The Legal World 431
of the Supreme Court delivered the annual address.
The annual meeting of the Illinois State's Attorneys' Association was held at Chicago June 9-11. Among the prominent speakers were Wade H. Ellis, Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, State's Attorney Wayman, Vice President John S. Miller of the Illinois Bar Association, and Dean A. C. Harker of the University of Illinois Law School.
Several members of the bar of Allegheny County, Pa., have consented at considerable sacrifice of time and money to serve in a "Lawyers' Court of Compulsory Arbitration" to expedite matters in clearing up the dockets of the Common Pleas Court. The new court will cover all points of law and evidence thoroughly with the view of making appeals infrequent.
Judge James B. Dill gave an address on "Viewpoint and Standpoint," and cautioned the graduates not to borrow legal knowledge, at the first Commencement exercises of the New Jersey Law School at Newark Tune 17. The school has proved at the end of its first year that it is needed. The degree of Bachelor of Law was conferred on seven students.
The Georgetown University Law School graduated the largest class it had ever had June 7, when one hundred and forty-seven young men received their diplomas. Many prizes were awarded by Chief Justice Seth Shepard of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia. Wade H. Ellis, Assistant Attorney-General, delivered the address to the graduates.
The Governor of New York has signed a bill prohibiting corporations from acting as attorneys. It is believed that this will stop the abuses which have given rise to so much complaint in New York City, and that legal advice will no longer be furnished by legal bureaus and collection attorneys employing clerks who are not registered attorneys to attend to their clients' affairs.
Anent the proposal to change the method of electing judges in Georgia, which is now by popular vote, former Governor Allen D. Candler has proposed that Georgia go back to the plan set out in the first state constitution, that of 1877. Under this method the house of representatives balloted for superior court judges and presented to the governor the three names receiving the highest vote. The governor then selected one of these names and presented it to the senate.
President Taft has decided to call a national conference for the securing of uniform legislation to be held in Washington January 5, 6, and 7, 1910. Each state will be invited to send five delegates. President Taft, who will preside over the conference, has said that "either some plan for attaining uniform legislation must be put into effect in the different states or we shall have to have more centralization of power here in Washington."
H. H. B. Meyer, chief bibliographer of the Library of Congress, has compiled a list of works relating to the Supreme Court of the United States. The list, which is in four sections, does not attempt the completeness of a bibliography. The first section contains general works, the two next United States reports or digests, and the last bibliographical material on the chief justices and associate justices.
The Superior Court at Karlsruhe, Germany, rejected the appeal for a new trial for Karl Hau, who was sentenced to life imprisonment there in 1907 for the murder of his mother-in-law. Hau had been a gifted student in Baden-Baden and later studied at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., where his brilliant work won him the degrees of A.M. and LL.D., and an appointment to the chair of Roman law in the university in 1904.
The first volume of an important work, "Les Associations au Point de Vue Juri dique," by Edouard Clunet, founder and editor of the Journal du Droit International Privé, has been published by Marchal & Billard of Paris. The purpose of this work is that of studying associations in every form, as part of the plan of actual positive law, to assist in understanding the present by a review of historical facts. The work seems to be written more from the point of view of French law than from that of comparative legislation.
Pope Pius X has issued a decree suppressing the order known as "The Attorneys of St. Peter," which has a number of representatives in this country. The order was founded in 1878, shortly after the accession of Leo XIII to the pontifical throne, and was composed, in its inception, of eminent Catholic lawyers in different parts of the world. It was intended that admission should be restricted to those members of the legal profession who had given adequate proofs of unselfish devotion to the interests of the church. But unfortunately the French branch did not exercise necessary care in the election of its members and as a result members of questionable antecedents were able to make use of their relation to the order for the purposes of fraud, mainly in connection with bogus sales of titles of knighthood and nobility. These involved the order in some notoriety of an unsavory character.
Frederic de Martens, Professor of International Law in the University of St. Peters burg from 1871 to 1907, died at St. Petersburg, Russia, June 20. He was born in 1845. Edinburgh, Cambridge, and Yale Universities made him an LL.D., and Oxford conferred upon him the degree of D.C.L. He had been
