court had sufficient jurisdiction of her person to render a decree binding on her everywhere.

This ground is purely arbitrary and technical, a shadow with no substance, so far as any principle underlying the matter is concerned, and it is also in conflict with admitted principles of divorce law in this country upon the question of domicile. The domicile of the husband is primarily that of the wife. When, because of the husband's fault, the wife cannot live with him, then she can acquire a separate domicile.

Applying these principles, it is clear that in the Atherton case the wife should be in Kentucky, unless through her husband's fault, and in the Haddock case she should be in Coennecticut, unless through her husband's fault. The fault, or absence thereof, on the part of the husband is therefore the real ground upon which these cases in principle turn, and matrimonial domicile has nothing whatever to do with it.

The mind refuses to be convinced when so great a difference results where there is no mutual difference in the facts. When a court attempts to differentiate one case from another, it should not be on a ground absolutely immaterial, wholly without substance in principle, and purely arbitrary and technical. It would seem better to overrule a case which requires such procedure.

In the Haddock case, if the court felt that this was wholly a State matter, and that it would not be good policy to compel States, where divorce laws and their administration are strict, to be controlled by States where such laws and their administration are lax, then the proper thing to do would be to overrule the Atherton case.

The only effect of the decision in the Haddock case is to limit the application of the full faith and credit clause to decrees obtained on substituted service, in a State which is both the domicile of complainant and also that of matrimony.

No change is made in the heretofore existing law on the subject of divorce. It is left where it has always been, except as modified by the Atherton case, and it is probable that this decision will have no effect, as those States which have heretofore recognized foreign divorces on grounds of interstate comity, will continue to do so.

This decision has, however, emphasized the conflict and made it more apparent to the minds of the people, and for that reason, while viewed from a purely legal standpoint we may agree with Justice Brown that it is a step backward, we feel that it will in fact prove an important step forward in the large problem of divorce reform.

We cannot very well hold that election frauds prove the inability of the Cubans to govern themselves.-Dallas News.

PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION.

(Negligence.) Fla. Mugge vs. Tampa Waterworks Company, 42 So., 81, is a carefully considered case, involving a question as to which there is great conflict of authority, the question being as to the liability of a water company to a citizen for loss of property by fire on account of an insufficiency of water, arising frob the negligence of the company. Defendant waterworks company entered into a contract with the City of Tampa, whereby the company enjoyed extensive franchises, such as the right to use the streets with its mains and hydrants, and to have special taxes levied on the property of the citizens, to be paid to the company for its supply of water for public use in the extinguishment of fires. Plaintiff's building having caught on fire and the fire department having promptly responded to the alarm, the water mains on account of defendant's negligence were found without appreciable pressure and failed to yield any appreciable flow of water, whereby the building was destroyed, and plaintiff sued the water company. The first case cited by the court is Nickerson vs. Bridgeport Hydraulic Company, 64 Conn. 24, 33 Am. Rep. 1, the same being the first American case bearing on the question, where it was held that where a water company, organized for the purpose of supplying the inhabitants of a city with water, contracted to supply the city hydrants with water and by the company's negligence the fire department was unable to extinguish a fire, the water company was not liable. The next case cited is Davis vs. Clinton Waterworks Company, 45 Iowa, 59, 6 N. W. 126, 37 Am. Rep. 185, wherein the court in speaking of the contract said: "It is sufficient to state that the parties thereto were the city and the defendant, and that plaintiff in this case in no sense was a party to the contract." The opinion then points out that the court in Davis vs. Waterworks treated the water company as an agent or officer employed by the city, and not as a business enterprise operated for the profit of the water company. As in line with these two cases cited, the court cites a large number of authorities, among them: Wainwright vs. Queens County Waterworks Company, 78 Hun. 146, 28 N. Y. Supp. 987; Nichol vs. Huntington Water Co., 53 W. Va., 348, 44 S. E. 290; Foster vs. Lookout Water Co., 3 Lea (Tenn.) 42; Fowler vs. Athens City Waterworks Co., 83 Ga. 219, 9 S. E. 673, 20 Am. St. Rep. 313; Wilkinson vs. Light, Heat & Water Co., 78 Miss. 389, 28 South 877; House vs. Houston Waterworks Co., 88 Tex. 233, 31 S. W. 179, 28 L. R. A. 532; Ferris vs. Carson Water Co., 16 Nev. 44, 40 Am. Rep. 485; Bush vs. Artesian Hot & Cold Water Co., 4 Idaho, 618, 43 Pac. 69, 95 Am. St. Rep. 161; Ukiah City vs. Ukiah Water & Imp. Co., 142 Cal. 173, 75 Pac. 773, 64 L. R. A. 231, 100 Am. St. Rep. 107; Fitch vs. Seymour Water Co., 139 Ind. 214, 37 N. E. 982, 47 Am. St. Rep. 258; Britton vs. Green Bay & Ft. H. Waterworks Co., 81 Wis. 48, 51 N. W. 84, 29 Am. St. Rep. 856; Howsmon vs. Trenton Water Co., 119 Mo. 304, 24 S. W. 784, 23 L. R. A. 146, 41 Am. St. Rep. 654. The opinion then states that

