rel. Wm. Kremmler, appellant, v. Charles F. Durston, agent, etc., respondent.- -Judgment affirmed with costs-James J. Phelan, appellant, v. Margaret Brady, impleaded, respondent.- -Judgment affirmed with costs-Mary J. Wildrick, as administratrix, appellant, v. Dewitt C. Hager and others, respondents.-Judg. ment affirmed with costs-Charles T. King, appellant, v. John H. Walbridge and others, respondents.Judgment affirmed with costs-Benjamin Fanning, respondent, v. John W. Vrooman and others, appellants, Judgment affirmed with costs-Alfred Bunhaner, re short, that demonstrates a gross want of that regard and respect which, when once courts of justice are deprived of their authority (so necessary for the good order of the kingdom), is entirely lost among the people." 4 Bl. Comm. 285. We quote this paragraph from Blackstone only for the purpose of showing the extent to which the summary punishment for contempt may be extended without infringing upon the constitutional guaranties of freedom of speech and of the press as defined by Judge Cooley; but it must not for this reason be understood that we claim the power of the courts to punish as for contempts is now as indefi-spondent, v. Amelia A. Gleason, appellant.—Judgnitely broad as stated by Blackstone. However, upon principle and authority, we must hold that at common law superior courts of record have the inherent power summarily to convict and punish as for a contempt of court those responsible for articles published in reference to a cause pending, when such articles are calculated to interfere with the due administration of justice; and that neither the statute of this State nor the constitutional provisions quoted present any barrier to the exercise of such powers by the district courts of the State, but that such power is inherent in those courts. Col. Sup. Ct., Nov. 1, 1889. Cooper v. People. Opinion by Hayt, J. NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS-BLANK PAYEE-BONA FIDE HOLDER.-Where the complaint alleged the defendant made, executed and delivered his promissory note to the Portland Savings Bank, a note payable to cannot be received in evidence under such allegation. One of the essential requisites of a promissory note is certainty as to the payee. If no payee be named, then it is a defective and incomplete writing, until some bona fide holder shall make it complete by the insertion of his own name as payee. There is no doubt that a promissory note may be issued with a blank for the payee's name, which may be filled by any bona fide COURT OF APPEALS DECISIONS. Opin ment affirmed with costs-Henry Rodman, respondent, v. Joseph L. Haberston, appellant.Appeal dismissed with costs-Henry Beadleston, who sues as well, etc., respondent, v. John Balley and another, appellants. -Order affirmed with costs-Eliza Glenn v. Louise C. Burrows and others.Appeal dismissed with costs-Stephen L. Bartlett, appellant, v. Edward Sutrino, respondent.-Order affirmed with costs-In re application of the Mayor of New York by Alfred L. Simonson and others; will of Wood.-Appeal dismissed with costs-In re will of Rosalie Florance, deceased. Judgment reversed, new trial granted, with costs to abide event-George Routledge and others, respondents, v. Worthington & Co., appellants.—Order affirmed with costs-James E. Holcomb, appellant, v. George Rice and others, respondents.-Judgment affirmed with costs-John J. Finney, respondent, v. Peter W. Gallandet and others, appellants.-Motion to amend remittitur denied with costs-In re Mary J. Clark ex rel.-Motion denied with $10 costs-Fourth National Bank v. Henry S. Burger and others; Bank of America v. Same; Importers and Traders' National Bank v. Same.-Motion to remit to court below denied with costs-John Peterson v. John Swan. -Motion for reargument denied with costs-George W. Lawton and another, appellant, v. Wm. N. Steele, respondent. Ordered: That this court take a recess until Monday, the 14th day of April, at 10 o'clock, then to proceed with the call of the present calendar. SECOND DIVISION. Judgment reversed, new trial granted, costs to abide event-Wm. A. Parke and another, appellants, V. Franco-American Trading Company, respondents.Judgment reversed, new trial granted, costs to abide event-John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, respondent, v. Julius Lowenberg, appellant.Judgment reversed, new trial granted, costs to abide event-Ernst G. W. Woerz, respondent, v. Richard Radermacher, appellant.-Judgment affirmed with costs-Robert L. Harrison, as trustee, respondent, v. Edward W. Vanderbilt and another, appellants.Judgment affirmed with costs—Atlanta Hill Gold Mining Company, respondent, v. Constant A. Andrews, appellant.-Judgment affirmed with costs-Henry Holthanson, respondent, v. John Pondir, appellant. -Judgment affirmed with costs-Thomas Halpin, respondent, v. Insurance Company of North America, of Philadelphia, appellant.-Judgment reversed, new trial granted, with costs to abide event-Thomas Halpin, respondent, v. Etna Fire Insurance Com pany of Hartford, appellant.