Index to Periodicals will be transformed into a binding treaty in due course, to which the accessionjof^other nations will be invited. "^i htMfcMtlihhk* Wills. "The fi Menace ^|of Testamentary Law." By John^H. Wigmore. ^(Communica tion.) 7 Illinois Law Review 249 (Nov.). P"Dean Wigmore is shocked by the judgment of the Illinois Supreme Court in Wilce v. Van Anden, 248 I1l. 358, where a testator devised a residue to trustees with the direction that it be distributed among the testator's brothers and sisters in such manner as they should deem advisable and the court held the bequest void for indefiniteness. He does not say that the Supreme Court did not declare correct law, but he does assert that if that is sound law, it is "a poor sort of law for this day and generation."
The various technical distinctions learnedly enumerated by Mr. Kales, which make some gifts void and others not void, he deems unsuited to modern practical needs and an outworn sur vival of the antique. He suggests "a careful reconstruction of the whole edifice": "I respectfully propose that the Governor of this state appoint Mr. Kales and two other skilled persons as a commission, to report within five years a comprehensive statute on estates of property and devises and bequests thereof, to the end that a testator's intentions, as ascer tained from his will, may hereafter be faithfully effectuated, so far as practically feasible, in the administration of his estate, and that thus the whimsicality of the law of estates may cease to be an unjustifiable menace to the safety of wills lawfully executed."
Latest Important Defamation. Words Imputing Death not Libelous per se — Mental Pain does not Indicate Actual Injury to Reputation. N. Y. To publish a notice in a newspaper of the death of a person, when as a mater of fact he is alive, is not actionable per se as libelous, according to the decision of the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court in Cohen v. New York Times Co. (New York Law Jour., Nov. 22). Jenks, P.J., in upholding the demurrer of the defendant, stated the authorities with great fullness, and said:— "The question, then, whether this publication could be a libel per se involves the inquiry whether it could have injured the reputation of the plain tiff. Here is a bare item of news in a newspaper. The item states that an event has come to pass which is looked for in the history of every man, is regarded as beyond his control, and therefore does not permit the inference that the man has done any act or suffered any act which he could not have done or which he need not have suffered. Prematurity is the sole peculiarity. How can the publication of such an event merely as a matter of news hold up the subject to scorn, to hatred, to contempt or to ridicule so that his reputation is impaired? Such publication may be unpleasant, it may annoy or irk the subject thereof, it may subject him to joke or to jest or to banter from those who knew him or knew of him, even to the extent of affecting his feelings, but this in itself is not enough (Samuels v. Even ing Mail Ass'n, 6 Hun 5; Lombard v. Lennox, 155 Mass. 70; Du Vivier v. French, 104 Fed. 278). The question is, as we have seen, whether
33
Cases
the publication "tends to lower him in the opin ion of men whose standard of opinion the court can properly recognise, or to induce them to entertain an ill opinion of him" (Lord Halsbury's Laws of England, supra; Mawe v. Pigott, Ir. Rep., 4 C. L., 54, cited both by Lord Halsbury and in Folkard's Starkie on Slander and Libel, p. 234). Newell on Slander and Libel (sec. 36) quotes Lord Wensleydale: 'Mental pain or anxiety the law cannot value and does not pre tend to redress when the unlawful act complained of causes that alone, though where a material damage occurs and is connected with it, it is im possible a jury in estimating it should altogether overlook the feelings of the party interested.' "With more than formal respect for the learned court at Special Term, due to the learning and ability of the justice who presided there, I think that this case is not analogous to the cited cases of the reduced gentlewoman in Moffatt v. Cauldwell (3 Hun 26), of the over-educated scholar (Martin v. Press Publishing Co., 93 App. Div. 531), of the deserted woman (Kirman v. Sun Printing & Pub. Ass'n, 99 App. Div. 367), of the man dubbed Jack Ketch (Cook v. Ward, 4 M. &. P., 99), or of the alleged suicide (Cody v. B'klyn Union Publishing Co., 23 Misc. 409), for in each of them there was not publication of a mere matter of news, but the incident was used not alone to point a moral, but to adorn a tale narrated in a sensational vein." Monopolies. Restraint of Trade under Sher man Act — Combination of Manufacturers and Jobbers for Sale of Patented Articles —. Rights of Patentees — "Bath Tub" Trust. U. S. In Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. U. S., de
