the Germans or the Irish. The court continue: "They have the power, by the act of April 25, 1863, 'to prohibit, and suppress, or exclude from certain limits, or to regulate, all occupations, houses, places, pastimes, amusements, exhibitions, and practices, which are against good morals, contrary to public order and decency, or dangerous to the public safety.' But the business of a laundry- that is the washing of clothing and cloths of various kinds, and ironing or pressing them to a condition to be used—is not of itself against good morals, or contrary to public order or decency. It is not offensive to the senses, or disturbing to the neighborhood where conducted, nor is it dangerous to the public safety or health. It would be absurd to affirm that it is. If it be conducted in a manner that is offensive or dangerous, the supervisors may direct the manner to be changed, and prescribe regulations for its prosecution. If the building, in which it is carried on, is by its structure, form or material unsafe, the supervisors may by proper proceedings have it altered or removed. This power the supervisors possess with reference to all avocations and the buildings in which they are prosecuted. All business must be so conducted as not to endanger the public safety and health. Here we are concerned only with the business of a laundry by itself; the manner, or the buildings in which it is conducted are not before us. The ordinance applies as well to a laundry in a fire-proof building, as to one in a wooden shanty. In the business of a laundry by itself, there is nothing objectionable that may not be urged against all occupations in the city and county. If therefore the supervisors can make its prosecution depend upon the approval of others in its neighborhood, they may require a similar approval for the prosecution of other business equally inoffensive. They may require members of the bar to close their offices against professional business unless they can secure the recommendation in their behalf of such parties in the block where the offices are, as may be designated. So, too, with bankers, merchants, traders, mechanics, journalists, publishers, printers—indeed, with all brainworkers and handworkers-the pursuit of their avocations in particular localities may be made to depend not upon their wishes, their means, the position of their property, the facilities afforded for their business, but upon the favor or caprice of others, whose actions they cannot control by any legal proceedings. A party might not even be able to obtain a license to carry on business on his own land, provided he should possess an entire block, and it should not be occupied by others who could give the recommendation exacted. Such a restriction upon the freedom of pursuit of a lawful occupation is not authorized by any power vested in the board of supervisors; and it may be doubted whether it could be authorized by any legislative body under our form of government." A Chinese laundry in a basement may be so conducted as to become a nuisance to a rootbeer man in the next story. Warwick v. Ah See, 10

Phila. 160. This was where the heat from China caused the beer man's fountain to burst.

SO.

In connection with our article on Duty of Railroad Company to Trespassers on its Track, 25 Alb. Law Jour. 304, should be read Mason v. Missouri Pacific Ry. Co., 27 Kans. 83. The plaintiff's wife was injured by a car of the defendant while she was essaying to walk over a trestlework or bridge crossing a creek in a city. The bridge was built exclusively for the railroad, and had no railings nor foot-planks, and was thirty feet above the water; and although at the point in question the track ran through lands platted for a public street, yet the street had not been graded nor improved, and the track was considerably elevated above the surface of the adjoining land. The court held that the exclusion of evidence to show a custom of foot passengers to cross the bridge was not error, observing: It cannot be well said that such trestle work and bridge, as constructed, were either in law or in fact a public street. As there was no attempt to show that either the injured party or any other person was invited by the company to cross or travel upon the structure over the creek, or that the injured party was upon the structure with the consent of the company, the fact that other parties had crossed upon it did not make it less dangerous or less negligent for the wife of the plaintiff to attempt to do This is not a case where the legal right of the railway company and that of the public to use such trestlework are about equal. The embankment and trestlework are so much elevated above the street, and are so erected for the purpose of operating thereon cars and engines only, as to apparently forbid foot passengers crossing the creek at this place; therefore we do not think that the railway company was bound to operate its cars with reference to footmen undertaking the peril of attempting to step from tie to tie in crossing the long span over the stream, especially in view of the frequent running of the cars on the track of such trestlework. Counsel for plaintiff contends that as the bridge lay wholly within two of the streets of the city of Wyandotte, called Front street and Wa-Was street, which cross each other at the point where the bridge crosses the creek, and as a street belongs to the public from the center of the earth to the heavens above, persons had the right to climb up the embankment, and to use the trestle work as a public street of the city. Not so. The embankment and trestlework were the property of the railway company. They were used for the purposes of the company in operating its cars and trains, and so built and constructed as to render any travel thereon perilous, even without the operation of cars upon the track. * The railway company was in full occupation of it, and the public had no right to cross over such a dangerous structure, and knowing it to be unsafe for travel, to claim exemption from all negligence on their part, and charge the railway company with the fruits of their own im

