The Legal World population; in 1912 the rate had de clined to .67. Mr. Hoffman concludes: "It is no cause of satisfaction that there should have been sixty-four lynchings during 1912 in the United States, chiefly in the South; but the country may well be satisfied with the fact that, with a single exception, this was actually the lowest number of lynchings during the last twenty-eight years, and, without exception, in proportion to population, the lowest rate of lynching during the period for which the historical record had been preserved. Since, in all matters of social progress, the tendency is of most importance, it may safely be assumed that since the rate has steadily gone down the time is not far distant when lynchings North or South will be prac tically things of the past."
Centenary of the Louisiana Supreme Court. The members of the bench and bar of Louisiana gathered in the Supreme Court room at New Orleans, March 1, to cele brate the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of that court in the state of Louisiana. Mr. Joseph W. Car roll, president of the Louisiana Bar Asso ciation, under whose auspices the cele bration was held, said that the celebra tion was unique in the history of the state. The speaker said that the people might well feel proud of the history of its Supreme Court, for during its hun dred years it had kept faith with the state and had been unsullied by scandal or corruption. He read a letter from Chief Justice Edward Douglass White, a former member of the court, now Chief Justice of the United States, in which Judge White said that he regretted very much being unable to be present. The minutes of the first session of the Surpeme Court were then read by Paul E. Mortimer, clerk of the Supreme
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Court. Governor Hall, as the head of the executive department of the state, re sponded in an address that was splendidly delivered. Looking back to the days of Matthews, Martin and Porter and re calling the part the Supreme Court had played, no Louisianian need be ashamed of its record, said the Governor. The next speaker, Charles Payne Fenner, son of Justice Charles E. Fenner, who sat on the Supreme Court bench for many years, spoke on "The Jurisprudence," and reviewed at length the differences between the judicial system of the state and the other states of the Union. The speaker said the terminology of the Louisiana juris prudence differs widely from that of other states, and that the jurisprudence itself differs in some respects radically from that of the common-law states, but 'to nothing like the extent that is generally supposed by common-law law yers, and to nothing like the extent that might perhaps be d priori expected when it is considered that we have a written code of substantive law based upon the civil as contradistinguished from the common law." For, despite this fact, it is true that in a very large pro portion of the cases decided by this court the law to be applied is sought from the same sources and by the same methods as are resorted to in the common-law states of the Union. Mr. Henry P. Dart, who has made a special study of the history of the judiciary and jurisprudence of the state, followed with an interesting paper on the history of the Supreme Court from its birth up to the present time. Judge T. C. W. Ellis, of the Civil District Court bench, followed with an address that was rich in eloquence, and spoke of some of the great members of the bar who had long ago dignified the state with the reflection of their genius.