the terms and conditions of the various contracts involved in the cases are not always alike, but that "the doctrine of a want of privity of contract between a property owner and the water company runs through them all."

Paducah Lumber Co. vs. Paducah Water Supply Co., 89 Ky. 340, 12 S. W. 554, 13 S. W. 249, 7 L. R. A. 77, 25 Am. St. Rep. 536; Duncan vs. Owensboro Water Co., 15 S. W. 523, 12 Ky. Law Rep. 824; Graves County Water Co., vs. Ligon, 112 Ky. 775, 66 S. W. 725, are cited as repudiating the doctrine that a water company is not liabe under such circumstances, and after reviewing further authorities, the opinion states: "It is impossible to reconcile the conflicting views of the courts and law writers upon the question at bar . . . We are of opinion that the defendant enjoying, as it does, extensive franchises and privileges under its contract, such as the exclusive right to furnish water to the city. . . . the right to have special taxes levied on the property of the citizen for its benefit. . . . has assumed the public duty of furnishing water for extinguishing fires, according to the terms of its contract, and that for negligence in the discharge of this duty... it is liable for the damages suffered in an action of tort." The decision appears to be bounded upon Gorrell vs. Greensboro Water Supply Co., 124 N. C. 328, 32 S. E. 720, 46 L. R. A. 513, 70 Am. S. Rep. 598, and Fisher vs. Greensboro Water Supply Co. (C. C.) 115 Fed. 184, and Guardian Trust Co. vs. Fisher, 200 U. S. 57, 26 Sup. Ct. 186.

This decision is undoubtedly contrary to the almost overwhelming weight of authority, but undoubtedly too reaches a most desirable result. The cases on this subject are fully considered in this decision, and the court did not for a moment lose sight of the fact that its determination is contrary to the decisions in nearly every jurisdiction that has considered a similar state of facts. It is supported only by the few cases cited by it from Kentucky and North Carolina, and by the one U. S. Supreme Court case (Guardian Trust Co., vs. Fisher, 200 U. S. 57), but it is to be noted in the last named authority three of the judges dissented.

The decisions generally hold that the individual citizen whose property is destroyed by fire through the water company's neglect to fulfill its contract obligations with the municipality and maintain an adequate pressure in the fire hydrants, cannot sue the water company on contract because he was not a party or privy to the contract. Harvard Law Review, Vol. 15, page 784; Wainwright vs. Queens County Water Co. 78 Hun. (N. Y.) 146; 28 N. Y. S. 987. Nor can he sue in tort because an action in tort cannot be predicated upon a mere failure to perform a contract with a third party. Fowler vs. Waterworks Co., (1889) 83 Georgia 219; 9 S. E. 673. And it has also been held that furnishing of water for fire protection is a govermental duty or power, resting with the municipality and that the water company in undertaking that work acts merely as agent of the municipality and so cannot