* *

prudence." On the point of trespass the court said: "Whenever a party infringes upon the rights of others, this negligence, or this wrong-doing, as the case may be, absolves others from using ordinary care and diligence toward such party. In brief, they are under no legal or moral obligation to be cautious and circumspect toward one who infringes upon their rights. U. P. Ry. Co. v. Rollins, 5 Kans. 167. A railway company has the exclusive right to occupy, use and enjoy its railway tracks, bridges and trestle work, and such exclusive right is absolutely necessary to enable such a company to properly perform its duties, and any person going upon, or using or occupying the track or bridge of a railway company without the consent of the company, is held in law to be there wrongfully, and therefore to be a trespasser. * * * Therefore the instruction that the railway company was liable only for such negligence so gross as to amount to wantonness, was a correct declaration of the law to the jury."

In Kneedler v. Borough of Norristown, Pennsylvania Supreme Court, April, 1882, it was held that an ordinance of the defendant, prohibiting the erection of wooden buildings within certain limits, is oppressive and unreasonable. The court observed: "The case stated does not inform us as to the extent of the population of the borough of Norristown, nor does it mention any special circumstances as affecting the question of expediency, convenience, advantage, or necessity in the enactment of the ordinance under consideration. We do not know whether the houses are erected compactly or separately, nor whether building materials of wood, or of brick, or stone, are most accessible to the inhabitants. In these circumstances we must decide the question upon general principles only applicable to all the boroughs of the Commonwealth. It is well known that in many parts of the State there are towns and boroughs in which nearly all classes of buildings are constructed of wood. The chief cause of this is, of course, the greater abundance and consequent greater cheapness of that material in those localities. Brick and stone are more expensive, and hence less accessible to persons of moderate circumstances than lumber, even where all are to be had in the same market. It must be conceded that in all boroughs, where this condition of things prevails, an ordinance which prohibits the erection of wooden buildings would not only be unreasonable but grossly oppressive and unjust. We believe this would be true in a large majority of the boroughs throughout the entire Commonwealth. In some such an ordinance would doubtless put a stop at once to the erection of any buildings, and if the forfeiture clause were valid, it would result, if enforced, in the destruction of the houses of thousands of our citizens. It is almost needless to say that such an ordinance could not be enforced in many parts of the State without scenes of violence and bloodshed. There are many counties in the interior of the State in which lumber is

* *

the only building material that can be had, except at a ruinous cost, and it could not be tolerated that the people of the boroughs in such localities should be absolutely prohibited by the vote of a transient majority of their councils from using such material in the construction of their dwellings, their shops, stores, factories, and outbuildings. It would be a grievance too intolerable to be borne. * It must of course be conceded that an ordinance prohibiting the erection of wooden buildings might be entirely reasonable and not oppressive in a large and densely populated city, where the danger to life and property from fire is greatly enhanced by the presence of such structures. But this consideration is inapplicable in small towns, and therefore in them the rule would be different." See Mayor and Council of Monroe v. Hoffman, 29 La. Ann. 651; 21 Alb. Law Jour. 225; King v. Davenport, 98 Ill. 305; S. C., 38 Am. Rep. 89.

NEGLIGENTLY SIGNING NEGOTIABLE NOTE.

N Mackey v.

