fining the act in order to bring it under its proper category. Crime is defined by Webster as the commission of an act forbidden by a public law, an act or omission forbidden by law, and punishable, etc. Within the last half century the English Minister of Justice held that while certain acts complained of were to be condemned, yet the official could not be held to account because "the conduct was not forbidden by law." Our contention is that no court is now nor has been in existence having jurisdiction over the subject matter. That as the acts complained of have been committed, no court can now be organized or created having jurisdiction to try the case. Why, then, discuss heinous crimes when the acts so designated do not fall under recognized law, and are not either at common law or by statute made criminal offenses? The statement of Mr. Erickson that:

"It would follow that a refusal by Holland (or any neutral power in like circumstances) to surrender William Hohenzollern on due demand would justify the demanding nation in declaring war."

is evidence that his wish is father to the thought. He thinks and speaks of crimes when he means acts, which the law knows only as those which have not been defined as criminal.

There can be no comparison either in law or fact between Napoleon the First and William Hohenzollern. In the case of the former, he was first overpowered by ally forces as a prisoner of war; he abdicated on April 4, 1814, at Fontainebleau, France; and was made a prisoner of war or involuntary exile on the Island of Elba. From there he escaped, and soon joined hands with Ney. His defeat of Blucher at Ligny and attack on Wellington at Waterloo were civil and social acts without the pale of civilized warfare, so far as Napoleon himself was individually concerned, and were those which even France did not approve, and the world condemned as piratical. Under international law Napoleon at the battle of Waterloo was an escaped prisoner, an enemy disturber of the peace. He was later captured by a British man-of-war, with arms in his hands, and held as a prisoner of war. He had not succeeded in reaching neutral soil, and if he had it is hardly questionable but what his extradition could have been secured.

That our opinion as expressed, notwithstanding the contrary views of Mr. Duke and of Mr. Erickson, is and was sound in law, has been borne out by eminent Belgian jurists who compose that State's delegation to the Peace Conference; which is that the former Emperor can

not be extradited from Holland, nor can he be arraigned for declaring war or violating the neutrality of Belgium, or for any act preceding or coincident with the declaration of war. This is also the view of the Honorable Robert Lansing, Secretary of State, and, so far as we have been able to learn or discover, of every lawyer who has attained worldwide distinction.

Postmaster General Burleson, by his incompetence, has seemingly wrecked beyond reconstruction the present administration. The public will not stand for the autocratic abuse of power which has been heaped upon it. Probably no Cabinet officer since the inauguration of President Washington has been so generally hated and despised as Burleson. Under Mr. Burleson's mal-administration of postal affairs the department has walked on crutches. His recommendations and appointments have been weak. As a public official he has been more than a blight. He has stunted the process of reconstruction and prosperity. In the South, the post offices as created and operated savor of Tammany Hall methods. Burleson is not wrecking the Nation, because America is too big and too strong to succumb to the attacks of a man of his caliber, but he has been the main spoke in the wheel which has ground democracy to dust. As a man-Citizen Burleson may be all that can be desired, but as a Postmaster General, he is an evil and a failure as well as a menace to the economic welfare of the whole country.

On the inside, Mr. Burleson is hated by most of the postal employes, while on the outside the business interests look on with amazement akin to horror that the President has not called for his resignation, and replaced him with a man who knows the detail of postal service and appreciates and rewards efficiency.

The President is ultimately responsible to the people for the general success or failure of each member of his Cabinet in their conduct of departmental affairs. This is as it should be, even though he can have but little knowledge of the great mass of routine matters and questions of policy dependent on each of his officers.

The Postmaster General deals more largely with political affairs than any of his associates. He makes and unmakes more appointive officers than any other one man. The Post Office Department is more or less of a political hospital which, in the case of Mr. Burleson, is presided over by one who knows little of the duties of the office. Just

whose protege Mr. Burleson is it is not necessary to inquire. He is generally credited to Col. House. It is enough that he is from the interior of Texas to enable him to hang on to his job. He should either resign or be dismissed in the interest of the country. He has made more third-rate first-class postmasters than any of his predecessors. He has promulgated and put into effect measures that would rejoice the heart of a Hohenzollern. Today he is anathema to scores of millions of people from one end of this country to the other. He has first antagonized and then outraged every section of society. He has made himself a public nuisance and a national menace. He stands repudiated by the best element of his party, by the press, by labor, and the business world.

