this same statute the mother could sue for the wrongful killing of her bastard child, when a minor and unmarried, and that without joining the father of the child as a plaintiff. This decision is rested expressly on the ground that by the statutes of Missouri the want of inheritable blood is removed, on the mother's side; and this incapacity being removed so far as she is concerned, there seems to be no good reason why a statute which speaks of parents and children should not apply to a mother and her illegitimate child, unless there is something to show that that application was not intended. Divorce, Laws Although the Supreme Court of South Carolina, as at present constituted, is unreliable on questions of purely local interest, such as the Dispensary and Registration Conflict of laws, it nevertheless displays a great deal of acumen on matters of general jurisprudence. It is almost the only court that has refused to be misled by the specious arguments and daring assumptions of the would-be authorities who would have us believe that the marriage state is an eleventh incorporeal hereditament, which escaped the argus eyes of Mr. Blackstone, to be discovered by the microscopic search of Messrs. Bishop, Black and Freeman, who, like the Athenians, are always eager to hear, or to tell, some new thing, as becomes the writers of successful books. In McCreery v. Davis, 22 S. E. Rep. 178, the court aforesaid, in a long and able opinion by Judge Pope, discusses the whole question, and arrives at these conclusions; (1.) That marriage is a civil contract, and not a res or status; (2.) That the common law doctrine of divorce prevails in South Carolina ; and (3.) That when a citizen of South Carolina, married in New York to a citizen of that state, resided with his wife in South Carolina, until she left him and went to Illinois, where she obtained a divorce according to the laws of Illinois, without personal service on or appearance of her husband, on a ground of divorce not recognized as cause for divorce in New York or South Carolina, the Illinois judgment is void in South Carolina; for Art. IV, § 1, of the United States constitution, which provides that full faith and credit shall be given in each state to the judicial proceedings of every other state, and the act of Congress, (1 Rev. Stat. U. S. $ 905.) which provides that records and proceedings thereof, properly authenticated, shall have such faith and credit given them in every court of the United States as they have in the state whence they may be taken, do not prevent an inquiry into the jurisdiction of the court which renders the judgment. We may be pardoned for quoting a portion of the argument by which Judge POPE assails, and shatters, the position of those who would hold that marriage creates a status between the parties, which, like greenbacks, may be converted into a res for the purposes of social economy. Is it not an assumption coined in order to give a plausible basis to the solution of an otherwise untenable position? Is it not by this means that they hope to give currency to an otherwise baffled policy, namely, to so construct a plan that thereby they may successfully invoke that portion of the federal constitution relating to the effect to be given by al: the states to the acts and judgments of one state, and thus force all other states to give effect to judgments for absolute divorces? If marriage were still esteemed a civil contract, they could not hope to escape the defect of jurisdiction hereafter discussed. But by coining this new term ⚫ status, and ascribing the efficacy of 'res' to it, under * certain principles hereafter to be referred to, it is deemed by them that the difficulty has been overcome." In short, there is no legal authority for making the condition of marriage a "status," or for investing that condition with the properties of an incorporeal hereditament, which a “res" must be, if it is anything not tangible; but such is an assumption pure and simple, designed for the easy gratification of the lust of the flesh, and the emolument of those courts which serve other states in the matter of divorce as in marriage affairs Camden once served Pennsylvania, and Gretna Green England. That is, it is an utterly illegal assumption, without a shadow of excuse, except that of the evil it produces. This is also the law of New York, where it is held that the marriage relation is not a res within the state of the party invoking the jurisdiction of a court to dissolve it, so as to authorize the court to bind an absent party, a citizen of another state, by substituted service or actual notice given without the jurisdiction of the court where the action is pending; and that therefore a judgment of divorce rendered in another state against a resident of New York, when there has been no personal service of process within the state rendering it, and no personal appearance by the defendant in the action, is void in New York: Williams v. Williams, 130 N. Y. 193; S. C., 29 N. E. Rep. 98; Davis v. Davis, 22 N. Y. Suppl. 