Rules demonstrate this. Their Supreme Court Rules and their County Court Rules and the various practice and procedure Acts taken together equal in number the sections of our Code. Code rules may be elastic as well as Court rules. It is all in the making, and major operations of surgery will become necessary occasionally in either case. We need radical changes in this State and there are many features in the English Practice and Rules which we would do well to adopt, but whether by Code revision or Rules, or both, is not important. Both routes may be the best way out. Personally, I am in favor of the general scheme of the proposed new Rules modeled largely after the English Rules, which will eliminate and transfer to Rules numerous sections of the Code. The plan of the Practice Act of sixty odd sections, the repeal of the whole Code, and transferring portions to numerous consolidated and new laws, instead of Code revision, may be wise or unwise. There is good ground for difference of opinion. Lawyers as a class are conservative with reference to changes in the practice and procedure to which they have become accustomed, but with reference to the proposed reform they are quite generally apathetic. Very few of them, I venture to say, have given any careful attention to the several volumes containing the proposed rules and statutory changes, sent them by the Commission. Many have not even looked in the books. The judges, with the assistance of several good lawyers from active practice, may safely be trusted to formulate Rules. The same may be said of the legislature as to Code Rules, if it has the active assistance, advice and guidance of judges and lawyers in the work of reform. If all the lawyers would only read Mr. Rosenbaum's book the needed reforms in practice and procedure in this state would then have, with few exceptions, their active interest and support. Published in November, January, March and May by the faculty and students of the Cornell University College of Law, Ithaca, New York Single numbers 35 cents Subscription price $1 a year EDITORS AND MANAGERS CHARLES KELLOGG BURDICK, Faculty Editor WILLIAM JAMES GILLERAN, New York, Student Editor-in-Chief RICHARD H. BROWN, New York HARRY H. HOFFNAGLE, New York FREDERIC M. HOSKINS, New York CHARLES V. PARSELL, JR., New York OLIVE J. SCHMIDT, New York HARVEY I. TUTCHINGS, New York WILLIAM E. VOGEL, New York In May of this year, Professor George Gleason Bogert left the College of Law on leave of absence from the University to go to the first officers' training camp at Madison Barracks. He there obtained a captaincy in field artillery, and is, as this issue of THE QUARTERLY goes to press, at Camp Dix, being Captain and Regimental Adjutant in the 308th Field Artillery. Such success as THE QUARTERLY has attained is in a very large measure due to Professor Bogert's indefatigable labor as its first Faculty Editor. In this capacity he gave much time and thought to this publication, and the present Board of Editors wishes to acknowledge its great indebtedness to him in placing THE QUARTERLY on so sound and scholarly a foundation. Since so many of the subscribers to THE QUARTERLY are graduates of the College of Law, it has been deemed advisable to make mention of the effect of the war on the College of Law and to publish in THE QUARTERLY a list of the alumni and undergraduates of the College of Law who are officers in the military or naval forces of the United States. Information in the nature of additions to, or corrections of the list is solicited from our subscribers. The declaration of war brought with it the withdrawal from the University of over 2,000 of the undergraduates who entered the military or naval forces, or engaged in industrial or agricultural work contributing to the success of the armed forces. The College of Law at the close of the University in June had contributed 95 undergraduates to this number, 51 of whom entered the military or naval forces and 44 of whom engaged in industrial or agricultural work. Since the opening of the University in September, 186 undergraduates have registered in the College of Law, as follows: 18 Seniors, 35 Juniors, 57 Sophomores, 75 Freshmen and one Special. The total registration during the whole of last year was 253. At the close of the last academic year some concern was felt lest the large reduction in the number of upperclassmen in the College of Law might affect unfavorably the prospect of continuing THE QUARTERLY during the period of the war. But upon consideration, it was decided to intensify our efforts in order to lose nothing of the support that had been acquired by the loyalty of our students, graduates and other subscribers and by the aid of our advertisers during the two years since the foundation of THE QUARTERLY. The editors ask, for the maintanance of the success of THE QUARTERLY, that all arrears in subscriptions be paid promptly and that assurance of support be given by renewal of existing subscriptions. William S. Holt, of the class of 1919, has been awarded the War Cross by the French government for transporting wounded under heavy fire and gas attacks. Holt sailed for France on March 17 last as a volunteer in the American Ambulance Field Service and became a member of Section 1 of the American Field Service which was in the Verdun section at the time of the French attack there last summer. Below is a list of graduates and undergraduates of the College of Law who are now officers in the military or naval forces. Many of those enumerated have recently received commissions as a result of their training in the first series of the Reserve Officers' Training Camps. Supplementary lists will be published in the succeeding issues of THE QUARTERLY. Geo. Bell, Jr., Maj. Gen., U. S. A. 1894 1896 Edw. Davis, Capt., U. S. A., Military Attache at Athens, Greece. 