service. But the Court of Appeal found no fault with that method of compensation, deeming it, on the contrary, within the principles established by Perry v. Wright (98 L. T. Rep. 327; (1908) 1 K. B. 441) and Anslow v. Cannock Chase Colliery Company Limited (100 L. T. Rep. 786; (1909) A. C. 435).

ARTISTE'S DAMAGES FOR "LOSS OF PUBLICITY."-The point of law arising in the recent case of Turpin v. Victoria Palace Limited (119 L. T. Rep. 405) being, as Mr. Justice McCardie remarked concerning it, "one of general importance to actors, public singers, and music-hall artistes," his Lordship's decision thereon requires close consideration: Can such a person claim damages for "loss of publicity" when a contract entered into with him or her to appear and perform has been wrongfully repudiated? The contract contained no express provision which created any obligation on the defendants to allow the plaintiff to appear and perform. And this may probably be said of most contracts of a similar nature. The learned judge held, therefore, that the claim for loss of publicity failed. It must be treated as too remote, he thought. In two of the authorities which were relied on in support of the plaintiff's claim-namely, Marcus v. Myers (11 Times L. Rep. 327) and Bunning v. Lyric Theatre Limited (71 L. T. Rep. 396)—the publicity provisions were clear and express. Thus in the latter case the name of the plaintiff, who was engaged as musical director in the defendant's theater, was agreed to be announced in certain specified daily newspapers, and on bills and programmes. That circumstance undoubtedly influenced Mr. Justice Stirling (as he then was) very much in arriving at the conclusion that he did-namely, that the plaintiff had a substantial grievance and was entitled to come to the court for redress. If in the present case the plaintiff had been considered by Mr. Justice McCardie to be correct in her contention that, notwithstanding the absence of any such express provision, she had a valid claim in respect of loss of publicity, then "a new and serious head of damages," to quote his Lordship's words, "may be asserted in many future cases." Indeed, many branches of contractual obligations would, as the learned judge went on to say, be touched. For the considerations could not be confined to the class of agreement before him. An examination of the relevant authorities was, consequently, most essential to enable him to form an opinion as to the rights of the parties. That examination was of an exhaustive character, but the result of it was not in favor of finding that any implied obligation on the part of the defendants to allow the plaintiff to appear and perform on their stage existed. While admitting that there can be no inherent reason at all why damages for loss of publicity should not, in appropriate cases, be recovered, Mr. Justice McCardie was at pains to point out that the right to do so depended primarily on the nature and true construction of the contract between the parties. With Marcus v. Myers (ubi sup.) and Bunning v. Lyric Theatre Limited (ubi sup.) rendered distinguishable because of the contracts in those cases differing so materially from that in the present case, there was but little to extract from other decisions which in the least assisted the plaintiff.

THE PRESS AS A FACTOR IN CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT.Lord Robert Cecil in his recent speech as the guest of the British International Association of Journalists was only following in the footsteps of such eminent authorities on the forces which are factors in constitutional government as Sheridan and Disraeli in thus acknowledging the influence of the Press on public affairs: "The spirit," he said, "in which we shall approach the terms of peace is a matter on which statesmen and politicians can do little. It must ultimately depend on the spirit of the people con

cerned, and for the spirit of the people there is no agency that is so responsible as the Press. I venture, therefore, to make a great appeal to you. I ask you to put before you the very highest ideal in this matter, and not to hesitate to tell your readers the real truth, and to guide them in that way that shall secure not only for this country, but for the world, a lasting settlement based on truth and justice." Lord Brougham, whose own writings are still standard works in relation to constitutional and parliamentary history and the growth of the power of public opinion, has placed on record his judgment that the few sen

tences with which Sheridan thrilled the House of Commons on the liberty of the Press in 1810 were worth perhaps more than all his elaborated epigrams and forced phrases on the Begum charge and all his denunciations of Napoleon. "Give them," said Sheridan, "a corrupt House of Lords; give them a venal House of Commons; give them a tyrannical prince; give them a truckling court; and let me have but an unfettered Press, I will defy them to encroach a hairbreadth on the liberties of England." Sheridan's belief in Press influence was as strong as that of Lord Robert Cecil. Mr. Disraeli, speaking in February, 1853, as Leader of Opposition in the House of Commons, placed the influence of the Press on a par with the influence of Parliament. "It is unnecessary," he said, "for me to say that it is not probable that I shall ever say or do anything which would tend to depreciate the influence or diminish the power of Parliament or the Press. My greatest honor is to be a member of this House, in which all my thoughts and feelings are concentrated, and, as for the Press, I am myself a 'gentleman of the Press,' and have no other escutcheon." Lord Macaulay's well-known reference to the Press as the Fourth Estate of the Realm, in his review in 1828 of Hallam's Constitutional History, refers only to the Press in the sphere of reporting of parliamentary proceedings. "The gallery," he wrote, "in which the reporters sit has become a Fourth Estate of the Realm." He would have probably placed the Press in its influence on the creation and guidance of public opinion on a very much higher level.

