I have said that I look for a federation of all the Englishspeaking peoples. When and how this will be brought about is more than I can venture to surmise. But of this I am confident, that such a federation would prove to be the most potent instrument ever yet contrived for promoting the peace, liberty, and order of the world. With a population already of nearly fifty millions, and swelling rapidly to more than a hundred millions, in these States, with thirty to forty millions in the British Isles, with the Canadian possessions of the English facing the Arctic, and their African and Australasian possessions facing the Antarctic; with their sway over swarming India, and their monopoly of islands all over the globe—what might not these nations, states, and provinces, if united by a bond strong enough to keep the peace between them, and withal so light as to leave them, in everything else, freedom of action; what, I say, might not these powers, with their AngloSaxon hardihood, accomplish for the good of the race? Peace, inward peace," the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," is the daily prayer of the Christian believer; and peace among the nations prophesied from of old, and so long waited for, will be, as I hope and devoutly trust, the outcome of the thought and toil of this and the incoming ages.

Turning now, in closing, to the class which is to leave us to-morrow, let me say, on behalf of my own class, that, while we have seen more than any of our predecessors, we trust that you will see more than even we have seen. There have been ages in which the world seemed to make no progress; there have been others when a century has been crowded into a decade. Our half-century has made a stride greater than any ever made before in the same number of years. If the marvelous changes which it has witnessed were to be undone; if by a sudden stroke of fate all the political and material progress we have witnessed, and all the contemporaneous discoveries in science and in art, were blotted out from the knowledge of man, we should feel the stroke as if the sun were stricken from the sky.

When you come here in 1925 to celebrate your semi-centennial, though you will find the face of the earth and the nature of man the same, I devoutly trust that you will see the

world more advanced from to-day than we see it advanced from the day of our graduation; that you will see it started on an assured career of peace; that you will see all those arts multiplied which minister to the comforts of man; that you will be able to welcome the class of that day on its entrance into the world with warnings less pronounced and words more hopeful than those with which we now welcome you, and, better than all, that you will see the nations everywhere assenting to the great fundamental truths which are the foundations of all hope and the guarantees of all prosperity-the fatherhood of God, and the brotherhood of man.

21

JUDGE DAVIS AND HIS CONTEMPT

PROCEEDINGS.

To the Editor of the Albany Law Journal:

SIR: From the moment when I heard, as I did abroad, of the action of Mr. Justice Noah Davis, with respect to the alleged contempt of his authority by counsel in the Tweed case, I determined to take some public notice of it, as soon as a suitable opportunity presented itself. On my return to this country I found the principal case still pending, which, in my view, made it improper then publicly to discuss the subject. The decision of the Court of Appeals, in the month of June last, has removed that impediment, and I am now enabled to say what I would have said earlier.*

*William M. Tweed was tried in the Oyer and Terminer of New York, held by Mr. Justice Noah Davis, upon an indictment containing two hundred and twenty counts, each charging him with misdemeanor in neglecting his duty as one of a board of auditors of claims against the county of New York. He was found guilty upon two hundred and four of the counts. Upon twelve of them the court sentenced him to twelve successive terms of imprisonment of one year each, and to fines of two hundred and fifty dollars each; and upon other counts to additional fines, amounting in all to twelve thousand five hundred dollars.

The maximum punishment prescribed by the statute for misdemeanor was one year's imprisonment and a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars.

The Court of Appeals in June, 1875, decided unanimously that all these sentences, except to one year's imprisonment and one fine of two hundred and fifty dollars, were illegal.

Two opinions were delivered, one by Mr. Justice Allen, and the other by Mr. Justice Rapallo. In the former are these observations: "I have thus, and at greater length than would ordinarily be deemed necessary, referred to the several cases cited from our own reports, and it will be seen that no warrant can be found in any of them, or in any remark, casual or otherwise, by any judge, for cumulative punishments upon a conviction of several offenses charged in a single indictment, the aggregate punishment exceeding that prescribed by law, for the grade of offenses charged." Again: "A greater public wrong would be committed, one more lasting in its injurious effects, and dangerous to civil liberty and the sacredness of the law, by punishing a man against and without law, but under color of law and a judicial proceeding, than can result from the escape of the greatest offend

It gives me no pleasure to enter upon the discussion, but I do it as a matter of duty. If the judge was right, the profession and the public who are or may be suitors and clients, should know it, that they may govern themselves accordingly; if he was wrong, that also should be known, that his conduct may not be drawn into precedent, or repeated.