1897 J. W. Beacham, Jr., Lt.-Col., U. S. A.; A. W. Brown, Maj., Judge Advocate 1904 P. D. Dunn, 2d Lt., Q. M. C., N. A. 1906 G. G. Bogert, Capt., F. A., N. A.; R. H. Brennan, Capt., Inf., O. R. C.; J. L. Braman, ad Lt., Q. M. C., N. A.; J. H. Mooers, 1st Lt. Inf., O. R. C.; T. N. Page, Ensign, U. S. N. R. 1908 H. J. Kimball, Capt., Inf., O. R. C. 1910 T. J. Hearn, 1st Lt., Inf., O. R. C.; J. P. Swift, Capt., F. A., O. R. C. H. P. Luce, Capt., Inf., O. R. C. 1911 1912 C. C. Bintz, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C.; L. M. Cohn, 1st Lt., C. A., O. R. C.; D. P. McCarthy, 2d Lt., F. A., O. R. C., Reg.; H. V. Pusch, Capt., Inf., O. R. C. 1913 W. K. Krauss, 1st Lt., F. A., O. R. C.; Fred McClintock, 1st Lt.; J. P. O'Connor, Capt., F. A., O. R. C.; L. S. Ward, Capt., Inf., O. R. C. 1914 J. C. Bronner, Capt., Inf., O. R. C.; H. S. Wilbur, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C., Reg. 1915 H. J. Adair, 1st Lt., Ord., O. R. C.; R. E. Burke, 2d Lt., F. A., O. R. C.; C. M. Colyer, 2d Lt., F. A., O. R. C.; C. M. Harrington, Capt., Inf., O. R. C.; F. R. Holmes, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C., Reg.; A. E. Krieger, Capt., Inf., O. R. C.; P. A. Rieser, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C. 1916 D. C. Allen, Capt., Inf., N. A.; J. S. Lewis, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C. 1917 J. J. Conroy, Jr., 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C.; M. R. Dye, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C., Reg.; H. A. Holt, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C., Reg.; W. H. Maguire, 2d Lt., Cav., O. R. C.; J. E. O'Brien, Ensign, Ass't Paymaster, U. S. N.; L. I. Shelley, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C., Reg.; R. L. Strebel, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C. 1918 F. C. Reavis, 2d Lt., F. A., O. R. C.; J. R. Schwartz, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C.; Reg.; W. G. Willsey, 2d Lt., Inf., O. R. C. THE QUARTERLY announces the election of the following students to the editorial board: Ralph L. Emmons, '18, of Borodino, N. Y.; Jane M. G. Foster, '18, of Portsmouth, Ohio; Olive J. Schmidt, '18, of Spring Valley, N. Y.; Louis W. Dawson, '19, of Boonton, N. J. The Boardman Scholarship for the year 1917-18 has been awarded to Fred Schuyler Reese, Jr., of Ilion, N. Y. Notes and Comment Carriers: Duty of steamship company where passenger dies on board. In Finley v. Atlantic Transport Co., 220 N. Y. 249 (1917), the defendant was engaged in the operation of a steamship line carrying passengers between England and the United States. The father of the plaintiff took passage on one of defendant's steamers and died on the voyage. The body was embalmed and kept in a perfect state of preservation four and a half days, and could have been carried into port without injurious effect, but when within twenty hours of New York, the port of destination, the body was cast into the sea. Ample means to defray the expense of delivering the body at the port of New York were in possession of the defendant, and plaintiff was at all times ready and willing to satisfy any expense incident to the delivery of the body to him for burial. The plaintiff was allowed to recover on the ground that there was a common law duty upon the defendant to transport the body to the destination of the steamer and deliver it to the parties entitled to its possession, as long as the defendant had embalmed the body and put it in such condition that it could have been so delivered. This action is a novel one, there being complete lack of precedent to sustain it. At common law there was no right of property in a dead body. This was so because of that respect and reverence which has always been paid to a corpse. The doctrine seems to come from Lord Coke in the decision of an early case,' and there is also evidence of it in the writings of Blackstone." The same doctrine seems to have been followed in the ecclesiastical courts2a, but in this country it has been accepted with marked qualifications. Besides there was also the duty to provide a decent burial to every person. As was said in an early English case, "There are many authorities which lay it down that decent Christian burial is a part of a man's own rights; and we think it no great extension of the rule to say, that it may be classed as a personal advantage, and reasonably necessary to him." This duty 'Haynes's Case, 6 Coke (Eng.) 355 (1655). 22 Bl. Com. (Lewis's ed.) 429. 2a Supra, notes I and 2. 4 Note on Matter of Widening Beekman St., 4 Bradf. Sur. (N. Y.) 503 (1857); Foley v. Phelps, 1 App. Div. (N. Y.) 551 (1896), where the court said, "In more recent times the obdurate common law rule has been very much relaxed, and changed conditions of society, and the necessity for enforcing that protection which is due to the dead, have induced courts to re-examine the grounds upon which the common law rule reposed, and have led to modifications of its stringency." Also, in Pierce v. The Proprietors of Swan Point Cemetery, 10 R. I. 227 (1872): "There is a duty imposed by the universal feelings of mankind to be discharged by some one toward the dead; a duty, and we may also say a right, to protect from violation; it may therefore be considered as a sort of quasi property, and it would be discreditable in any system of law not to provide a remedy in such a case." * * * ** 'Reg. v. Stewart, 12 Ad. & Ell. (Eng.) 773 (1840); Chapple v. Cooper, 13 M. & W. (Eng.) 252 (1844); Patterson v. Patterson, 59 N. Y. 574 (1875). 'Chapple v. Cooper, supra, note 4. |