The only excitation to regret is the apparent prospect that Mr. Burleson may be retained as Postmaster General. While the President is "permitting" Burleson to relinquish his grip on the telegraph and telephone lines, he should also "permit" him to set the Postal Department free. Indeed, if Mr. Wilson has any idea that the nation will be placated by a partial recession of Burlesonism as an element in the national administration he is laboring under a grave error. The country wants to see the last of Burleson as a public official; it is determined to mark "finis" after his work; and if the President does not realize this now, if he does not know that his Postmaster General is at this moment a big national issue, he will learn something when he gets the election returns in 1920.

THE CHANGE IN TIME.

The "Daylight Saving" scheme causes quite a little comment. One farmer in Wisconsin complains that the administration assumes power greater than the Almighty by passing a law affecting the rising of the sun. Courts are amused and exasperated by the innovation. We find judges and officials are at loggerheads, clocks being put on an hour, then back again, etc., and the world's spirit of unrest has invaded even the staid and dignified precincts of halls of justice.

It is surprising how people are led away by foolish clamor. We are no better in this respect than our forefathers, many of whom, when the change was made in 1752 from the old style to the new style, and as a necessary consequence eleven days were dropped from the calendar and September 2, 1752, was followed by September 14, set up the cry, "Give us back our eleven days."

What is An Insurable Interest?

By John R. McFee, of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company.

The recent disclosures by Captain Guy Jack of Scooba, Mississippi, in his book The Iconoclast, of frauds committeed against life insurance companies whereby they were called on to pay large sums on their contracts to beneficiaries, in which cases the insured stood in no legal relation to the beneficiary, bids fair to raise interesting legal questions as to what an insurable interest in life insurance contracts are in law.

The cases cited by Captain Jack wherein murder as well as other crimes entered into the securing under false pretenses the writing of policies and the collection of the amounts insured for, present alarming conditions even for Kemper county, Mississippi. Life insurance companies who are now put on their guard and fully advised as to what they have been up against in this section where lawlessness has been supreme, may well look forward to guarding their interest and safeguarding their stockholders in other parts of the country where like conditions may have already transpired or where the same element of fraud may again be attempted.

There is probably one out of every ten life insurance policies written in which the beneficiary named has at law no real insurable interest. By this we mean that if a suit were to be brought against the company insuring after the death of the insured and the real interest of the beneficiary were inquired into it would be found that no recovery could be had.

The general rules of law, and leading cases, going to illustrate the position stated are given below:

Perhaps the most illuminating decision on beneficial interest in life insurance is Grigsby v. Russell, 222 U. S. Supreme Court Reports 149. The facts in this case were that the insured needed a surgical operation to save his life. The appellant, Grigsby, was a surgeon. He paid the insured $100 for his interest in the policy, took an assignment of the policy, paid the premiums to the death of the insured and claimed the face of the policy against the insured's estate. The United States Circuit Court of Appeals denied Grigsby's claim.

The Supreme Court of the United States, however in a learned opinion by Justice Holmes, the distinguished son of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, coming to the Supreme Court of the United States from long service in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, reversed the Circuit Court of Appeals and held Dr. Grigsby entitled to the entire proceeds of the policy.

Since that decision the courts have fairly scampered to follow, it. As usually happens, the company filed a bill of interpleader, paid the face of the policy into court and left the controversy.

Justice Holmes flatly determined that when the policy was assigned it was to be "assumed that the objection to the insurance as a wager was out of the case.” That is, Dr. Grigsby was a purchaser for value and took title to his purchase. As to the "murder motive," Justice Holmes sneers it out of court. He recognizes, of course, that there would be danger in fostering a class of speculators in life insurance policies, and that the public policy danger was to the existence of such a class, and not, by inference, to individual instances of gain from a transaction meritorious at the outset. In Dr. Grigsby's case, the opinion declares, "a danger that might arise from a general license to insure whom they like does not exist."

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The opinion further declares that the assignment was to one whom "the insured, the party most concerned, is not afraid trust." Yet Dr. Grigsby agreed to perform and did perform a surgical operation on the insured as part of the consideration for the assignment, with murder opportunity aplenty. Surely, it is idle to talk of murder motives in view of this case. The old doctrine was that the assignment must be supported by beneficial interest, as well as the original policy contract. It is, therefore, confidently asserted, an assignment of a policy supported by consideration, where the intent is an absolute sale, is effectual to convey title to the entire proceeds of the policy.

In this case the United States Court of Appeals felt obligated to follow the language of Justice Field, rendered thirty years previous in Warnock v. Davis, 104 U. S. Supreme Court Reports 775. The Grigsby case was decided in 1911 and the Warnock case in 1881. But Justice Holmes declares: "It is enough to say, that while the court below might hesitate to decide against the language of Warnock v. Davis, there has been no decision that precludes us from exercising our own judgment upon this much debated point.”