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NOTES OF RECENT DECISIONS.

withstanding the intervention of an act of God, injury to the goods delivered to a common carrier for transportation would not have occurred but for the negligence of the carrier in exposing them, the burden of proof is upon the party asserting such claim. Gulf Coast Trans. Co. v. Howell, 70 S. 567. (Fla.)

CONFLICT OF LAWS-FRAUDULENT CONVEYANCES-LEX LOCI REI SITAE.— Whether a conveyance of real estate is fraudulent as to creditors must be determined in the Federal court by the local law. Williams v. Adler Goldman Co., 227 F. 374.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW-NEGRO SUFFRAGE "GRANDFATHER CLAUSE."-1. The exemption from the literacy test prescribed by the 1910 amendment of Oklahoma Const., art. 3, § 4a, as a condition to voting, which that amendment makes in favor of persons who, on January 1, 1866, or at any time prior thereto, were entitled to vote under any form of government, or who at that time resided in some foreign nation, and their lineal descendants, is a denial or abridgment of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, contrary to U. S. Const., 15th Amend., as it creates a standard which, as a necessary result, re-creates and perpetuates the very conditions which the 15th Amendment was intended to destroy. Guinn v. U. S., 35 S. C. 926. (U. S.)

CORPORATIONS PAYING DIVIDENDS OUT OF CAPITAL.-Where a solvent industrial corporation, which is engaged in the conduct of its business as a going concern, annually declares dividends through a number of years, and these dividends are paid out of the capital assets of the corporation, and the shareholders receive them in good faith and without notice that they are not paid from the net profits of the corporation, and afterwards the corporation is adjudicated a bankrupt, an action by the trustees in bankruptcy will not lie against the shareholders to recover the amount of the dividends so received by them. Carlisle v. Ottley, 85 S. E. 1010; 81 Cent. L. J. 225 note. (Ga.)

DAMAGES-BREACH OF CONTRACT TO DELIVER STOCK-MEASURE OF DAMAGES-FORBEARANCE OF PURCHASER TO INSIST UPON DELIVERY.-1. The date for the delivery of stock under a contract of sale can be extended as well by forbearance of the purchaser at the seller's request as by means of a new agreement, and in the absence of evidenc of a new agreement, changing the time of delivery, if the purchaser forbor to insist upon delivery on the original date, at the request of the seller, the plaintiff's damages must be assessed according to the market price at the postponed delivery date. 2. The plaintiff, stockbrokers, purchased stock from defendant on November 12, to be delivered "in a day or two," and thereafter made repeated requests for delivery. Defendant, in response to such requests, promised to send the stock in as soon as he could get it, and finally around the 1st of December, 1913, when plaintiffs threatened to buy the stock in on the market, said, "You wouldn't do anything like that." Following this plaintiffs on December 5 wrote defendant that in case of the nondelivery by 1 p. m. on December 8, they would buy the stock in for his account on the open market. Held that this evidence raised a question of fact whether plaintiff's forbearance at the request of the defendant had not established a new delivery date as of December 8, justifying the court in assessing damages according to the market price at that time. 3. In an action to recover damages for breach of a contract to sell and deliver stock, it is reversible error to dismiss the complaint on the ground that there is no proof of damages where the evidence discloses the contract and its breach by defendant, entitling, the plaintiffs to at least nominal damages, and it is not clear that plaintiffs cannot recover substantial damages on a new trial. Such error is not cured by defendant, on appeal,

filing a stipulation waiving costs and disbursements, and consenting to the entry of judgment for nominal damages. Hutton v. Tullis, 54 N. Y. L. J. 1717. (N. Y.)

DUAL INTEREST-INSURANCE AGENT.-The rule that an agent must not act for his own interest as against his principal was recognized as generally applying to insurance contracts. When an insurance company's agent has issued to himself a policy on a stock of goods for an amount much in excess of that at which he had appraised the goods for an administrator and the price at which he had bought them in at the administrator's sale, and he had further failed to make full disclosure of what he had paid and of all the circumstances concerning the stock, the company was entitled to avoid the policy. Harland v. Ins. Co., 180 S. W. 998. (Mo.)

EMINENT DOMAIN-MEASURE OF COMPENSATION.-In case of condemnation the property owner is entitled to the highest fair cash market value of his land for the best use to which it is adapted; and the court laid down that where the jury viewed the premises they were entitled to use their own judgment in connection with the testimony, and their award of damages will not be disturbed on appeal when within the range of estimates of witnesses, unless clearly the result of passion or prejudice. Sanitary District v. Baumbach, 110 N. E. 331. (Ill.)