191; S. C., 2 Misc. Rep. 549; and in Pennsylvania, where the same rule obtains: Lewis v. Lewis, 6 Kulp (Pa.) 429; Commonwealth v. Steiger, 12 Pa. C. C. 334; S. C., 2 D. R. (Pa.) 493; Commonwealth v. Shuler, 2 D. R. (Pa.) 552. It is still the rule in England: Green v. Green, [1893] Prob. 89. Duress, Mortgage In the opinion of the Supreme Court of Nebraska, a mortgage given to secure a debt will not be set aside as procured by duress, on the ground that it was given to obtain a dismissal of criminal proceedings instituted by the creditor against the mortgagor, when the mortgage was given without threats or promises having been made to the mortgagor, and after a statement by the creditor's agent that no promise could be made, but, on the contrary, that the prosecution would have to take its course: Hargreaves v. Menken, 63 N. W. Rep. 951. See I AM. L. REG. & REV. (N. S.) 885. Elections, In Hanscom v. State, 31 S. W. Rep. 547, the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas has been called upon to pass upon some of the apparently endless series of disputes as to the validity of ballots under the Australian Ballot Laws. The Revised Statutes of that state, Art. 1694, provide that “All ballots shall be written or printed on plain white paper, without any picture, sign, vignette, device or stamp mark, except the writing or printing in black ink or black pencil of the names of the candidates and the several offices to be filled, and except the name of the political party whose candidates are on the ticket;" and this was held not to require the rejection of a ballot on which the voter has written his name, nor one on which the election officers have indorsed their initials, nor those on which the names of candidates not voted for are stricken out with a pencil, or on which certain letters or figures are written, or on which the same number is written twice. Assisting The act of Texas of April 12, 1892, p. 18, §§ 26 & 27, provides as follows: "Sec. 26. Not more than one person shall at one time be permitted to occupy any one compartment or place provided for electors to prepare their ballots, except when an elector is unable to prepare his ballot he may [be] accompanied by the two judges to assist him, and no person shall remain in or occupy such compartment longer than may be necessary to prepare his baliot. "Sec. 27. Any elector who declares to the presiding officer that he cannot read or write, or that by blindness or other physical disability he is unable to prepare his ballot, shall upon request receive the assistance of two of the judges in the preparation thereof." Under these sections it was held, in the case cited above, (1.) That the fact that such voters are assisted in preparing their ballots by one judge only is no ground for rejecting the ballots, in the absence of fraud, as the statute does not provide for their rejection; (2.) That the fact that a judge of election, who, before his appointment, received money from a candidate, and advocated his cause at the polls, prepared the ballot for a voter in the interest of that candidate, does not invalidate it; and (3.) That when a voter who can read, intending to vote for one person, directs a judge of election to prepare a ballot according to a “guide" given to the judge by the voter, the fact that the vote is afterwards found to be for another will not cause its rejection for fraud, if it does not appear whether it was due to the design of the judge, or to a mistake in the "guide." for Gas According to the Supreme Court of Missouri, the grant to an illuminating company of the right to make and distribute gas, and any substance that might thereafter be Electric Light, Substitution used as a substitute therefor, and to lay down any fixtures required therefor, having been made when electric lighting was unknown, does not include the right to adopt any method for distributing electricity for lighting, but that right must be exercised according to the regulations prescribed by law; and, when the power to regulate the use of the streets has been delegated to a municipality before the company adopted electricity for lighting purposes, it must conform to the regulations prescribed by the municipal authorities: State v. Murphy, 31 S. W. Rep. 594. Equity. Pleading. ness In a recent case in the Supreme Court of Alabama, Smith v. Smith, 17 So. Rep. 680, a mortgage had been given by a partnership to the sureties on an administrator's bond, as security for a loan made by the adminisMultifarious trator to the firm, and also for the benefit of the heirs. A bill to foreclose the said mortgage, in which the heirs were complainants, and the administrator and his sureties, the firm, the attaching creditors of the firm, and the sheriff, were respondents, alleged that the creditors, proceeding separately, attached the mortgaged property; that part thereof was sold by the sheriff, and the proceeds appropriated by the creditors; and that the sheriff sold a mortgaged lot, and gave a conveyance thereof. The bill prayed for foreclosure, that the administrator account, that the administration be removed into the chancery court, and that the sheriff's deed be canceled. This was held not to be multifarious, nor bad on account of a misjoinder of parties defendant. The Circuit Court for the District of West Virginia has also lately ruled, in Ulman v. Jaeger, 67 Fed. Rep. 980, that in a bill and cross-bill for partition between tenants in common of a tract of land, it is proper to join as defendants numerous purchasers of a part of the land at a tax sale, for the purpose of canceling their deeds, on the ground that the tax proceed |