—Judgment affirmed with costs-Hudson G. Bottom and another, respondent, v. John Scott, appellant. Judgment affirmed with costs-Francis T. Walton, appellant, v. Wm. H. Meeks and another, administrators, respondents.— HE following decisions were handed down Fri- Judgment affirmed with costs-John Linson, appellant, day, March 21, 1890: THE FIRST DIVISION. Judgment affirmed - People, respondent, v. Wm. Kremmler, appellant.--Order affirmed-People, ex v. Bank of Commerce in Buffalo, impleaded, etc., respondent. Ordered that this court take a recess until Monday, April 14th, at 10 o'clock at Albany, then to proceed with the call of the present calendar. A The Albany Law Journal. ALBANY, APRIL 5, 1890. CURRENT TOPICS. LTHOUGH every respectable editor feels it due to his sense of fairness to open his columns to a reasonable extent to the opinions of those opposed to his own views, yet doubtless he finds it, as we have frequently done, a very discouraging leniency. Mr. Macklin, to whom we gave an opportunity to announce his views about limiting appeals to the Court of Appeals, and whom we endeavored to answer, now sends us a second communication, reiterating his views, the publication of which he thinks would be "beneficial." In this we do not agree with him. But we more seriously disagree with him when he accuses us of "libelling the Court of Appeals." Mr. Macklin is too fierce. If he were a reader of the ALBANY LAW JOURNAL he would know that we never libel anybody, especially the judges, and least of all the present Court of Appeals, whom we have found grateful occasion more than once to defend against the assaults of newspapers, lawyers and other judges. Very few probably have so misconstrued the remarks in question. The point of our argument was that it would be unwise to limit appeals to the Court of Appeals, by a pecuniary standard, because it would tend to raise a popular impression that the court is "a rich man's court." To enforce the danger of popular misconstruction we cited the opinion of an ex-senator of this State that there is danger of the court's falling under the control of Tammany, and of seats being purchased on its bench as they have been in courts in the city of New York. There is in this clearly no imputation against the present judges of the Court of Appeals, for their seats are secure, and there has never been a breath against their integrity. It was evidently aimed at a future state of affairs, when seats might possibly be purchased. So when Mr. Macklin accuses us of "libelling the Court of Appeals he must have meant some court or some judges in the future. To begin, we intimated that we thought our correspondent "too pessimistic." It would seem moreover rather difficult to libel a court which has no existence. But if Mr. Macklin means that it is libellous to say that the predicted state of affairs is possible in regard to a future court, we do not agree with him. It would hardly be libellous or improper to express a fear that some future pope might be guilty of simony. Existing judges and courts are not sacred images, set up for worship, nor are they so nearly immaculate as to be above blame, nor are they generally half so fidgety about their honor as are some lawyers on their behalf, having causes pending before them, and seeming to think it necessary to assure the public that the courts are trustworthy. But certainly, when it comes to speaking of courts and judges of the fuVOL. 41- No. 14. And now this seems a remarkably good place to incur Mr. Macklin's frown again, and presume to say a few words about a pit into which Governor Hill has apparently been trying to entice the court, i. e., into volunteering their opinions now upon the constitutionality of the Saxton ballot bill. Nothing more ridiculous was ever proposed, and the idea that the court would fall in with it, even if the Legislature should so far relinquish their dignity as to approve it, seems to us too incredible for a moment's consideration. Even in Massachusetts, where the judges are required by the Constitution to give opinions when required by the governor or Legislature, the judges have shown a disposition very recently to refrain from answering. See 40 Alb. L. J. 158. But where they cannot be required to answer, very few will be found to believe that they will consent, much less volunteer, to answer. Now (pace, Mr. Macklin) there are those who intimate that the governor would not have made such an extraordinary proposition if he had not been well assured that the judges would consent, and some even go so far as to believe (pardon, Mr. Macklin!) that he knew what their answer would be! We hasten to write ourselves down as utterly discrediting both of these insane rumors, and we hope Mr. Macklin, as the self-constituted protector of the court, will take judicial notice of our assertion. We choose rather to believe that the governor knew perfectly well that the judges would not entertain such a proposition, and put it forward simply to earn a cheap credit for fairness, which we sadly fear he does not