INKEEPERS' OBLIGATIONS.-If the plaintiff, in the recent Scottish case of Rothfield v. North British Railway Company (1918, 2 S. L. T. 258), ever heard of the familiar lines of Shenstone, quoted on one occasion by Dr. Johnson with considerable emotion, wherein he tells us that the traveler "May sigh to think he still has found the warmest welcome at an inn," he must have ruefully reflected that a poet's dictum is not always to be taken au pied de la lettre. In his own case the plaintiff's welcome at the palatial hotel in Edinburgh owned by the defendant railway company had been anything but warm; indeed, he had been refused accommodation altogether, hence the action, apparently the first of its kind in Scotland, for, although the law had been generally taken as in accordance with that obtaining in England on the subject, it has never been expressly decided to be so. The judgment of Lord Anderson is interesting and instructive inasmuch as it lays down in a series of propositions what the obligations of an innkeeper are vis-a-vis travelers. The facts of the case were very simple. The plaintiff had been in the habit of using the defendants' hotel for some considerable time, when, without explanation, he was informed that he would no longer be received as a guest. In the litigation which followed it appeared that the defendants had objected to him on the ground that he was a Jew and a moneylender and, as they thought, erroneously as it turned out, of alien birth. No objection had, however, been made by any fellow guests to his presence at the hotel nor was there any suggestion that the plaintiff's conduct at the hotel was other than irreproachable. In this state

of facts the questions for decision were (1) whether it is within the competence of an innkeeper to refuse accommodation to a traveler when accommodation is available at his house, and (2) whether the defendants' hotel was an "inn" to which the obligations of an innkeeper attached. Lord Anderson had no difficulty in negativing the first question, and in answering the second in the affirmative. In his judgment he laid it down that an innkeeper is bound to receive as a guest any member of the traveling public, provided there is accommodation in the house, and provided the guest is willing to pay the ordinary tariff charges, and provided also that no reasonable objection can be taken to the guest. With regard to the point whether the defendants' hotel was an inn so as to impose on the defendants the foregoing obligations, the judge said that he was unable to subscribe to the opinion of Lord Esher, M.R., in Lamond v. Richard (76 L. T. Rep. 141; (1897) 1 Q. B. 541), where he said that "it is open to argument that the large London hotels do not hold themselves out as receiving customers according to the custom of England," and that in any view he had no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that the railway company impliedly invited travelers to come to their hotel. While for the student of English law there is nothing novel in the decision, it is useful as a reminder that the innkeepers are the servants of the public, and, further, as enunciating the extent of their obligations.

Obiter Dicta

ONLY IN IOWA.-Farmer v. Thrift, 94 Iowa 374.

"KINDLY OMIT FLOWERS."-Santiago v. Roses, 242 Fed. 209. "HE THAT IS WITHOUT SIN," ETC.-Stone v. Scripture, 4 Lans. (N. Y.) 186.

WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT, ETC.-German-American Sav. Bank v. Fritz, 68 Wis. 390.

PERMITTED TO KEEP IT.-State v. Keep, 85 Oregon 265, was an unsuccessful prosecution of the defendant for obtaining money by false pretenses.

A JUDICIAL GETHSEMANE.-"Because of the burdened condition of this court we feel justified in asking counsel to let this cup pass."-Per Thomas, J., in Easum v. Bohun, 180 Ky. 451.

PROFANITY EXCEPTED.-"The game of golf .. has never been known to affect in any injurious way the public health, order, safety or morals."-Per Cartwright, J., in Condon v. Forest Park, 278 Ill. 224.

NERVY!-In State ex rel. Gall v. Barnes, 136 Minn. 438, the relator tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to worm his way into the office of "imperial vice good samaritan" after being defeated as a candidate therefor.