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Peterson, Minnesota Supreme Court, July 17, 1882, 13 N. W. Rep. 132, the defendant signed a negotiable promissory note, supposing it to be a receipt for a plow. The payee's agent, a stranger, who presented it to him, told him it was a receipt, and at his request assumed to read it to him, and read it as such receipt merely. There was no one else within half a mile who could read English. Relying on the representation and reading he signed and delivered the paper. Held, that he was liable

to a bona fide transferee. The court said: "Where a party, through neglect of precautions within his power, affixes his name to that kind of paper without knowing its character, the consequent loss ought not to be shifted from him to a bona fide purchaser of the paper. Tested by this rule, the facts which defendant offered to prove would have been no defense. He signed the paper voluntarily. He was under no controlling necessity to sign without taking such time as might be needed to inform himself of its character. If he could not read it him

self, there was no reason, except perhaps his own convenience or haste, why he should not postpone signing until he could have it read by some person upon whom he had a right to rely. Instead of doing that, he chose to rely upon an entire stranger, and that stranger the party opposed to him in interest, and the only person under any temptation to deceive him as to the character of the paper he was asked to sign. One who without any necessity so misplaces his confidence ought not to be heard to claim that the paper he is in consequence misled to sign should be taken out of the rule protecting commercial paper."

This holding is pretty strong, and in the light of some cases seems to infringe on the domain of the jury in pronouncing what amounts to negligence.

The question, what amounts to negligence in such cases, has not been considered in many reported

could be allowed to set up the fraud as against the plaintiff, even by showing that he was free from negligence. It should be borne in mind that this case differs from a case where a person is induced by fraud to sign a negotiable note when he supposed he was executing an instrument of a different character. The defendant in this case intended to execute a negotiable note. In Whiting v. Snyder, 2 Lans. 477, the court say that where a person intends to execute a negotiable note, 'he is bound to know that he is furnishing the means whereby third parties may be deceived, and innocently led to part with their property upon the strength of his signature, in ignorance of the true state of facts.' A sharp distinction is made between such a case and one where the maker supposed that he was executing an instrument not a note. A different doctrine seems to have been held in Griffiths v. Kellogg, 39 Wis. 290; S. C., 20 Am. Rep. 48. The defendant relies upon this case. Whether a person who intends to execute a negotiable note is absolutely precluded from setting up fraud as a defense to it, against an innocent indorsee for value before maturity, we do not feel called upon to determine. It appears to us certain that he should be precluded from setting up fraud in such a case unless he could show himself free from negligence. In this case it was not only not so found, but the evidence is not set out. The answer shows that the payee, who drew the note, and upon whose reading alone the defendant relied for knowledge of its contents, was a lightning rod man. If he was an entire stranger, as may have appeared from the evidence, the jury might have believed that the defendant did not exercise proper care.'

In Ruddell v. Phalor, 72 Ind. 533; S. C., 37 Am. Rep. 177, the defendants jointly answered that their signatures were procured by the payee's fraud and representation that the note was a different contract, and that one of the makers could not read English, and that the note was incorrectly and fraudulently read to him by the payee. Held, insufficient. The court said: "It may fairly be inferred from the silence of the paragraph on the subject that the other two makers of the note had been educated in English, and could readily read the English language. It seems to us the appellees were grossly negligent in confiding in 'the blandishments, flattery and persuasion of said Drake and Golden,' 'who were entirely unknown' to the appellees," etc. "The note in suit was obtained from them by and through their gross carelessness and undue confidence in strangers.' "They should be required to answer and bear the loss occasioned or materially contributed to by their own folly and negligence.” In Ruddell v. Dillman, 73 Ind. 518; S. C., 38 Am. Rep. 152, it was held that where one signs a negotiable note, relying on the fraudulent representations of the payee that it is something different, and

* In Rowland v. Fowler, 47 Conn. 347, it was held that who signs a note, knowing it to be a note, although he misunderstood its effect or was induced by fraudulent representations to execute it, is liable to a bona fide purchaser, irrespective of the question of negligence.

makes no effort to ascertain its tenor, whether he can read or not, he is liable thereon to a bona fide holder for value.

It would be impossible to reconcile these decisions and formulate a rule which will answer them all. While we would not venture to say that the principal case is not well decided, it is evident that it goes further-half a mile further than any of the others in its requirement of vigilance. Some of the cases have not gone far enough, as for example, Griffiths v. Kellogg and Martin v. Smylee, supra. Both of these cases were too plainly cases of gross negligence to be left to the jury. If any such case should be left to the jury, it will seem to a great many that the principal case should have been. But the rule it establishes is a safe one, namely, that the signer is bound to know what he is signing.

