of the law which had not hitherto been ade quately treated by any author. "After Dr. Bishop decided to devote his time exclusively to authorship he applied himself so assiduously to his self-imposed task that he be came very much of a recluse, and was personally little seen by the general public. He thence forth positively refused, however strongly urged, to accept any proffered cases from clients re questing his services. It was only on rare oc casions, even, that he could be induced to give an expert opinion in an important case; and only when he could be convinced that the ques tion involved was one of unusual importance to legal science, aside from the interests of the parties concerned. Among the few instances occurring to the writer, in which Dr. Bishop consented to give an expert opinion, may be mentioned the Lauderdale Peerage cases, re ported in lo Ap. Cases, 692. The cases in volved the descent of an earldom and large estates in Scotland, and turned upon the validity of a marriage celebrated in New York in 1772. The opinion was in regard to what the marriage laws in New York were at that period, that be ing the point that perplexed both the counsel and the courts in which the cases were first tried. His most recent opinion was given in the Louisiana nolle prosequi cases, 48 La. An. 109, et seq. The question was, ' as to the right and power of the district attorney to enter a nolle proseqtti after verdict and before sentence.' . . . "Although not insensible of his own attain ments, Dr. Bishop always seemed to take a deep pride and pleasure in showing a stoical indiffer ence to the glitterings of notoriety, and he always shunned politics and office. Not long before he launched himself upon the sea of legal authorship, he was tendered the appoint ment of chief justice of the Hawaiian Islands by King Kamehameha III, but declined to accept the position." To the Editor of The Green Bag, DEAR SIR: — Under the heading " Some De lights of the Legal Profession," Mr. Willis B. Dowd gave us some very entertaining reading in the September number of THE GREEN BAG, and among other things, the worthily famous cat decision of Mr. Justice McLean, of the New York Supreme Court, which is surcharged
with sparkling wit and crammed with quaint legal lore. Mr. Dowd wrote too soon, or else he overlooked one of the richest and raciest opinions handed down by a court of last resort in the last decade — the opinion written by Mr. Justice Sullivan, of the Nebraska Supreme Court, in a decision handed down by that court June 5, 1901 (Chapman v. State, 88 N. W. Rep. 907), which, for quaint humor and keen wit, deserves to live in the memory of the pro fession with that of Mr. Justice McLean. The case was a prosecution for statutory rape. In the trial below the jury found the defendant guilty and the Court sentenced him to imprison ment in the penitentiary for a period of three years, and he "went up." In the course of the opinion Sullivan, J., says: — "The petition in error contains many assign ments, but the principal grounds relied upon for a reversal of the sentence is that the State's evidence, while tending to prove seduction, dis proves completely the crime charged in the information. Briefly stated, the main facts of the case are these: Bruce Chapman resides in Sherman County, and is now between thirty-two and thirty-five years of age. One evening in August, 1899, he attended a camp meeting at Round Grove, where he satisfied his religious yearnings,—slaked his thirst for spirituality, — and then permitted his attention to become engrossed with secular things. At tire meeting he fell in with the prosecutrix, Ora Nell John son, and the two went home together. On the way home, it would seem, Chapman felt the rise and surge of a tender passion, and took occa sion to mention the fact to Miss Johnson. Finding her in a responsive mood, he indulged freely in erotic vagaries, and, finally, after prom ising marriage and eternal fidelity, had sexual intercourse with her. The promise of marriage, it is now insisted, adds to the crime charged an extenuating element which reduced it from rape to seduction, —from a felony to a misdemeanor. We listened with great interest to the ingenious reasoning by which the learned counsel for the defendant undertook at the bar to sustain his position. We were charmed with the cleverness of the argument, but its logic was not irresisti ble. It failed to convince us that a person prosecuted for the commission of a criminal act must go free if it be made to appear at the trial
