Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/642

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The Green Bag.

PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT $4.00 PER ANNUM.

SINGLE NUMBERS 50 CENTS.

Communications in regard to the contents of the Magazine should be addressed to the Editor, THOS. TILESTON BALDWIN, 1038 Exchange Building, Boston, Mass. Tlte Editor will be glad to receive contributions of articles of maturate length upon subjects of in terest to the profession; also anything in the way of legal antiquities or curiosities, facetiir, anecdotes, etc.

AMONG the tributes received from friends of the late editor of THE GREEN BAG, we are al lowed to quote these words of the Honorable F. W. Hackett, Assistant Secretary of the Navy : — "I knew Fuller in Cambridge, when I came to the bar in 1866, and for the period of my law practice in Boston saw him frequently. He had natural gifts of a high order. He had an active mind, a readiness to see what was humor ous and amusing in affairs, and a certain quick ness of sympathy that made him socially very attractive. I chiefly remember him as a very excellent amateur actor in private theatricals. His success in this line was marked. "I lost sight of him when I came away from Boston, and found later that he was in charge of THE GREEN BAG. He was admirably fitted to give tone and character to such a periodical. What I mean to say is that he was singularly capable of seizing on all those little light amus ing incidents that brighten up the dull routine of law practice, and making them of literary value by his way of setting them out." JOEL PRENTISS BISHOP, the author of many well-known text-books, died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on November 4, at the age of eighty-seven years. His career was so unusual, and his legal work is of such real worth, that it is fitting that there should be spoken, at this time, a word of recognition both of the value of his labors and of the sacrifice at which they were performed. " Taking into account both quantity and quality of work," said the reviewer of the last edition of Mr. Bishop's " Statutory Crimes," in the June GREEN BAG, "there is no American

law writer, save Story, comparable to Mr. Bishop." And it was there pointed out that, like Story, Mr. Bishop had " done work that is fairlyentitled to be called creative,"— rare praise for a text-book writer! — and that in some of his work he was a pioneer, often " suggesting new doctrines that after his initiative were ultimately adopted by the courts." Appreciation of his labors as a writer on jurisprudence was shown by the University of Berne, Switzerland, which conferred upon him the degree of Doctor Juris Utrhtsque in express recognition of the " great services " rendered by his legal works to his country " and to the science of law." After a seemingly hopeless struggle with illhealth, lasting many years, Mr. Bishop entered a law office in Boston, as a student, at the age of twenty-eight, with no expectation, however, that he would be able to practice. His health improved, however, and he was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1844. " Some years of practice," says a recent writer in the Boston Transcript, "found him with his business divided between large and small cases, much of it being of the latter description. Preferring the former, he determined to get rid of the latter and to write a law book as a side exercise during the change. The first edition of his " Marriage and Divorce" was the result. It was published in one volume just ten years after he entered a law office as a student. The book was received with unusual favor by the profession, and it brought him a constant succession of requests and advice to write other books. So he finally decided upon making what he afterwards considered to be the great sacrifice of his life, by relinquishing lucra tive practice and thenceforth devoting himself to the drudgery of legal authorship. He believed that by pursuing this course he could be of genuine service to the profession, and that he could supply a crying need in legal literature by expounding some of those important branches