ROUNDABOUT JUSTICE.
THE maxim, "All's well that ends well," has a comforting, encouraging, phil osophic ring, and seems therefore to be generally accepted and approved by the easy-going. The more cautious and alert, however, realize its dangerous tendencies, and denounce it as unprincipled, and alto gether unsound in theory — an execration almost as bitter as is evoked by its sister statement, that " the end justifies the means." Without placing ourselves in the category of the easy-going, no matter where our sym pathies are, and without distinctly taking sides with the energetic and cautious, who certainly have our unbounded respect, we will maintain a thoroughly neutral position by referring to a case which might, perhaps, be cited as an authority supporting both contentions. The circumstances are set forth and commented upon by the annotator of the report in which it appears in the following manner:1 "This case," it is ob served, " will be best understood by con sidering the whole affair as a drama in five acts, and the positions of each party at the end of the respective acts. "I. Breman, being the owner of a cow which Hoag unlawfully detains, replevins the cow from Hoag, thereby obtaining possession of the cow; but having brought the suit informally (by joining his wife as plaintiff), submits to a non-suit, whereby, under a statute which assumes that his possession, obtained by the writ of replevin, is wrongful, judgment is rendered in favor of Hoag against Breman and wife, for the value of the cow; at this stage of the proceeding, Breman holds the cow, and Hoag a judgment for its value. "II. Breman sues Hoag in Trover for the cow, and though plaintiff has the cow then in his possession, recovers a judgment 1 See Hoag v. Breman and wife, 3 Mich. 160.
against Hoag for her value. It is difficult to see upon what theory this judgment was rendered, unless it was that the court and jury wanted to provide Breman with a set off against Hoag's judgment. At this stage of the conflict, Breman, the rightful owner, holds the cow by wrong, but each party has a judgment against the other for her value. Setting off the two judgments against each other, Breman would hold the cow by right. "III. Hoag pays Breman's judgment in Trover, instead of offsetting his own judg ment against it, and now, abandoning his original claim, resorts to a new ground of title, whereby he claims through Breman by a title which dates only from the payment of Breman's judgment in Trover. Breman, at this stage of the controversy, is trebly armed. He has the cow, the price of the cow, and the memory of a judgment which he once held against Hoag for her value. "IV. Hoag, still holding his unsatisfied judgment for the cow (the one obtained by non-suit), replevins the cow under his new source of title (acquired by satisfaction of Breman's judgment in Trover), thereby get ting possession of her, whereupon the court intimate some doubt whether the acceptance of the judgment in replevin for the value of the cow by Hoag, was not a conversion of the cow by him (it would seem rather that it would transfer title in the cow to Breman) . But the court holds that the case has clearly only two alternatives. Either Hoag's judg ment in replevin against Breman was a wrongful conversion of the cow by Hoag, or the court, in Breman's action of Trover, erred in giving judgment for the full value of a cow which Breman then had in his posses sion. But Hoag by paying the judgment acknowledges its rightfulness, and therefore, the cow which has been judicially found to have been lost by Breman and found by
