unpublished material which, as has been already stated, he had commenced to use in the preparation for the press of volume 2 of the work, was laid aside; and "The Federalist" and all which related to it were abandoned.

As his plan had included, besides "The Federalist," which was to occupy two volumes, the publication, also, in size and style uniform with those of that work, of all those other papers, not less able in their opposition to the proposed Constitution than those of "The Federalist" were in support of it, which were written by Richard Henry Lee, Vice-President George Bryan, of Pennsylvania, De Witt Clinton, and others, over the signatures of "Brutus," Cato," "An Orange County Farmer," etc., these also in two large octavo volumes, with the general title of "The Anti-Fæderalist: a Collection of Essays, written in opposition to the new Constitution, as agreed upon by the Fæderal Convention, September 17, 1787. Reprinted from the original texts, with an historical Introduction and Notes, by Henry B. Dawson, in two volumes." and as he proposed to complete the series with a "History of the Constitution for the United States, by Henry B. Dawson, in three volumes," in which the entire subject would be carefully examined and faithfully presented, his abandonment of "The Federalist" was an abandonment of the whole. The great and valuable collection of material concerning the Constitution and its real character, and the characters and purposes of its authors and supporters, as well as those of its opponents, which he had gathered from every portion of the country, with great labor and expense, and the years of earnest study of that material which he had expended, went for nothing, and, very largely, wasted almost entirely.

The publication of the first volume of "The Fæderalist immediately followed by an attack on both the volume and its editor, from the pen of his old-time friend and associate, John Jay, a grandson of one of the authors of the original work, and, subsequently, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to AustriaHungary; and by a similar attack from the pen of the venerable James A. Hamilton, a son of another of its authors. These articles were printed in The Evening Post, then edited by William Cullen Bryant; and they created much excitement among the literati of New York, because of the high social character of the two accusers, of the gravity of the charges presented, and of the ability with which those charges had been presented and maintained.

Notwithstanding, at that time, the accused was temporarily occupying the office of Secretary of the Harlem Bridge, Morrisania, and

Fordham Railroad Company, which occupied his entire time from early in the morning until late at night, he answered each of his distinguished assailants successively, also through The Evening Post, in which he successfully defended both his work and himself, in an array of facts which commanded the respect of nearly every one, and in the quaint but expressive words of one of his biographers, "satisfied his friends, if not his opponents." Congratulations were sent to him from many of the most distinguished gentlemen in the country; and soon afterwards a number of the principal residents of Westchester County, within which county all the disputants then resided, united and caused to be printed, at their joint expense, a thousand copies of the four letters which had been published in The Evening Post, for gratuitous circulation, especially throughout that county. It is very probable the circulation of that correspondence in Westchester County was a principal cause of the very general and unusual confidence in him, as an author and an historian, which was seen to so remarkable an extent when, early in 1884, the subscription-books for Scharf's proposed "History of Westchester County" were first circulated-only a small number of the residents of the county would give their subscriptions for the proposed history until "Mr. Dawson should have approved the work; and have said it was all right.'" The title of the pamphlet which was thus printed and circulated was "Correspondence between John Jay and Henry B. Dawson, and between James A. Hamilton and Henry B. Dawson, concerning 'The Fæderalist.' New York: 1864." Subsequently, those who sympathized with the accused editor, in their joy that he had so completely overcome his powerful opponents, caused another and much more elegant edition of the pamphlet to be printed at the Bradstreet Press, on large paper, with rubricated titles, and bearing the same general title; and, still later, a very small edition was printed, yet more sumptuously, on Whatman's drawing-paper, at the expense of one of the gentlemen who had been concerned in the publication of the two earlier editions. Both the editions last referred to were, of course, for private circulation only.

He was led to regard the pamphlet last described as the first of a series of tracts, similar in their character and purposes, which he proposed to publish, and to which he gave the general title of "Current Fictions Tested by Uncurrent Facts;" and, in the prosecution of that purpose, for the second tract of that series, he prepared, with great care and labor, a defence of what he had published concerning James Duane, Robert R. Livingston, John Jay,

and Alexander Hamilton, in his "Introduction to The Fæderalist." In doing so he took up, successively, each paragraph of his statements concerning these four distinguished New Yorkers; and, sentence by sentence, sometimes the sentences were divided, all of them were separately and minutely examined and presented to the reader, with the multitude of authorities, all of them of the highest character, on which each distinct statement rested. A large portion of this proposed tract, the second of his proposed series of "Current Fictions Tested by Uncurrent Facts," was actually put in type; but it was unfinished at the time when he abandoned his work on "The Federalist," and it was not completed-the printers' "revises," as far as it had been put in type, and the remainder of the manuscript alone remained to show of many a day and night of earnest and intelligent thought and labor thrown away.