possess. It would be quite in order for Mr. Macklin to address a warning to the governor to cease from "libelling" the court, for to us the idea that the judges would extrajudicially mix themselves up with a political scheme, which is none of their business, seems much "libellous" than our ex-senator's fling, for it imputes to them the supremest height of folly in seeking an opportunity to lay themselves open to the inevitable charge of party favoritism, no matter which way their answer went. Our judges are much too sensible men to be made cat's-paws. If the question comes before them judicially they will decide it judicially and conclusively, all men will bow to it, and no man will attribute political bias. The judges are solid in the affectionate respect of the public, and they are not going unnecessarily to hazard this standing. more The seventh volume of the Bankside Shakespeare sets forth "The Lamentable Tragedie of Titus An dronicus" in the Players' text of 1600, and the text of the folio of 1623. The introduction, by Mr. Appleton Morgan, gives a remarkably learned and interesting account of the stage mechanism and "property" resources of Shakespeare's day, "which alone is worth the price of admission" - to drop into appropriate theatrical phraseology. But even Mr. Appleton Morgan, although lawyer as well as dramatic editor, cannot convince us that Shakespeare wrote this grotesque and horrid hotch-potch and devil's broth of murder, rape, mutilation, madness and general nameless and unspeakable hellishness. There is undoubtedly (or rather probably) something of Shakespeare in it. But we find ourselves unable to disagree with the general opinion of the scholars and commentators that as a whole it is not Shakespeare's. Mr. Morgan's theory is that it was the dramatist's first attempt, and that it naturally effervesces with boyish friskness and wantonness and childish love of unadulterated horrors. But if this were so, we should expect to find a gradual change in the later dramas, and not a sudden and long leap from this monstrous work to the comparative perfection and absolute genius of the others, even the weakest of them. How could the same hand within a few years have produced this, and "The Tempest " and "Midsummer Night's Dream," and shown no intermediate amelioration? Some of Mr. Morgan's arguments seem to recoil, as for instance, the absence of any trace of the comic spirit and of puns. So far from basing on this the theory that Shakespeare wrote it when a boy, we should infer that he never wrote it, for nowhere are comedy and punning (we believe) absent from Shakespeare's plays. We need not bother ourselves over the problem as to who could have written it, if Shakespeare did not. That sort of argument is the brittle keystone of the foolish Baconian theory. Better give Bacon this play. He is quite welcome to it, and we dare say an application of the "cypher" would demonstrate it to be his. Another point which indicates to our comparatively uninstructed mind that Shakespeare did not perpetrate this tragedy is the appearance of great similarity between the two texts here given. On a casual examination, there is little evidence of the "growth" which characterizes all the other plays thus far paralleled in this edition. The later contains only 142 lines more than the earlier, and this increase is mainly in one scene, which clearly is not Shakespeare's. We note two misprints in the introduction "Besilarius," on page 11, and "Bowlderized," on page 70, for Belisarius and Bowdlerized. The eighth volume of Mr. Horace Howard Furness' variorum edition of Shakespeare is devoted to "As You Like It," the delicious, sparkling, immortal comedy of comedies, the most unfailing resource for a weary mind and a downcast spirit that our language affords. If any man is tired or discouraged, a walk through the Forest of Arden will restore him. This volume, like its predecessors, gives the text of the folio of 1623, with a copious selec ...Duke. tion of notes from all the commentators, wise and otherwise, and the sources of the drama, with many criticisms from several languages. We here learn that George Sand adapted this play to the French stage, but she gets no nearer the charmed Forest than the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Mr. Furness lays his readers, as usual, under a debt of gratitude. As he is a lawyer by education, his opinion on a passage in this play, cited by Lord Campbell as showing deep knowledge of law, will be respected, although opposed to "my lord's." The passage, note and comment are as follows (act 3, scene 3): We'll push him out of doors, And let my officers of such a nature Make an extent upon his house and lands: Do this expediently and turne him going.' 