JAMES LOUIS PETTIGRU.

(Extracts from the Annual Address before the American Bar Association, at Saratoga, Aug. 9th, 1882, by Alexander R. Lawton, of Georgia.)

[After briefly referring to Chief Justice Gibson, Chief Justice Parsons and Jeremiah Mason, and sketching the education and early life of Pettigru (born in 1789), the speaker proceeded:]

Mr. Pettigru's entrance upon the practice of his profession fully realized all the hopes and expectations of his friends. With no pyrotechnic display, nor sensation created by the announcement of a "maiden speech," with courage and earnestness he performed every professional duty, heart and soul enlisted in every case, whether small or great, unaffected by the eclat attached to the case, or by the quality of the client; nor did he stop to inquire whether the immediate profit to result to himself was apparent or not. Thus he moved forward with a steady and rapid pace. Ground once gained was never lost. His title had been acquired by force of intellect, energy and truthfulness. From his first entrance upon life he exhibited that genial temper and rare benevolence which were afterward known to all men; and he did not merely practice that commonplace integrity, which it is no honor to have, but simply a disgrace to want. He was not only incorruptible, but scrupulously, impulsively, delicately free from all willful wrong, in thought, word and deed.

And yet his was an excitable nature and he had a fiery temper. There was nothing negative

about the man.

His birth and early training had not specially fitted him for the social life of the planters on the coast of Carolina, where society was accused of being aristocratic and exclusive in its tendencies. But young Pettigru was not slow to win his title of nobility, and while yet a poor schoolmaster, struggling to acquire his profession, and without the smallest fawning or loss of self-respect, he was not merely admitted and tolerated, but sought after and admired. And to the end of his days he was the ornament, the delight, the cherished favorite of the most cultivated and refined, the proudest and most reserved society of that State.

His residence and his practice at Coosawatchie, the court-house town of Beaufort district, continued for about ten years, when he removed to Charleston to enter upon larger scenes and more befitting duties. But how he clung to the scenes and the friends of his early struggles and distresses! and what an idol he was with those who had foudly witnessed his rise first to the leadership of the local bar of several contiguous districts, and then to the acknowledged leadership of

the bar of the State! And in after years, when the trial of some great cause would bring him to revisit the scenes of earlier labors, it was simply beautiful to witness the unaffected tribute paid him by the most lowly and the most lordly as well, as they listened to his quaint and genial references to early friends and amusing incidents, or were convulsed by his happy contagious laugh. True and loyal child of nature! improved, but never spoiled by culture, and ever "free from all modishness, sophistication and art!

It was but a very short time after Mr. Pettigru transferred his practice to Charleston, that the way was opened to him by the election of Robert G. Hayne to the United States Senate, to succeed that distinguished lawyer in the office of attorney-general of the State. It was then an office of profit, influence and dignity, and made him the legal adviser of the State authorities and the official head of the entire bar. His presence was required at the capitol with the State solicitors during the sessions of the Legislature; and every bill introduced had to be scrutinized by these officials, as to the sufficiency of its form and style, before it became a law, very much after the plan now adopted in the British Parliament to secure perfection in the wording of its enactments. The consequence was that the statutes of South Carolina for a series of years could challenge comparison with those of any other State in language and structure, and presented none of those ludicrous aspects so happily characterized in a recent address by the distinguished President of the Social Science Association. It is no mean evidence of the great importance attached to this office of attorney-general that Pettigru succeeded such a man as Hayne, and was in turn succeeded by Legaré. Of the latter more anon. But I cannot dismiss the former without adding that he was not only a very great lawyer who had achieved the most complete success at a very early age, but was also one of the most logical reasoners, graceful speakers and vigorous writers. A little illustrative anecdote of which the present speaker happened to be personally cognizant may be pardoned.