INSURANCE, TITLE-ACTUAL LOSS ONLY RECOVERABLE.-A policy of title insurance is essentially and solely a contract of indemnity, and not a wagering policy, or even an expression of opinion backed by a forfeit. Only actual loss may be recovered on such a policy; it cannot be made a subject of profit to the insured. Empire Development Co. v. Title Guarantee Co., 54 N. Y. L. J. 1765. (N. Y.)

MASTER AND SERVANT-NEGLIGENCE-FEDERAL EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY ACT. -M was a section boss engaged in interstate commerce. Upon the day of his injury he took a hand car with thirteen men, besides himself, and worked upon an adjoining section. While returning in the evening it began to rain, and one of the men under him let go of the handlebars to put on his coat. In so doing he lost his balance, and M, in order to hold the man upon the hand car, himself released his hold, fell from the car and was injured. There was no evidence that M had requested more hand cars or complained of the crowded condition. Held that the railroad company was guilty of no negligence for which it was liable under the Federal Employers' Liability Act. Manson v. R. Co., 155 N. W. 32. (N. D.)

NEGLIGENCE-PROXIMATE CAUSE.-Where plaintiff went into a store, leaving his team unhitched in a city street, and defendant also left his horse unhitched, knowing it was apt to run away, and it ran away, frightening plaintiff's team, which also commenced to run, whereupon plaintiff attempted to mount his sled to stop the team, and in so doing suffered injuries by being struck by another sleigh, defendant leaving his horse unhitched was not the proximate cause of plaintiff's injury, since defendant could not have anticipated that plaintiff would attempt to stop his team or that in so doing injury would result. Calliari v. Fisher, 155 N. W. 689. (Mich.)

NEGLIGENCE-PASSING BETWEEN CARS-CONTRIBUTORY NEGLIGENCE.—An adult person, in attempting to pass over the coupling between two cars standing on a street crossing and liable to be moved by an engine attached to them for switching purposes, is guilty of contributory negligence, which will preclude a recovery for his injury and death in consequence of the moving of the cars. Parisk v. R. Co., 155 N. W., 1095. (Neb.)

PARENT AND CHILD-CONTRACT GIVING CUSTODY TO ANOTHER-DAMAGES FOR BREACH.-Where the father of a minor child delivered it to plaintiffs, agreeing that they should have its custody until majority, his breach of his agreement, while not furnishing ground for recovery of damages for injury to plaintiffs' feelings, will afford a basis for recovery on a quantum meruit for services actually rendered to the infant. Gordon v. Wyners, 155 N. Y. S. 162. (N. Y.)

RELEASE GUARDIAN AND WARD-LIMITATIONS.-1. Where a release executed between a father and his son recited a controversy over a business in which both claimed an interest and adjusted the matters so in dispute, held that general words of acquittance therein contained would not operate to release the father from obligation to account for moneys belonging to the son and paid over to the father as the son's guardian. 2. 'The Statute of Limitations does not run against the right of a ward to call his guardian to account until he actually accounts or repudiates the trust. Mitchell v. Mitchell, 54 N. Y. L. J. 1261. (N. Y.)

STATUTE OF FRAUDS.-A contract for employment not to be performed within one year from the making thereof was held to be taken out of the operation of the Statute of Frauds by statements in a letter signed by one of the employers intended as a letter of recommendation of the employee to a third person from whom she was seeking other employment, her discharge having taken place after the writing of such letter. Truscott v. Rice Bros., 180 S. W. 1049. (Mo.)

VENUE CHANGE OF FOR PREJUDICE IN COMMUNITY.-G was indicted for embezzlement and conspiracy in connection with a "somewhat sensational bank failure" in February, 1908, resulting in losses to from 800 to 1,000 depositors, scattered throughout the county, defendant having been cashier of the bank. In June an order changing the venue was made by the judge of a neighboring circuit then presiding in the county, and in January, 1909, the application was renewed before the regular judge of the circuit. Though conceding that there was such prejudcie in the preceding June as to require such change, he denied the motion on the ground that sufficient time had elapsed to cause the incident to pass from the minds of the people. The sensational acts and severe criticism of the affairs and management of the bank appearing in local papers, with charges of criminal conduct on the part of its officers, together with affidavits of prominent and reliable citizens, showed beyond doubt that in June there was such a hostile feeling and prejudice against defendant as to require a change of venue. It appeared that subsequent to June, and at least until the November election following, general interest in the bank failure and the prosecution was kept alive to such an extent that the case was one of the issues of the political campaign and was generally discussed as a matter of public concern before the electors of the county; that the voters were appealed to against the "bank gang;" that the defense was bitterly attacked in public print, and the comparative cost of convicting defendant in the county and outside the county commented on; that the discussion became so personal and acrimonious as to result in the commencement of a libel and slander suit involving attorneys connected with it. Held that a change of venue was essential to a fair and impartial trial, and its denial was prejudicial error. People v. Gage, 155 N. W. 464. (Mich.)