'extent.] LORD CAMPBELL (p. 49): 'A deep technical knowledge of law is here displayed, however it may have been acquired. The usurping Duke wishing all the real property of Oliver to be seized, awards a writ of extent against him, in the language which would be used by the Lord Chief Baron of the Court of Exchequer, and extende facías applying to house and lands, as a fieri facias would apply to goods and chattels, or a capias ad sutisfaciendum to the person (I cannot but think that the present is a passage which so far from showing any 'deep technical knowledge of the law' shows not much more than the ordinary knowledge (perhaps even a little vague at that), which must have been almost universal in Shakespeare's day, when statutes merchant and statutes staple were in common use and wout. It may be even possible that there is here an instance of that confusion which follows like a fate dramatists and novelists who invoke the law as a Deus ex machina. That Shakespeare is wonderfully correct in general is continually manifest. But I doubt if the present is one of the happiest examples. Lord Campbell, when he says that the Duke aims at Oliver's realty by this writ of extent, overlooked the fact that the Duke had already seized' not only all Oliver's realty, but even all his personalty, by an act of arbitrary power. After this display on the part of the Duke that he should invoke the aid of the sheriff and proceed according to due process of law, and apply for a writ of extende facias, which could only issue on due forfeiture of a recognizance or acknowledged debt (under circumstances which had not here occurred), is inconsequential, to say the least, and betokens either a confused knowledge of law (which could be only doubtfully imputed to Shakespeare), or an entire indifference to such trivial details or sharp quillets which only load without helping the progress of the plot. was dramatically necessary that Oliver should be set adrift, houseless and landless, in order that he and Orlando should hereafter meet; how he was to be rendered houseless and landless was of little moment, the use of a legal term or so would be all-sufficient to create the required impression; officers of the law are ordered to make an extent' upon his house and lands and the end is gained. A 'deep technical knowledge' of the writ of extende facias in Shakespeare's day would know that with the lands and goods of the debtor in cases where the crown was concerned, as here, the sheriff was commanded to take the body also; but this would never do in the present case. Oliver must not himself be detained; he has to be sent forth, somewhere to meet with Orlando; either the sheriff will have to apply to the court for instructions or the writ must be radically modified. In short, it is not clear that the law here, as it is in The Merchant of Venice, is invoked merely for dramatic purposes, and was neither intended to be shrilly sounded nor technically exact?" We acknowledge a pamphlet copy of Mr. Moak's valuable paper, read before the New York State Bar Association, on the "Liability Between Relatives for Services, Support, and on Alleged Implied Contracts," which is marked by the author's unfailing research, exhaustiveness and discrimination. A good deal of inquiry has been made of us for the addresses delivered at the recent judicial celebration in New York. They are too voluminous for publication in these columns, but those of the judges have been published in a pamphlet at Washington, and Mr. Butler and Mr. Hitchcock have separately published their own. NOTES OF CASES. I fotot, sed, Super 16, 1ourt of Errors of Cont Foot v. Card, Supreme Court of Errors of Con CO * of, the reason that the wife is in this regard without the pale of the law because of her inferiority. In Lynch v. Knight, 9 H. L. Cas. 589, the wife, with whom the husband was joined for conformity, complained that the defendant, a man, had alienated from her the conjugal affection of her husband, and deprived her of his conjugal society, by falsely asserting to him that she had been guilty of unchaste conduct; and asked damages. The defendant had judgment for the reason that the court was of opinion that the statement by the defendant to the husband did not, as a fact, occasion the alienation of affection and consequent separation complained of. In dismissing the case for this reason, the lord chancellor said: 'Although this is a case of the first impression, if it can be shown that there is presented to us a concurrence of loss and injury from the act complained of, we are bound to say that this action lies. Nor can I allow that the loss of consortium, or conjugal society, can give a cause of action to the husband alone * * The loss of conjugal soa wife may sue for the alienation and loss of her ciety is not a pecuniary loss, and I think it may be husband's conjugal affections and society in her own a loss which the law may recognize to the wife as name, and without joining her husband as well as to the husband.' Lord Cranworth said: plaintiff, as the damages belong solely to her. The 'In the view which I take of this case I do not feel court said: "So far forth as the husband is con- called on to express a decided opinion on this point. cerned from time immemorial, the law has regarded I believe your lordships are not all agreed on it; his right