Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 08.pdf/381

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348
The Green Bag.

temerity to present such a case to a court of last re sort in any of the Eastern or Northwestern States." (Possibly because the inhabitants of those States are less emotional than those of the Southern and South western.) The Court call it a " Pandora box," and predict that if it were established, " the chief busi ness of mankind might be fighting each other in the courts." The doctrine, it seems, prevails in Ala bama, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Indiana, but is discarded in Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Missouri, Kansas, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Arkansas, and in the lower Federal courts. The Texas doctrine was recently extended to a case where an express company failed to transport by a shorter possible route than its usual one, and it being late for the prepared obsequies, was " buried darkly at dead of night," only twenty-five or thirty persons being present, and no view of the body being prac ticable except the face through the glass. A verdict of $2,000 for mental anguish was approved. (Wells, Fargo & Co.'s Express v. Fuller, 35 S. W. Rep. 824.) In a late North Carolina case a verdict of $2,000 for mental suffering was sustained.

Animals. — In our assumed position of general protector of animals at law, we have two English cases to report which have a humanitarian aspect. One of these, in a lower court, decides that one may not set poisoned meat to kill cats trespassing on his pigeon-house. He may not do so at common law, and he clearly may not do so under a statute permit ting the laying of poisoned meat to destroy rats, mice, and such small deer. If he had caught the cat in flagrante delicto doubtless he might have slain it, but he must sit up o' nights and watch his oppor tunity. Truly the cat has nine lives. The other case (Osborn v. Chocqueil [1896, Q. B.], 31 L. J. 384) holds that one may not recover damages for the bite of a dog upon proof that the owner knew that the beast had worried a goat to death. Russell, L. C. J., and Wills, J., were of opinion that it must be shown that the dog had a ferocious dispo sition toward mankind.

Scripture in Court In Peabody v. State, 72 Miss. 104, a conviction of being a common prosti tute was affirmed upon the authority of Solomon. The Court said : " The character of these appellants was graven with ' the point of a diamond on the rock forever,' some centuries since, by an unerring artist, as will at once be seen by the marvelous cor respondence between that character, as thus sketched.

and as reflected in this record. Then the greater preacher, Whitfield, J., quoted Proverbs, chap, vii, 6-23, and concluded : " The portrait is accurate; its colors have lost none of their vividness in the lapse of centuries; and upon the authority of this great text, reflected in all the text-books and decisions, the judgment is affirmed." It is rather rough to convict one of being a common prostitute upon the authority of the concubinous Solomon.

"Places of Accommodation and Amusement." — In Cecil v. Green (Illinois Supreme Court), 43 N. E. Rep. 1104, it was held that a druggist's shop is not "a place of amusement or accommodation," within a statute prohibiting the denial of any person of " the full and equal enjoyment of the accommo dations, advantages, facilities and privileges of inns, restaurants, eating-houses, barber-shops, public con veyance on land or water, theaters and all other places of accommodation and amusement," and that the penalty provided by the statute could not be re covered from a druggist who refused to sell a glass of soda-water to a colored person. The Court applied the maxim ejusdem generis, and observed : " Such a place can be considered a place of accommodation or amusement to no greater extent than a place where dry goods or clothing, boots and shoes, hats and caps, or groceries are dispensed. The personal liberty of an individual in his business transactions, and his freedom from restrictions, is a question of the utmost moment; and no construction can be adopted by which an individual right of action will be included as controlled within a legislative enact ment, unless clearly expressed in such enactment, and certainly included within the constitutional lim itation on the power of the legislature. Nothing in this provision requires a physician to attend a pa tient, a lawyer to accept a retainer, a merchant to sell goods, a farmer to employ labor, unless of his own volition, regardless of any reason, whether expressed or not."

Ill-Fame. — In State v. Plant, 67 Vt. 454; 48 Am. St. Rep. 821, it was held that under a statute punishing the keeping of a house of ill-fame, it is not necessary to show its bad repute. The contrary, said the court, "amounts to saying that however bad the house is in point of fact, it is no offense under the statute to keep it if it has not an ill fame. This is keeping clean the outside of the house, while the inside is full of prostitution and lewdness. Certain ancient sects did like things, and a woe was pro nounced upon them for it by the highest authority."