. See EMINENT DOMAIN, 2; NUISANCE.

WILL.

1. A will made by an habitual drunkard, under charge of a committee, is valid, if the testator's capacity be proved. The commission is only prima facie evidence of his incompetency, which may be rebutted (MULLIN, J., dissenting).— Lewis v. Jones, 50 Barb. 645.

2. After the due execution of a will, the testator directed certain legacies and the date to be altered by erasure and interlineation, which was done. He then acknowledged it in the presence of the former witnesses, without his or their again signing it. Held, that the will was not revoked. There was no "obliteration," within the Wills Act. Whether the interlineations were valid was not decided. Dixon's Appeal, 55 Pa. 424.

3. Parol evidence that the names of any of the testator's children, whom he

intended to have part of his property, were omitted by the mistake of the scrivener, is not ground for setting aside a will.- Wallize v. Wallize, 55 Pa. 242.

4. Devise to P. for life, and, after her death, to such "children as should be living at the time of her death," with a limitation over for want of such. Held, that "children" included grandchildren. - Prowitt v. Rodman, 37 N.Y. 42. See CONTRIBUTION, 3; PROBATE; SUNDAY, 1; TRUST, 1.

WITNESS.

1. Under statutes similar to those in New York, held, that a wife could not be a witness for her husband in an action to which she is not a party. - Farrell v. Ledwell, 21 Wis. 182.

2. A party cannot be allowed to prove, by other witnesses, statements previously made by a witness called by himself, inconsistent with his testimony at the trial, which would not be admissible as independent evidence, and can have no effect but to impair his credit with the jury. - Adams v. Wheeler, 97 Mass. 67.

WORDS.

"$471.79 in current bank notes."-See BILLS AND NOTES, 14.

BOOK NOTICES.

A Treatise on the Wrongs called Slander and Libel, and on the Remedy by Civil Action for those Wrongs. By JOHN TOWNSHEND. New York: Baker, Voorhis, & Company. 1868.

THE law of slander and libel is a most fruitful theme. The hasty words of the hot-tempered, the deliberate imputations of the malicious or revengeful, who adopt this comparatively safe method of satisfying their spite, the unthinking tattle of scandal, the well-meant, though injudicious, warnings of the officious, and the grave advice of the interested, have, from the earliest times, caused incessant litigation. The law of libel existed among the Romans; and we know that at a most remote period it became ingrafted from the Civil Law into the undeveloped growth of English jurisprudence. The smaller the community, the narrower, and thus the nearer, the circle in which the injury is done, the deeper in will the evil of slander and libel work, the more sharply will the wound be felt, and the greater will be the pecuniary damage inflicted. Mr. William Hazlitt has said, in his bitter way," All country people hate each other. All their spare time is spent in manufacturing and propagating the lie for the day, which does its office and expires." Whether he is right or not, lawyers who have a large country practice say, that there is nothing about which they are so often urged to bring suits, as concerning injuries inflicted by language. There are few, in any condition in life, to whom reputation is a bubble; few of the highest position or of the most callous feelings, who may not be touched, no occupation. how humble soever it may be, which may not be sensibly and materially affected by the tooth of calumny. As Mr. Townshend very truly says,

"Limiting ourselves for the present to occupations, we conclude that subject only to the conditions that the occupation is one in which a person may be lawfully engaged, and that it is an occupation which does or reasonably may yield, or may be expected to yield, pecuniary reward, there is no employment-call it business, trade, profession, or office, or what you will-so humble or so exalted, but that language, which concerns the person in such his employment, will be actionable, if it affects him therein in a manner that may as a necessary consequence, or does as a natural and proximate consequence, prevent his deriving therefrom that pecuniary reward which probably he might otherwise have obtained" (§ 182).

This work, which has been long announced, is stated to be the result of over thirty years' experience in the thick of the fight at the New York bar. It shows a most extensive course of reading on the subject of the law of slander and libel, not only in reports of legal decisions, in the works of previous text writers on this branch of the law, and in learned treatises and essays; but magazines, reviews, speeches, and philosophical and theological writings have been ransacked to supply hints, suggestions, or examples of any thing bearing never so

remotely on the subject matter of the text. We should think that all the books which the author has read for the last quarter of a century, and all the works contained in his library might be found cited in the 2113 notes. Yet the main body of the work cannot be considered too diffuse. The heads are carefully and systematically arranged, and are severally treated in a most satisfactory and elaborate manner. The author seems to be too fond, however, of fine hairsplitting distinctions; and we confess ourselves unable, at times, to follow his reasoning, an instance of which, on the subject of involuntary acts, we gather from various parts of his work. If the reader can make the following statements hang together, he will do more than we can:

.

"An involuntary act is an act done under circumstances which permit to the actor no option as to whether he will do or forbear the act" (§ 77) ; . . . "the performance of a duty is an involuntary act" (§ 121); . . . " an involuntary act may be done with an intent to produce its consequences" (§ 80). "Intent may or may not, in fact, be synonymous with motive, but we desire it understood that we use intent and motive as synonymous. By intent we mean motive. . . . The intent or motive which goes towards the doing the act we include in the term voluntary. The intent or motive which refers to the consequences of the act we denominate intent or intention" (§ 79).

...

Such delicate and dexterous refinings may, perhaps, bear a close examination, but it will be a closer examination than we have been able to give. The writer often, too, errs on the other side; and, we should think, might have taken for granted some sort of familiarity with common things, on the part of a man far enough advanced in life to be able to make use of a law book.

One would naturally expect in such a book to find much that was entertaining, much to laugh at, a fertile field for those who make merry (as who does not?) over the failings and follies of others. But we have not found this work so, not from any fault of the author's, but because it is only a melancholy exhibition of one of the worst sides of human nature. In some places it more resembles a vocabulary of vile and abusive epithets. Condensed spleen, systematically and elegantly arranged, is not very attractive. We missed in this book (though it may be concealed in some of the learned notes) the good old decision over which successive ages of lawyers have chuckled, and which Mr. Evarts thus related at the dinner given to him the other day in New York: "The Year Book' contains the following story: It seems that somebody had been so rude as to call a clergyman a fool, with a prefixed expletive, which gave point to the stigma wrung from the arsenals of theological denunciation, and not from the technical words of the law. Now, in an action of slander, the point came up distinctly,- for, without special damage proved, we hold such words injurious only when they injure the party spoken of in his profession,- and the Court held, that it was not actionable, for it did not injure the clergyman in his profession. [Great laughter.] But the Court said that had it been of the lawyer, or of the medical profession, it would have been otherwise." Or, as the old law French more tersely has it, "Parce que on peut estre bon parson et grand fou; d'un attorney aliter."

"Where it was stated that the plaintiff purchased a newspaper, and gave his note for it; that he was unable to pay the note, and begged for delay; and that subsequently, when sued upon it, he pleaded the Statute of Limitations success