be sued for inadequate performance any more than the municipality itself could be. Nico vs. Water Co. (1903) 53 West Va. 348; 44 S. E. 290. Nor can the city itself sue the water company for the damage thus coming to the property of the individual citizen because its interest in the property is too remote. Ferris vs. Carson Water Co., 16 Nevada 45. Thus under the prevailing view, a water company may contract to furnish water for fire protection, may lay mains through the public streets, have a complete monopoly upon that most profitable privilege, and yet it can nevertheless wholly neglect to furnish water in any adequate amounts or at any adequate pressure for purposes of fire protection, and yet there is no person on earth that can compel it by legal action to pay for the damage which resulted from its neglect. It is entirely unsatisfactory to call this a mere non-feasance or a mere failure to perform a contract, for it is not the case where the water company never began supplying water under its contract, but it is rather the case of undertaking a work and then carrying it out in a negligent manner. As the court well said in Olmsted vs. Morris Aqueduct Co., 46 N. J. L. 459, "It is well known that when a company undertakes to supply a town with water the ordinary methods to obtain water to extinguish fires are abandoned by the people, and under the circumstances it would be gross negligence in the company to permit the supply of water to be intermitted or diminished to any proper extent, tnd thus endanger the property within the town." That is the real situation in these cases. And if it can be shown as a fact that the fire could have been surely extinguished with a stream of the usual volume and pressure for fire purposes, then the water company that agreed to furnish it and has actually begun the work of doing so should pay the damages resulting from the negligent manner in which it maintained that supply and allowed the quantity or pressure to be reduced below the proper standard. (See note by Judge Freeman to Britton v Green Bay, etc., W. W. Co., 29 Am. St. Rep. 863, suggesting the need of legislation in view of the decisions of the great majority of courts in these cases.)

Twenty-three cases arising in twenty jurisdictions and involving the same point as the principle cases, have resolved the problem of liability in favor of the defendant. (Liability of water companies for fire losses, "Michigan Law Review," May 1905.) In only one was the decision in any way confined to the question of liability in contract. (Howsmon v. Trenton Water Co., 119 Mo. 304. 24 S. W. 784.) In all the others any action, whether in tort or in contract, was denied. In all but two the pleading was under a code, and it made no difference what the form of the action was, whether contract or tort, and in all of them the plaintiff failed because he had no cause of action upon any theory. In some cases the court considered both the theory of contract and of tort.

Local Mistakes About Sovereignty.

Lynching.-Robt. W. Shand, Esq., president of the South Carolina Bar Association, in his annual address for 1906, gave an excellent example of what is longed for as education of the community by sound, interesting and attractive public methods. He said. "Inaccurate expression leads to erroneous ideas. Our sovereignty being in all the people it is commonly said that the people are sovereign, whereby insensibly the notion has been imbibed that any aggregation of people possesses sovereignty-a county, a city, a neighborhood, and sometimes even a jury. And, therefore, as a sovereign is superior to his agents, so an aggregation of the people of a section is regarded as superior to executive and judicial departments, which are mere agencies. It is thereby overlocked that no subdivision of a Ssate has one atom of power beyond what is delegated to it by the State; that is to say by the people as whole. The expressions, "local option" and "local selfgovernment" only indicate delegated powers under sovereign control, because revocable by the sovereign will; but by no means it is local sovereignty. Many evils, including the lynching practice have befallen us by reason of this conception, and many more will follow unless it be removed."

Every act committed in violation of positive law is the assertion by the individual, or group of individuals, of a right to ignore the principle that only the sovereign can permit such an infraction. The difference in degree may be great, from the carrying of a pocket pistol as a matter of habit, to the killing of a man or the burning of a woman -from that which is illegal only because prohibited by Statute, to that which must necessarily brutalize both participants and onlookers. But grant the right of a man or a crowd of men to violate one law, and you thereby concede the right to others to violate some other law; grant the right of one group of men to summarily punish for one crime, and you thereby concede the right to another group to declare another act a crime and punish for it. For if the law is not to be followed, pray who else or what other authority is to draw the line, and where? Indeed, there is but one true answer to all of this; and that is that no man, and no group or neighorhood of men, can innocently take upon themselves the right to ignore any law, to make any law, or, without legal authority, to enforce any law, without endangering our republican institutions and very civilization. For it must be apparent that it is the duty of the State as a republican government to protect every one of its inhabitants, even the most criminal; that the manifectation of an inability on the part of the State to do so is sure to encourage repetitions with increase, and to provoke interference by a stronger government, to wit: the United States of America, and thereby increase the centralization of power at Washington.