Latest Important Cases Congress long enough for the latter to ascer tain the facts, and Congress can make the admission of such persons conditional for three years. Public Service Corporations. Delay in Transmitting Telegram— Notice of Urgency Unnecessary. Ala. An example of the effect which the peculiar nature of a telegraph company and the duties it undertakes to the public has on the appli cation of a general rule of law is found in Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Northcutt, 48 So. Rep. 553. The question involved was the liability of the company for special dam ages from delay in delivering a telegram in the absence of notice of circumstances which would apprise it that such damages would flow from the delay. The Court, while adher ing to the rule laid down in the leading case of Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Exch. 341, held that by reason of the peculiar nature of the duties of a telegraph company to the public, notice was not necessary, as the fact of send ing the telegram was notice that expedition was necessary. See "Commodities Decision." Race Distinctions. Injury to Negro's Repu tation—Measure of Damages. N. Y. Judges Ingraham, Laughlin and Scott, com prising a majority of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, on May 21 sustained the decision of the Supreme Court in Griffin v. Brady, the lower court havingruled, per Dugro, J., that the arrest and imprisonment of a negro could not produce the shame and humiliation that a white man would endure in similar circumstances. Presiding Judge Patterson and Judge Clarke dissented from the majority ruling. It was an action brought to recover $10,000 for false arrest, the plaintiff being a Pullman car porter who had been accused of stealing a card-case. The jury had awarded $2,500 and Justice Dugro had set aside the verdict, saying in his decision:— "In one sense a colored man is just as good as a white man, for the law says he is, but he has not the same amount of injury under all circumstances that a white man would have. Maybe in a colored community down South, where white men were held in great disfavor, he might be more injured, but, after all, that is not this sort of community. In this sort of a community I dare say the amount of evil that would flow to the colored man from a charge like this would not be as great as it
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probably would be to a white man. The jury are well aware of that fact." Railroads. Eminent Domain— Northern Pacific Grant of 1862. U. S. The United States District Court, Judges W. H. Munger and T. C. Munger, handed down a decision at Omaha, Neb., May 4, denying the right of settlers to encroach upon the right of way of the Union Pacific across school sections of land and the unused por tion of the four hundred feet of right of way along the railroad track in Nebraska. The Court discussed the question of the intent of Congress in making a grant of right of way to the Union Pacific in the act of 1862, the Union Pacific at that time being a national undertaking and benefiting by many pro visions outside the usual course of legislative action. "The right, power, and authority to take from the public lands adjacent to the line of the road," said the Court, "is granted to the extent of 200 feet in width on each side of the railroad where it may pass over the public lands, including all necessary lands for build ings, stations, sidetracks, turntables, and water stations." See "Commodities Decision." Religious Societies. Union of Presby terians—Church Property. Ky. The coalition of the Cumberland Presby terian and the Presbyterian Church in the United States has resulted in many legal controversies as to the status of the prop erty of particular churches. The Kentucky Court of Appeals in Wallace v. Hughes, 115 S. W. Rep. 684, after a thorough inquiry into the powers of the respective Assemblies of the two branches of the Presbyterian organi zation, has sustained the union and finally silenced the disturbing minorities in that state. Comparison is made between the Presbyterian Constitution and the Constitu tion of the United States. When Congress proposes an amendment to the United States Constitution and it is ratified by the Legis latures of the required number of states, the people of a particular state have no voice in determining whether or not the amendment shall be adopted. So in this case, the union having been regularly authorized by a twothirds vote of the General Assembly and their action having been approved by a majority of the Presbyteries after being regularly transmitted to them, it became final.