When the eminent English geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, was travelling through this country, and naturally"reading up" on American topics, he read closely Mr. Webster's great speech on Foote's Resolution in reply to Hayne. His admiration was without bounds; "but," said he, "where is Hayne's speech to which this was a reply? It must have been a very powerful effort to have so put Mr. Webster on his mettle; to have taxed to the full all the resources of his great antagonist, and drawn from him utterances so grand and so noble that they were never excelled, if ever equalled by him in his subsequent efforts." The speech of Hayne | was found and handed to Sir Charles; who rose from the perusal of it with the remark, "It is indeed all and more than I had predicted, and second only to Webster's immortal reply."

Because he

At this point it is well to ask the question, why and how was it that Mr. Pettigru achieved such success? How did he so completely and so thoroughly overcome the disadvantages which beset his childhood and early youth, and reach at a bound a position which might have gratified the ambition of any man? was first a man of genius, and of the strongest common sense. Then his preparation was thorough and broad; he made himself a scholar-a scholar of the oldfashioned style-a classical scholar, well read in all history and poetry, before he became a lawyer. And yet his necessities forced him to become a lawyer at the earliest practical moment, for the "bread-getting ' side of the question claimed his earliest attention. But he must make bread as a lawyer, and not as a charlatan, even though starvation should stare him in the face.

He had all the tastes and inclinations that would have made him a man of letters, but he had singleness of purpose and resolution enough not to tread the "primrose paths," aud only surrendered himself to his classical recreations when at the midnight hour he had already satisfied the demands of that jealous mistress, the law.

As a lawyer he read and studied the foundations of the science. As an advocate he thought and reasoned, and only cited cases for the principles which he eliminated from them. In that class of cases which involved the highest principles of jurisprudence, and perplexed the unlearned counsel and judges, his attainments were especially manifested, and the subtlety and comprehensiveness of his mind suffered nothing to escape him. His reading was great among authorities where ordinary lawyers are less accustomed to look. Such reading however became so thoroughly interwoven and made part and parcel of his own thoughts and knowledge, that the reasoning flowed from himself in an irresistible stream, while he rarely stopped to read the authorities which had given him the power to make the argument. Yet he recognized the fact that laws must be general in their terms; and that human language in the most skillfully prepared enactments and judicial opinions needs to be interpreted. That when this system of interpreting has run through the centuries and over two continents, in seeking for truth there are many similitudes from which the advocate must select; and thus only can we convince ourselves, and then the judges, which is the truth and which only its image.

And it is this imperfection of human language and the necessity of dealing with these different similitudes to arrive at the very truth, which causes laymen so often to misapprehend the attitude and office of the advocate in presenting his cause.

No more vulgar error exists than that which attributes to some of the very noblest and highest of our profession perfect rectitude in their personal relations outside of the court-house, and the absence of almost every virtue, especially that of truthfulness, in the conduct of cases in court. I am entirely unwilling to separate the mau from the lawyer. We must be proud of both, or the eulogy is incomplete! He also knew that there are causes where the decisions have been so numerous, and the distinction so nicely or so clumsily drawn, that we must look to the weight of authority rather than to any other element of value in it, to secure results. The great case of Cruger v. Daniel, prominent in the reports of South Carolina cases, was one of this class; and involved some of the most intricate and perplexing problems in the law of real property. It became there necessary to multiply and compare and arrange the authorities, and Mr. Pettigru's industry was quite equal to the emergency. One of his brethren relates that he literally "took a cart-load of books to the court-house." This peculiar indisposition on his part to be controlled by authorities generally, and his want of reverence for them, especially for the more recent, so grew upon him in his late years and declining health that it gave rise to some amusing scenes and incidents-for he had actually ceased almost entirely to read the current decisions of the highest court of his own State. It is related of him that on one occasion, when he had opened an argument based upon general principles entirely, with much earnestness and zeal, and seemed to ignore altogether a decision then recently made to the contrary of the views he pressed upon the court, the chief justice thus interrupted him: "Mr. Pettigru, of course you know that this court has virtually decided the question you now raise, in the last volume of our reports?" "Do I understand your Honors to say that this question has been decided in this court?" "Certainly, Mr. Pettigru, in