to the conjugal affection and society of his and I will therefore only say that I am strongly inwife as a valuable property, and has compelled the clined to think that the view taken by my late noble man who has injured it to make compensation. What- friend (the lord chancellor) was correct.' Wherever ever inequalities of right as to property may result there is a valuable right, and an injury to it, with from the marriage contract, husband and wife are consequent damage, the obligation is upon the law equal in rights in one respect, namely, each owes to to devise and enforce such form and mode of rethe other the fullest possible measure of conjugal dress as will make the most complete reparation. A affection and society the husband to the wife all technicality must not be permitted to work a denial that the wife owes to him. Upon principle, this of justice. The defendant has no possible interest right in the wife is equally valuable to her, as prop-in requiring the husband to be co-plaintiff, other erty, as is that of the husband to him. Her right being the same as his in kind, degree and value, there would seem to be no valid reason why the law should deny to her the redress which it affords to him. But from time to time courts, not denying the right of the wife in this regard, not denying that it could be injured, have nevertheless declared that the law neither would nor could devise and enforce any form of action by which she might obtain damages. In 3 Blackstone's Commentaries, 143, the reason for such denial is thus stated: "The inferior hath no kind of property in the company, care or assistance of the superior, as the superior is held to have in those of the inferior; therefore the inferior can suffer no loss or injury.' Inasmuch as by universal consent, it is of the essence of every marriage contract that the parties thereto shall, in regard to this particular matter of conjugal society and affection, stand upon an equality, we are unable to find any support for the denial in this reason; and the right, the injury and the consequent damage being admitted, then comes into operation another rule, namely, that the law will permit no one to obtain redress for wrong except by its instrumentality; and it will furnish a mode for obtaining adequate redress for every wrong. This rule, lying at the foundation of all law, is more potent than, and takes precedence than that she should have security for her costs in this suit, and be protected from a second judgment upon the same cause of action in his name. As she is in no danger of a second judgment, and can compel the plaintiff to give security for costs, it is simply an empty technicality which she here interposes. There are good reasons for the rule that the husband should join in a complaint for damages resulting from an injury to the person, property, reputation or feelings of the wife in every case other than that before us. Whenever in any of these she suffers, presumably he suffers. He has a direct pecuniary interest in the result, and the defendant is entitled to protection from a second judgment. But in the case before us it is the pith and marrow of the complaint, that in alienating the husband's conjugal affection from the wife, in inducing him to deny his conjugal society to her, in persuading him to give his adulterous affections and society to the defendant, the latter has inflicted upon the plaintiff an injury by which, from the nature of the case, it is impossible for the husband to suffer injury; for which it is impossible for him to ask redress, either for himself or for his wife. To ask in his name would be to plant the seeds of death in the cause at the outset; and the law does not compel those who have suffered wrong so to ask for redress as to insure denial. In a case of this kind the wife can only ask for damages by and for herself. The law cannot make redress otherwise than to her solely, apart from all others, especially apart from her husband; for no theory of the law as to the merger of the rights of the wife in those of the husband could include her right to his conjugal affection and society. Although all other debts and rights to her might go to him, there yet remained this particular debt from him to her, absolutely alone, and beyond the reach of the law of merger. So long as she, on her part, kept the marriage contract, no interest in this right can be taken from her. The husband cannot acquire any interest in it. She cannot transfer any. Of legal necessity therefore damages for injury to this right must be to her solely. If the law should permit the husband to share therein, it would be to the extent of such share to deny justice. This the law may not do. Moreover, even if it be so that upon the recovery of damages by the wife for this injury to her sole right the law would give to the husband the custody thereof as her trustee, that would not be a sufficient answer to the action in its present form." In Odom v. Riddick, Supreme Court of North Carolina, January 14, 1890, it was held that the title