OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, JR., MASSACHU

SETTS.

(1841-)

Born in Boston, March 8, 1841.

Attended Mr.

T. R. Sullivan's, afterward Mr. E. S. Dixwell's, school. Enlisted, April, 1861, in the service of his country, becoming First Lieutenant, Company A, Twentieth Massachusetts. He was severely wounded at Ball's Bluff, at Antietam, and at the second battle of Fredericksburg. Was commissioned, July 5, 1863, Lieutenant Colonel, but on account of the reduced condition of the regiment, was not mustered in. Returning from military service, he entered Harvard Law School, and received his LL. B. in 1866. ing the summer of 1866 in Europe, he returned and entered the office of Chandler, Shattuck and Thayer. Was admitted to the Suffolk bar, 1867, and subsequently as a practitioner in the United States Supreme Court. He practiced law first in partnership with his brother, and later in the firm of Shattuck, Holmes and Munroe. He taught constitutional law in Harvard, 1870-1, was university lecturer on juris

Spend

prudence, 1871-2, and appointed, 1882, to a new professorship, but barely entered upon his duties, when (December 8) Governor Long appointed him Associ ate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. He is a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and was a fellow of the American Academy. He received the degree of LL.D. from Yale in 1886, the same year in which his father, the poet, was receiving his from Oxford.

He is a thorough scholar, and one of the ablest and most philosophical of American jurists, his decisions being terse, but comprehensive, and his legal works taking high rank. He published, 1873, the twelfth edition of Kent's Commentaries, with elaborate notes; had editorial charge, 1870-3, of the American Law Review; published, 1881, "The Common Law." He is also the author of many articles and monographs on the law, notably "Early English Equity," "Ultra Vires," "Misunderstandings of the Civil Law" and "Primitive Notions in Modern Law."

A Receiver.

"A receiver is a gun that is a good deal easier to fire off than it is to control after it is fired." (1892)— In answer to an attorney who applied for a receiver.

His Work on the Common Law.

His work on "The Common Law" has been translated into Italian, and has been characterized by the London Spectator as "the most original work of legal speculation which has appeared in English since the publication of Sir Henry Maine's 'Ancient Law.""

The Law Inconsistent Because Growing.

"The law is always approaching and never reaching, consistency. It is forever adopting new principles from life at one end, and it always retains old ones from history at the other, which have not yet been absorbed or sloughed off. It will become entirely consistent only when it ceases to grow."—"The Common Law," p. 36.

Force Is at the Bottom of All Private Relations and

the State.

"It seems to me clear that the ultima ratio, not only regum, but of private persons, is force, and at the bottom of all private relations, however tempered by sympathy and all the social feelings, is a justifiable self-preference. If a man is on a plank in the deep sea, which will only float one, and a stranger

lays hold of it, he will thrust him off if he can.

When

the state finds itself in a similar position, it does the same thing."-Idem, p. 44.

Employe Must Labor Before Payment, by Custom.

Suppose A promises B to do a day's work for two dollars, and B promises A to pay two dollars for a day's work. There the two promises cannot be performed at the same time. The work will take all day, the payment half a minute. How are you to de

cide which is to be done first-that is to say, which promise is dependent upon performance on the other side? It is only by reference to the habits of the community and to convenience. It is not enough to say that on the principle of equivalency a man is not presumed to pay for a thing until he has it. The work is payment for the money as much as money for the work, and one must be paid for in advance. The question is, why, if one man is not presumed to intend to pay money until he has money's worth, the other is presumed to intend to give money's worth before he has money. The answer cannot be obtained from any general theory.

The fact that em

ployers, as a class, can be trusted for wages more safely than the employed for their labor, that the employers have had the power and have been the lawmakers, or other considerations, it matters not what, have determined that the work is to be done first."Holmes' "Common Law," pp. 337-8.

SIR JOHN HOLT, ENGLAND.

(1642-1710).

Twenty-two years Chief Justice of England, and of all judges gained the highest reputation by the exercise of judicial functions, purely. Born at Thame, Oxfordshire, December 30, 1642, died in Suffolk, March 5, 1710, aged sixty-seven. Was educated at Oxford, but left without degree; admitted a member of Gray's Inn at ten; called to the bar at twenty-one, and rose to eminence as an advocate.

Defended Earl of Danby, Lords Powis and Arundel for impeachment. Appeared for the Crown in the Popish Plot cases, and the Crown v. Slingsley Bethel, for assault; defended Lord Russell for complicity in the Rye House Plot; was for plaintiff in East India Company v. Sandys, for trade infringement, and defended in Earl Macclesfield v. Starkey. Appointed Chief Justice, 1689, holding the position till death. In 1700 he declined the Chancellorship, saying he had had but one chancery cause, and that he lost.

When young he was wild and extravagant.