Though the conduct of judges is never above criticism, yet the nature of their functions makes the criticism of doubtful propriety, so long as an appeal to a higher court is possible; and even when that is exhausted, animadversion should be guarded, because, of all magistrates, the judge is least able to defend himself. He is, by the nature of his office, prohibited, except in the most extreme cases, from entering into a defense of his decisions.

But this general rule, like most general rules, has its exceptions. Publicity is allowed and required, because without it judges might become tyrannical and corrupt; but publicity, without the right of criticism, would be a mockery. A judge may so demean himself as to require animadversion. Impeachment is an extreme remedy and seldom resorted to, except when political considerations intervene.

If I use great plainness of speech, thinking that the subject and the times demand it, I hope not to overstep the limits of a just moderation. I have always thought, and I think still,

er, or the commission of the highest individual crimes against law. Neither the cause of justice nor of true reform can be advanced by illegal and void acts, or doubtful experiments by courts of justice, in any form, or to any extent. From some expressions of judges, and the remarks of text-writers, there was some color for the idea that several distinct offenses could be tried at the same time. But there was no real or true warrant in this State for several and distinct judgments upon a single indictment in the law."

In the opinion of Mr. Justice Rapallo the following occurs: "The generally accepted and recognized principle is, that a man shall be tried for only one crime at a time, and convicted only upon evidence of the commission of that crime, and not upon proof of other crimes which show him to be a fit subject for punishment. If it were proposed at a Court of Sessions or Oyer and Terminer, at which a prisoner was arraigned for trial upon fifty separate indictments for as many different offenses, to try all the indictments at the same time and before the same jury, the common sense of every layman, as well as lawyer, would revolt at the proposition; and yet it is claimed that the same result can be accomplished, in case of misdemeanors, by uniting all the charges in the same indictment. The evils are the same in both cases."

that the utmost courtesy is due from the bar to the bench, and, I may add, from the bench to the bar. The two must stand or fall together. It would pain me to think that anything I had said or done tended to impair the respect due to judicial authority. Not that I can pretend to respect all judges alike; I should be a hypocrite if I did. But, whoever sits in the seat of justice, should be there treated with the respect due to his place, if not to himself. He represents the sovereign authority, and it is before that I would bow, though I might dislike the person who for the time being represented it.

There are those who think that we are all the while going from bad to worse, and that under our system of electing judges by popular vote and selecting them by conventions packed with politicians and brawlers, the nominal judges will soon have the manners of prize-fighters and the learning of constables, while the real judges will be the newspapers, with a mob as assessors; but I am not of that opinion, though the signs of late are not encouraging. I think that the instinct of self-preservation and the love of freedom will yet arouse the people to a sense of the false security in which they lie dreaming. I am certain that-thanks to a favoring Providence overruling adverse circumstances-we have many judges who would illustrate any bench; that they who sit in the Court of Appeals, and a majority of those who sit in the Supreme Court, are above all suspicion, and worthy of all praise; true gentlemen, learned lawyers, and incorruptible magistrates; who would scorn dictation as they would scorn a bribe; who care nothing for arguments in the newspapers but much for arguments at the bar; and who bear with them an ever-present sense that they are trustees of God's great gift of justice, and judges of the law, upon their consciences and their oaths.

I will now gather together the essential facts of the episode in the Tweed trial out of which came the imputation of contempt. My objects are to give a true history of the occurrences, and to enter my protest against the action of the judge. The importance of the incident goes far beyond the counsel or the judge, for, as I have intimated, it concerns the relations of the bench to the bar, and of the bar to the whole community;