of a purchaser for value, without notice, from the grantee of a lunatic, is good as against the heirs of the lunatic. The court said: When a purchaser sees a regular chain of title, formal in all particulars, upon the registration books, executed by grantors of full age, and not femes covert, he has a right to rely upon the presumption of sanity; and if, without any notice, or matter to put him upon inquiry, and for fair value, he takes a deed, he should be protected. Any other doctrine would place all titles upon the hazard. If the title of an innocent purchaser for value, and without notice, can be upset for the alleged mental incapacity of one grantor, it can be done though the grantor may have been a very remote one. The evidence must necessarily be sought among those friendly to the heirs of such grantor -- the neighbors and acquaintances of the party of alleged incapacity; and it would be difficult for the grantee in possession to furnish proof of the sanity of every grantor through whom he claims. Every man who shows the abnormal condition of mind which incapacitates him to make a conveyance of his property is sure to attract the attention of those around him, who have the power, and sometimes exercise it, to conceal the fact. It is a safer rule to require his heirs, or those acting for them, to take prompt steps to have the deed set aside, and parties placed in statu quo, before the property is conveyed to other parties, and while the facts are capable of full investigation, than to subject a remote grantee to maintain the integrity of his title by rebutting allegations of incapacity in any one of a long line of grantors. A purchaser for value, from one whose deed was declared by the jury to be fraudulent and void, gets a good title, if he has no notice of the fraud in his vendee's deed. Young v. Lathrop, 67 N. C. 63; Wade v. Saunders, 70 id. 270; Davis v. Council, 92 id. 725; Perry v. Jackson, 88 id. 103. The fact that it is found here that the defendant's grantor obtained the deed without fraud or undue influence, for a full and fair price, and acting under advice of Oliver Odom's counsel, who had been his attorney for years, surely cannot be allowed to put the defendants in a worse plight than they would have been placed if their grantor had procured the conveyance by fraud and undue influence. The great teachers of English law say that persons of non-sane memory, etc., ‘are not totally disabled to convey or purchase, but only sub modo. Their conveyances are voidable, but not void.' 2 Bl. Com. 291, and 2 Kent Com. 451. The deed of a person of unsound mind, not under guardianship, conveys the seisin. Wait v. Maxwell, 5 Pick. 217; Crouse v. Holman, 19 Ind. 30, and cases cited. Story on Equity Jurisprudence, section 227, says: The ground upon which courts of equity now interfere to set aside the contracts and other acts, however solemn, of persons who are idiots, lunatics and otherwise non compotes mentis is fraud. Such persons being incapable, in point of capacity, to enter into any valid contract, or to do any valid act, every person dealing with them, knowing their incapacity, is deemed to perpetrate a meditated fraud upon them and their rights.' To same purport, Adams Eq. 183, and cases cited. This places the doctrine upon an intelligible basis, and delivers the courts from the evident injustice and insurmountable inconvenience of declaring that all contracts made with one apparently sane, but who proves to have been insane, are void ab initio for want of consenting mind. This doctrine would give a lunatic or his heirs restoration of property sold by him without return of the money received for it, as was actually held in Gibson v. Soper, 6 Gray, 279, and Rogers v. Walker, 6 Penn. St. 371. The correct rule is stated by Mr. Story, in section 228: 'If a purchase is made in good faith, without any knowledge of the incapacity, and no advantage has been taken of the party, courts of equity will not interfere to set aside the contract, if injustice will hereby be done to the other side, and the parties cannot be placed in statu quo.' Buswell on Insanity, section 413, says: 'A completed contract for the sale of lands, made by an insane vendor, without fraud or notice to the vendee of the grantor's insanity, and for a fair consideration, will not be set aside, either at law or in equity, in favor of the vendor or his representatives, except the purchase-money be restored, and the parties fully reinstated in the condition in which they were prior to the purchase. This rule appears to be unquestioned in the English courts." To the same effect is the able opinion of Horton, C. J., in Gribben v. Maxwell, 34 Kans. 8 (decided in 1885), in which numerous authorities are reviewed and commented upon; and also in Behrens v. McKensie, 23 Iowa, 333, delivered by a very eminent judge (Dillon), and Corbit v. Smith, 7 id, 60; Allen v. Berryhill, 27 id. 534; 2 Pom. Eq. Jur., § 946. See also Scanlan v. Cobb, 85 Ill. 296; Young v. Stevens, 48 N. H. 133; Eaton v. Eaton, 37 N. J. 108; Freed v. |