NOT QUICK ENOUGH.-In Quick v. Indianapolis, etc., R. Co., 130 Ill. 334, it appeared that the injuries for which the plaintiff sued were sustained while he was working under a railroad car which moved before he was able to crawl out.

A CARRIER OF FREIGHT.-It was held in Hochspeier v. Industrial Board, 278 Ill. 523, that an undertaker who lets his vehicles to another undertaker for use at funerals is not a carrier of passengers. Of course not. Every one knows that an undertaker charges for carriage according to dead weight.

NOTHING TO ADMINISTER.-In Blackburn's Estate, 20 Pa. Dist. 955, a case arising on exceptions to an appraisement to the widow of the decedent, the court unwittingly disposed of the whole controversy by remarking as follows: "The Act of April 1, 1909, P. L. 87, was too late to help Cornelia L. Blackburn. The estate of Joseph R. Blackburn had passed away before it came."

FAILURE OF JUSTICE.-In two criminal cases in a recent volume of Minnesota Reports, the defendants seem to have lost out through the failure of their counsel to raise perfectly proper objections. In State v. Minor, 137 Minn. 254, the defense of infancy was not interposed, while in State v. Maddaus, 137 Minn. 249, not only was there no plea of insanity, but the defendant was actually convicted, without objection, of grand larceny in stealing a Ford automobile.

EASIER SAID THAN DONE.-At a bar quiz held in the District of Columbia not long ago, the examiner was testing the knowledge of the students respecting the formalities attendant on the execution of instruments by husband and wife. As bearing on the question of the necessity of a separate acknowledgment by the wife, the examiner put this question to one of the class: "What would have to be done with the wife in such a case?" The answer came promptly: "Take her apart and examine her."

LIKE UNTO CERTAIN MODERN REFORMERS.-In Ross v. Moskowitz (Tex.) 95 S. W. 86, the court remarked rather petulantly of the defendant that he was "a kind of go-between those who hath property to sell, and those who hath money to buy, whose business makes one as industrious in bringing about a trade between others as Ramsey Sniffle was in pulling off a fight to which he was never a party-whose own business is the business of other men, which makes him know more about what one man should do with his property and another with his money than the man himself."

AN ANTE-BELLUM ERROR.-We wonder what the learned judge who penned the following lines in 1912 would say if he were called on to discuss a similar situation to-day: "One hardly can imagine a condition more intolerable than that of plaintiff. She was in a state of peonage, a mere drudge, and not a wife. There was no reason for such treatment and the suggestion that it was prompted by the instinct of thrift and economy common to Germans is little less than a slander of that great race. Civilized men do not so treat their wives."-Per Johnson, J., in Rapp. v. Rapp, 162 Mo. App. 677.

TAKE WARNING!-Just as a word of caution to those legislators who have been so cowardly (?) as to desire to refer to the common people for determination such unimportant questions as universal prohibition and the like, we quote the following extract from the dissenting opinion (note that it was dissenting) of Davidson, J., in Ex Parte Mode, 77 Tex. Crim. 477, a case involving the validity of a local option statute: "Any legislative Act which seeks to authorize the suspension of a general law is evasive of public duty and responsibility and the trust confided to the legislative body. It is void and of no effect. And it has occurred to me that such proposition can only be found in and based upon fear of public opinion. Afraid of responsibility in discharge of trusted duty and criticism that might follow, the Legislature says to the people: 'We will refer this question to you. You elected us and we represent you. In this matter we will submit the law directly to you and if you are in favor of it you may pass it. If, however, you are opposed to it you will reject it. In any event you cannot blame

us.'

This quotation does not manifest decided evidence of Spartan courage. Such line of conduct and such shirking of duty on the burning ship would not have transmitted to history the heroic tragedy of Cassibianca, nor would the history of the stoic bravery of the Roman soldier have illumined the pages of the 'Last Days of Pompeii.' It may be the voice of Jacob, but it is the hand of Esau who gave away his birthright or bartered it for the 'mess of pottage."

WHO ARE THE HASSYS?-A few weeks ago, a petition for a charter for the "Young Hassy Association" was presented to the Common Pleas Court of Luzerne County, at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The petition was denied by President Judge H. A. Fuller, for the reasons set forth in the following amusing opinion:

"The name of the proposed corporation not being self explanatory, is defined in the application for charter as follows: 'Young Hassy Association, which means the young members of the Hassy family.'

"The stated purpose is to provide for the relief, support and burial of members.