TORONTO LAWYERS are at present considering the question as to whether fortune-telling is an indictable offence. A diligent search into the precedents has resulted in the disinterment of an English statute which affixed the death penalty to the committal of any such act. When we remember that a similar heroic treatment was applied in the case of sheep-stealing, we are inclined to look for authority elsewhere than in obsolete statutes. Probably when the diligent investigators return to the light of the present day, after their explorations in the catacombs of precedent, they will perceive that obtaining money or goods under pretext of foretelling is punishable at common law, as presumably so doing under false pretences. This principle is plainly recognized by the Vagrant Act, which was hardly more than a consolidation of the common law on the subject, with a view to its presentment in a clearly defined form. By this act all "rogues and vagabonds" are considered as beggars, and are punishable under the statute as such. "Rogues and vagabonds" comprehend all exposers of wounds, loiterers and fortunetellers If it is advisable to suppress this practice, the foregoing enactment seems better calculated to subserve the interests of justice than the revival of the old statutes against witchcraft, against which both humanity and enlightenment revolt.-Montreal Star.

JUSTICE FIELD is going to make a trip abroad this Summer and leave the California field clear to Sarah Althea Hill. The Judge is not afraid; he merely has a preference for having the Atlantic Ocean between himself and Sarah.-Memphis Appeal.

Progress, improvement, in this line is just as great a desideratur. as in any work in economics. I have observed of late the reduction of the number of volumes, of several works, in the later editions. So also in new works on a subject, in the treatment of which former authorities make two and three volumes, the same subject with its accretions has been, with much more method, couched in a single volume no larger than one of the former. A notable instance is Bishop's new work on Contracts. This commendable achievement of the Compiler of law-books ought to be encouraged by the profession. The methods resorted to, to attain this end, are clearly stated in Mr. Bishop's preface to his book on Contracts. In the constant production of new law books, there is very little new law laid down, and the greatest point of usefulness in the reproduction of works is the reduction of the volume.

The stupendous increase of the number of volumes of law is literally confounding. And it is bewildering to see the increase of Reports. The law of an entire volume of reports can usually be put in fifty, or less, pages by judicious elimination. Condensation and the elimination of surplusage ought to be the constant aim of text-writers.

No man who has not large capacity for condensation, in fact the gift of sententiousness in writing, is qualified to compile law. As to reports and decisions, the voluminousness of which is an actual incubus on the profession, it would seem the only relief is through digests, abridgments and briefs. The redundancy of law literature is perplexing to the extreme.

The more rapidly the result of the decisions, so far as they give rise to anything new, is incorporated in text-books the better for the profession.

Voluminousness is not the result of labor as is usually supposed, nor is diffuseness an indication of ability and both are inimical to accuracy. It was Pope, I believe, who apologized to his editor for the great length of a production, upon the ground he had not time to make it shorter. Some of our law writers might gain good counsel from this striking truth. An apt and very valuable supply of authority on mooted questions and apparent conflicts of adjudications as well as new adaptations of principles, is found from number to number, in The American Law Register. The conduct of this journal is admirable and able.

Huntington, W. Va., May 31st, 1890.

I. J. McG.

THE CITY LAWYER AND THE MORTGAGE.

D'ye 'member the parson, Manthy, with a face like a piece o' chalk. Who preached about rocks and bushes, and purtended 'at they could

talk?

I reckon y' hain't forgot him, though it's many a day ago

Sence we druv to the Millport meetin' house through the slush o'

that Aprile snow.

I tuk no stock in his idees, and I thought they might do harm ;
But I calkilate that sermon was the savin' o' this 'ere farm.
Now, y' needn't to think I'm crazy, nor out o' my head a mite—
Jest wait till y've heered my story, and I jedge y'll say I'm right:
Y' see when I reached the city, and got out o' them pesky keers,
I hunted the lawyer's office up, and sot down in one o' his cheers.
He 'as up to his years in papers, and he looked so powerful glum,
Thet it made me draw a good sized breath and wish 'at I hadn't come.
He scribbled away ten minutes 'thout sayin' a word to me,
Then he asked my name and my bizness-as cranky as he could be.
But he cut me off in a minute, 'fore I'd hardly got begun,

And said 'at he hadn't no time jest then and to come at half past one.
So I sidled out 'o his office, and for an hour and a half or more
I walked them hard old pavements till my legs was stiff and sore.
And I thought-no use in goin' to that lawyer's shop agin;
When he hears I haven't the money it'll make him as mad as sin.
No use to give him reasons, or tell what I hope to do.
He'll say 'Can y' lift the mortgage-thet's all thet I want o' you.'
And I could see his face git harder, and hear him givin' the law
With about as much of feelin' as there is in a cross cut saw.
Jest then I noticed some fellers a-workin' on the street,
And I stopped a minute to watch 'em and to kind o' rest my feet.
As they piled the rocks on the sidewalk it made me think, somehow,
O' thet parson and his sermon, and I says, I wonder now
If thet feller could git a sermon from this pile o' cobble-stones?
And I thought it about as likely he could find a turnip's bones.
When I looked agin at them fellers I tell ye it staggered me
To see 'em a diggin' some dirt up, nat'ral as dirt could be.
Y' see them streets is so solid, when a man's much walkin' to do,
Thet I'd got the idee in my head the pavement went clean through.
And now so near the surface to see thet sandy loam—

It r'ally cheered me up a bit and made me feel at home.

So thinkin' o' preachers and sermons and everything thet way,

It nat' rally drew me on to seek a lesson for the day;

And I says, o' course this pavement it must be hard and sound