Looking again to the doctrine of aider and abettor, shall we say that every member of such a mob is a rioter? Viewing together the construction of the Statute and this abettor doctrine, if we insist upon the broad and extensive application of the Statute, do we not, ipso facto, deny the right of revolu tion? The facts of this particular riot, the doctrine thereby touched upon, provoke the consideration of some grave questions, and their final determination involves the ulti mate safety of a part of our judicial life. After all, the great question before us is the real value of legislation against lynch law, either as general legislation or as spe cially manifested in Ohio Statutes. This question of lynch law may be considered separate and apart by itself, or as a type of a considerable part of our legislation. If we look upon it as a type of the great mass of unenforced laws of the country, laws so much in advance of public sentiment, that they quite fail of their purpose, the field is wide for open discussion. We may accept the general proposition that unless a law is the expression and embodiment of public senti ment it fails in its purpose. No one ques tions the wisdom of laws punishing larceny,
burglary, arson, etc., such laws are backed by the great common sense of the world and the public sentiment of civilization. How many are the laws that exist only on the printed page, that find expression only in cold type, which are endorsed neither by the warm blood of peoples, nor the rever ence of a just populace. The smuggling laws evaded prior to the American Revolu tion by such men as Hancock and Adams. the Fugitive Slave Law, openly jeered at and scorned from Boston to Oberlin, the liquor laws relaxed in prohibition Maine, and scoffed at in Kansas until a Carrie Nation wields an axe of destruction. We must conclude even from a most cursory survey of dead-letter legislation, that such laws are nugatory, absurd and futile. We must admit that law, far from being a divine product, is a very human and imperfect in strument. Be it far from this paper ever to defend or uphold lynch law. The bald fact remains, here is law which does not com mend itself to a part of the nation. Yet the Ohio law is a bold step to the future and all must concede that acting from its best lights, this State has taken a long step toward exact justice.
ANCIENT LAW IN MODERN LIFE. BY F. P. WALTON. IN turning over the Reports of cases de cided by the Privy Council, we are now and then startled by the strangely unfamiliar paths into which that illustrious tribunal is liable to be led. A case as to the powers of an electric light company may stand cheekby jowl with a case as to the reason and ex tent of a primitive Hindu custom the origin of which is buried in the fathomless depths of an unrecorded antiquity. It is only the other day that this committee of English judges had to consider in all seriousness
arguments which would have sounded vastly more familiar to the lawyer-priests of India three thousand years ago. The question raised was, "Is it lawful by the Hindu law for a father to give his only son to another in adoption?"1 The argument against this was that it would sanction the voluntary ex tinction of a family. This happens every day with us, and no one is a penny the worse. In fact, I suppose, that if families were immortal our charitable foundations 1 Radhamohon -•. Hardai Bibi, L. R. 26, Ind. App.