"No person named 'Hassy' is connected with the application by the praenomen, nomen, or cognomen of any signer, subscriber, affiant, officer, trustee, director or attorney. No person by that name is employed by the attorneys who prepared the document, by the prothonotary who filed the same, or by the newspapers who advertised it.

"The name does not appear in the city directory, nor in the telephone book, nor in 'Who's Who,' nor in the Bible, nor even in the Book of Numbers, which, for the first time in forty years, we have carefully perused in our investigation.

"It is not to be found among any family of plants enumerated in any book of botany, nor among any family of animals enumerated in any book of zoology, ornithology, ichthyology or anthropology including the enrollment of Elks, Eagles, Moose or Owls. It does not appear in the membership of the Chamber of Commerce, nor of the city council, nor of the police force, nor of the grand jury.

"The name does not convey by its orthography, etymology or pronunciation, by sight or by sound, to the ordinary judicial intelligence, the slightest suggestion of a Hassy's nature, habits, habitat, origin, or ultimate destiny.

"We might infer from the stated purpose aforesaid, that a Hassy stands in need of support and burial, but, as the same might be true of any creature, we are unable to deduce from that clue the certain influence of human beings who alone may lawfully be incorporated; and furthermore, it is so singular as to be suspicious, that only the young Hassy's, who would apparently stand in least need of burial, are seeking incorporation, an unfilial exclusion of old Hassy's who might need it most and whose interment is thus left to dangerous conjecture.

"In these days of camouflage, a solemn duty rests upon the judicial conscience, to be fully advised in respect to the nature and possible consequence of every judicial act; and for this reason, before signing this decree, we will permit ourselves to be enlightened by the attorneys at any time, at their convenience."

"The common law is a product of more vigor than refinement. It encourages independence and self-reliance. The development of equity has made modifications in its crude vigor; but equity, as administered in the courts, is the output of the same peoples who made the common law, and its principles have not yet reached the lofty ideals of early Christianity, nor even the refined justice of the civil law."-Per Batts, J., in Peeples v. Georgia Iron, etc., Co., 248 Fed. 891.

Correspondence

THE GUILT OF THE KAISER.

To the Editor of LAW NOTES.

SIR: I am writing to thank you for the letter in the January number by Otto Erickson relating to the guilt of the kaiser. T. J. NORTON.

Chicago, Ill.

CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS.

To the Editor of LAW NOTES.

SIR: I always read the editorials in Law NOTES with interest and pleasure, and I do not know that the latest number is any better in this respect than the average, but you have expressed one truth so concisely that I am impelled to write and offer my congratulations. You say that "degeneracy is almost as often manifested in immoderate antipathy as in immoderate addiction." I think this is a true statement, for in both types there is a lack of equilibrium, and the difference is often casual.

I like also your belief that the lawyer should help to preserve the balance between warring classes of society. Psychopathology has a say about Bolshevikism also. But I incline to hold that class consciousness is not in itself to be deplored. It is rather an unescapable fact, and while it is dangerous in a primitive society composed of only two classes, those who have too much and those who have too little, in a complex society, comprising numerous classes and interests, it may be quite wholesome in preserving a balance of an unstable kind which permits of progress-progress by slow degrees, making good its gains as it goes along. For instance we have read in the past week that Bolsheviks somewhere have declared war on organized labor as an insufferable class which is getting more than it deserves. There is safety in diversity of classes and interests. This is the theory, as I understand it, of proportional representation. Every class and interest must make its appeal to the sense of justice of all the others.

But this brings us back to the danger from the really unbalanced, and as to this scientific studies are helping to explain them.

Chicago, Ill.

HERBERT HARLEY.

"Since perfect equality is impracticable, there is no doubt that the legislature may exercise a reasonable discretion in selecting the method of securing practical equality."-Per Sedgwick, J., in State v. Moorhead, 99 Neb. 538.

DELAWARE CHARTERS

IMPORTANT AMENDMENTS
TO THE DELAWARE LAW (March 20, 1917).
STOCK WITHOUT PAR VALUE
The most modern and scientific method of cor-
porate organization. Write for full particulars of
this and other important amendments.
REVISED DIGEST (5th Ed.) free to lawyers on request
CORPORATIONS ORGANIZED AND REGISTERED.
LAW AND FORM 8 FREE.

Corporation Company of Delaware

604 EQUITABLE BUILDING, WILMINGTON, DEL.