THE DOCKET.

THE CRUSHING victory of President Wilson over the handful of members of Congress who got it into their heads that they knew more about International Law and were better able to manage diplomatic negotiations than either the President or the Secretary of State, will be glad tidings to the rest of the civilized world outside of one great power. For it is the truth that President Wilson, with the American people behind him, is the only thing today between International law and justice and world chaos. In all the wars for the past two centuries there has always been enough strength in neutral nations to keep the belligerents to a sort of good behavior. But in this war the United States is the only neutral which is an acknowledged great power and which exercises on this continent the authority which the six great powers-Great Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Germany and Austria-known as the concert of Europe-formerly did on that continent. The other states of the world are not strong enough to make their protests heard, but with the United States of America at their head, they may well take heart and look with hope to the maintenance of some, at least, of their historical rights in this great war.

IT IS nearly three hundred years since Grotius, the father of modern Internatinal Law, published his great work. He wrote it. because the warfare which he had witnessed had sickened him. "I saw," said he, "prevailing throughout the Christian world a license in making war of which even barbarous nations would have been ashamed, all reverence for divine and human law thrown away; as if men were authorized to commit all crimes without restraint." And the horrors which caused him to write impelled men to listen to his words and in a very few years to acknowledge that there must be among nations, as well as among individuals, some law to compel the statesman to keep his word and the warrior to curb his ferocity. And as the years rolled on this feeling increased; the rulers of different nations came together and framed a code of rules; in their state papers they acknowledged certain principles as part of an International common law and by treaty and through conventions and congresses we had arrived at the beginning of the year 1914, to believe that there was at last a world code of law to govern the nations in time of war as well as in time of peace.

NOWHERE was International Law better settled than in that portion of it relating to the high seas. For more than a century

THE DOCKET.

prize courts had been established in all civilized countries, and a body of law evolved by Jurists whose names are known to every lawyer-Story, the American; Portalis, the Frenchman; Stowell, the Englishman. These great prize judges set a very standard and their judgments came to be quoted with as much respect in other countries as in their own. They conceived their duty to be to decide the case according to law, even though their own country should be the sufferer. Thus spoke Lord Stowell in a case where the claims of Great Britain, a belligerent, conflicted with those of Sweden, a neutral. "It is the duty of the person who sits here to determine the question exactly as he would determine the same question if sitting at Stockholm; to assert no pretentions on the part of Great Britain which he would not allow in the same circumstances and to impose no duties on Sweden as a neutral country which he would not admit to belong to Great Britain in the same country.' And so much progress had been made on these lines that the last Hague Conference-that of 1907-agreed upon an International Prize Court, which was to sit at the Hague and to consist of fifteen judges to be nominated by the powers But world affairs move slowly represented at the conference. and the court had not been formed in August, 1914, when the European Earthquake came.

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THERE were perhaps no questions in the laws of war at sea better settled in August, 1914, than these: that a belligerent may destroy an enemy war vessel on the high seas, and every one on it, as soon as he can find it; that he may capture an enemy merchant vessel or a neutral vessel which is suspected of carrying contraband goods or destined to a blockaded port, and take it into port and have its status settled by a prize court. And it was also the law that this might be dispensed with if the observance of the rule would involve danger to the safety of the warship or to the success of the operations in which she was engaged at the time. But before the ship was burned or sunk the captor must provide for the safety of all persons on board and secure the ship's papers in order that they may be taken to the prize court in place of the ship and cargo, and that tribunal decide whether the capture was legal. Another rule well settled was that a merchant vessel did not become a war vessel from the fact that it was armed for defense, if it was not armed for attack, and that its sailors, who would become pirates if they made an attack and could be hanged as such if captured, should if they simply fought in self defense be treated as prisoners of war.

NEUTRAL citizens therefore had a well established right to travel on belligerent merchant ships subject only to the risk of being

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