Another amendment makes trading in obscene literature or pictures, or making or exhibiting them, a misdemeanor.

An act in relation to the rights and liabilities of married women provides, that a married woman may contract to the same extent, with like effect, and in the same form as if unmarried, and she and her separate estate shall be liable thereon, whether such contract relates to her separate business or estate or otherwise-and in no case shall a charge upon her separate estate be necessary-but the act shall not affect or apply to any contract that shall be made between husband and wife.

This law would seem to demolish the last vestige of the old common law respecting husband and wife-baron and feme, feme sole and feme covert pass off into the land of quaint and obsolete tradition. Whether the institution called "home" is not to go too, there being no longer any "baron," and the "feme" being so much of a business partner, is perhaps one of the questions of the future.

But "verily we are the people, and wisdom will die with us!"

There is an admirable act (chap. 439) "for the better protection of life and property upon the railroads of this state," entitled an "act to promote the safer and better management of steam railroads," requiring safety switches, warning signals at every bridge crossing tracks, so as to protect employés; flagmen or gates wherever directed by the Supreme or County Court; automatic couplers; the stoppage of locomotives, whose tracks cross each other, before proceeding; automatic air brakes or other form of safety power brakes; and that all passenger cars shall carry an axe, sledgehammer, crow-bar, and hand-saw. And there is an additional section requiring baggage-masters or other persons whose duty it is to handle and remove baggage, to do so carefully, providing, that if they wilfully or recklessly injure

or destroy any trunk, valise, box, bag, package, or parcel, while loading, unloading, transporting, delivering, or storing the same, or if any railroad company shall knowingly keep in its employment any such wilful or reckless fellow, there shall be a penalty of $50, one-half to be paid to the complainant. Blessings on the projector of this law. There is hope for the traveler yet!

One more act deserves especial notice. It provides that all telegraph, telephonic, and electric light wires and cables, used in any incorporated city in the state having a population of 500,000 or over, shall hereafter be placed under the surface of the streets, lanes, and avenues of said city; that every corporation or person owning or controlling such wires and cables, including what is known as telegraph poles, and other appurtenances thereto, shall, before November 1, 1885, have the same removed from the surface of such city; and if they do not, the local governments are bidden to do it for them. It further forbids any city to grant any exclusive privilege or franchise under the act.

Verily this is a step in advance! The forest of ugly poles, and the network of innumerable wires, which meet us at every turn, are to disappear! Well done! New York! Now go a little further. Make the law applicable everywhere, and not only to cities having five hundred thousand people. Let it be the law of the whole state-let it be followed throughout the Union-and by-and-by let us hope to see another law also everywhere operative, which shall forbid · any railroad crossing a street, or ordinary travel-road, upon the level, and so rid us of that great nuisance under which the whole land groans. The broken limbs and the lives annually sacrificed through this cause, are dreadfully numerous. Why has not the time come for this blood to cry from the ground, and persuade us to adopt what all Europe has from the beginning established as the rule!

The New Jersey Legislature began its session January 8th, and it ended, to the gratification of all concerned, about April 15th. It is hard to say whether any of its acts are "noteworthy," beyond the limits of the state itself. I mention such as seem most so. An act was passed providing that the receipt in writing for money paid to any executor, administrator with the will annexed, or trustee in the exercise of a trust or power, shall be a full discharge, and that the payer shall not need to see to the application of the payments made.

Another, abolished and made penal the contracting for the labor of inmates of the state prison.

The effect of this "change" will not soon be seen, as existing contracts have yet some time to run. But whether it be financially, or otherwise expedient, is a matter of some doubt. Prison discipline requires labor. Sentences impose hard labor, which is the legal synonym for incarceration in the state prison. How well the state itself can manage as a manufacturing and mercantile corporation, remains to be

seen.

A later act directs how the inmates of state prisons are to be employed. They are to be "employed, as far as practicable, in the judgment of managers, at work upon goods used in such institutions as are under state control, and all prisoners or persons not employed for said purpose shall be employed on what is commonly known as the 'piece-price plan,' as the managing authorities of such prison may be able to arrange for with parties desiring such labor, or they shall be employed under what is known as the 'public account system."" How "arranging with parties desiring such labor" is to be distinguished from contracting for labor, will be for some learned judge some day to find out.

Another act regulates lettings in cases where no definite. term is fixed, and the rent is payable monthly. I hardly

think it can be thought to have been skilfully drawn. It provides that "in any letting where no term is agreed upon, and the rent is payable monthly, so long as the tenant pays the rent as agreed, it shall be unlawful for the landlord to dispossess the tenant, before the first day of April succeeding the commencement of such letting, without giving the tenant three months notice in writing to quit; provided, however, that in case such tenant shall be so disorderly as to destroy the peace and quiet of the other tenants living in said house, or the neighborhood, or shall wilfully destroy, damage, or injure the premises, or shall constantly violate the said landlord's rules and regulations governing said premises, in any such case the said landlord may pursue any of the remedies now provided by law for the removal or punishment of said tenant, this law to the contrary notwithstanding.”

When it

This statute has not yet come before the courts. does, the meaning of the proviso may be a question. When is a tenant so disorderly as to destroy the peace and quiet of his co-tenants or the neighborhood? And what is the neighborhood? And when does a tenant "constantly violate the landlord's rules and regulations"? But we suppose the answer to all this will be the same so delightfully frequent, "All that is for the jury!"

The rights of woman were enlarged by another of New Jersey's laws at the last session. She was made by it eligible to be a Commissioner of Deeds for New Jersey, resident in another state. And it has been stated that at least one woman has since been appointed.

The rock wears away under successive waves. But why cannot woman, and the self-asserting friends of her rights, see, that to her, nature has given an influence, through which she wields a power far greater than any which can grow out of legal authority-an influence which diminishes just in proportion as the sex acquires legal power. And, as

to this particular case, what was the necessity for extending to her the sublime duty of taking the acknowledgement of a deed? Perhaps a more praiseworthy effort to ameliorate the condition of, the sex is another enactment, to wit: that female employés in any manufacturing, mechanical, or mercantile establishment in the state, shall be provided with suitable seats, and permitted to use them when possible. This, under a penalty of twenty-five dollars for any violation of the rule.

There was rather a large proportion of unmarried gentlemen of the Bar, I believe, in New Jersey's last legislature. But this is not a bad law. I wish, though, that somehow, it might be unnecessary. It has already seemed to me deplorable that women should be employed in factories. Yet it is, perhaps, among the necessities of advanced civilization.

An act supplementary to that respecting idiots and lunatics seems to be taken from the Lunacy Regulation Act, 16 & 17 Victoria, c. 70, s. 123, (which itself, I suppose, was mainly declaratory) making continuing lunacy a ground for a dissolution of partnership by decree in chancery.

The chief achievement of the last legislature of New Jersey was the change of the law regulating the taxation of corporations, and especially of railroad corporations.

It is not, perhaps, generally known, that among the earliest railroads in the country, were some of those in New Jersey. They were experiments, and their promoters entered upon their construction with fear and trembling. The citizens of the state were proportionately anxious for their success, and were yet desirous that they should properly contribute to the state support. The first of these corporations was that for building the Camden and Amboy Railroad, and for the reasons given, its charter contained a provision, that it should pay to the state an annual tax equal to ten cents upon each passenger, and fifteen cents upon each ton of