ing be disagreeable to you?" A. "Why do you ask?" Q. "Because I know it is disagreeable to many." A. "Is not that a reason for not asking me?" Q. "Why?" A. "Because I do not like smoking, and I do not like to disoblige you." This happens when they stand on an equal footing. When they do not thus stand, the wrong is the greater. Many persons, most persons indeed, dislike to refuse to another the privilege of indulging his taste or appetite; and when one is very desirous to obtain or keep the good-will of another, he is put under a special constraint. If a young man of agreeable conversation takes a seat on the veranda of an hotel or the deck of a steamer beside a young lady, and, pulling out his cigarette and match, asks her if his smoking will be disagreeable to her, she is unfairly treated; because, if she says no, she probably suppresses her real feelings, and suffers a temporary inconvenience, but enjoys his attentions and conversation; while, if she says yes, she loses both, and possibly his future good-will.

How can the smoker and the non-smoker reconcile their respective pretensions? Nothing is easier. Let the smoker smoke unto himself; but let one, who does not smoke or take tobacco into his mouth or blow it out of his nostrils, be free from the annoyance. The non-smokers have their remedy in their own hands. Let them resist every encroachment on their rights. Let them refuse to frequent places of amusement or take passage in conveyances where they are not protected against tobacco. If, for example, it were once understood that a particular line of steamers makes adequate provision for the defense of passengers against the intrusion of smokers, that alone would surely gain, other things being equal, many passengers who would refuse to go where their rights are habitually violated, as they now are, in many of the river and sea-going steamers. The community is made up of individuals. Let each assert his own rights, and the abuse will cease. In short, if those who do not smoke will let it be known, once for all, that they mean to have their rights respected, they will be respected.

JUDICIAL ROBES.

Ar the convening of the Court of Appeals on Tuesday, the 14th of January, 1884, being the first day of its sitting in the new Capitol, Mr. Field presented the following resolutions of the State Bar Association:

Resolved, That the example of the Supreme Court of the United States and of other courts in our country in retaining the use of the black-silk robe when in session is in accordance with the historical traditions of our judicial institutions and agreeable to a cultured public taste.

Resolved, That their Honors, the Chief Judge and the Associate Judges of the Court of Appeals of this State, be and are memorialized on the subject, and respectfully recommended favorably to consider the adoption by them of similar robes when sitting in banc.

In presenting the resolutions he said: The New York State Bar Association at its annual meeting, on the 8th instant, appointed me its committee to present to you at the opening of your present session the resolutions of that body, recommending that the Judges of the Court of Appeals, while holding court, should wear robes of office. The appointment devolves an agreeable duty upon me because it enables me not only to serve my brethren but to express my own views and wishes. And in doing so, you will allow me, I am sure, to give some of our reasons. A badge of office has been worn by judges the world over. A custom so general must have a foundation in reason. It is possible, no doubt, for a rude sort of justice to be dispensed without ceremony or sign of office. We can imagine judges at one end of a table and lawyers at the other, all sitting and covered, debating the cases across the table, while a promiscuous crowd of suitors surges through the room, and it might happen for a while that the guilty would be punished, the innocent released, and the spoiler deprived of his spoil; but we think the scene must end in general confusion and contempt. The simplest rule of ceremony requires judges, counsel, and audience to be uncovered,

the judges to sit apart on raised seats, and the counsel to stand while addressing the court or examining witnesses. To this has been lately added another, that the court and the bar exchange salutations as the judges take their places. Should there be anything more? The answer depends upon a consideration of what would be the most becoming in the dress, language, and demeanor of those who participate in the administration of justice. We think that some insignia of office would befit the high judicial functions which you exercise, and that none can be found so appropriate as the robe, so unostentatious, and so conformable to the usage of our forefathers. The robe has been worn by judges from time immemorial. In one of the oldest books of our race the hero is made to boast that his "judgment was as a robe and a diadem." The ermine is a synonym in our literature for spotless justice. In the Palace of Justice of France, and in the Westminster Hall of England, the judicial function has always been performed in the judicial robe. In our own country the judges of our fathers' time sat in robes. The judges of the Supreme Court of the United States have never entered the chamber where their august functions are performed without wearing their robes of office. Marshall, Story, and Nelson wore them. The garment is no more a badge of monarchical than of

///republican office. Indeed, insignia of office more befit a republi

can than a monarchical country, for while in the latter they represent the majesty of the throne, in the former they represent the majesty of the people. These insignia tend to inspire respect and to gratify sentiment, and it is sentiment, after all, which sways the world. The flag is the expression of a feeling, an instinct that is universal. "An army with banners" is described in our most sacred record. What but sentiment has adorned these walls, that our highest seat of justice might have fit surroundings? If ever a sordid motive has had part in the raising of this building, it was nevertheless the sentiment of the people which laid the foundation-stone and raised the topmost tower; a feeling that the people's house should be worthy of the people; that the place where their great officers discharge their trusts should be not only ample and convenient, but commanding in its decorations as in its proportions.

If our highest court of justice is ever to have any insignia of office, there can be, as I have said, none better than the robe; none simpler or more graceful and convenient. It is the easiest

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to put on and the easiest to lay aside; it requires no other change of dress; it is simpler than the uniform which officers of the army and navy wear; simpler than the costume which society exacts on many occasions. For these reasons we ask you to wear it, as befitting your great office and consonant with our republican ideas of simplicity and dignity. And when in the long years and generations that will pass, before this Capitol crumbles into dust, as often as the door of this chamber is opened to receive you and your successors, coming in the name of the law, may all men know that you come to render justice and judgment, without fear or favor, spurning dictation, deriding calumny, and conscious that rectitude of purpose is its own reward!

"Tantum a vobis petimus, ut omnia rei publica subsidia, totum statum civitatis, omnem memoriam temporum præteritorum, salutem præsentium, spem reliquorum, in vestra potestate, in vestris sententiis, . . . positam esse defixam putatis.”

Chief-Judge Ruger, on behalf of the court, made reply as follows: "We are much gratified by the interest which the resolutions presented induces us to believe that the bar of the State feel in the ceremonial and dignity to be observed by this court in the performance of its judicial duties. Neither can we omit to express our gratification at the selection of one of the oldest and most honored members of the legal profession through whom the Bar Association have communicated their wishes to us. The resolution presented merits and will receive the respectful attention of the Court, and will be considered with a view of arriving at that result which will be most likely to promote a dignified and efficient administration of the law."

CODIFICATION OF OUR COMMON LAW.

A SHORT REPLY TO A LONG ESSAY, FEBRUARY 18, 1884.

AN ANSWER TO MR. JAMES C. CARTER'S PAMPHLET ON THE PROPOSED CODIFICATION OF OUR COMMON LAW.

THIS pamphlet, which I heard of only a few days ago, appears to have been published under the auspices of the "Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York," a highly respectable association of eight hundred lawyers out of seven thousand in the city-one in nine-duly certified by an "extract from the minutes," and ordered to be "circulated among the members of the Legislature, and of the bar of this city and State, and other persons interested in the subject." There is, however, nothing new in it. It is the same old committee, so far as appears, and it is the same old story, which the Legislature, the bar, and "others interested in the subject," have heard time and time again, for the last nine-and-thirty years. The voice is a little disguised, it may be, when heard from behind the curtain, but as the actor advances to the foot-lights, we behold the same visage glaring at us that has glared so often before. To change the figure a little abruptly, "The voice is Jacob's voice, but the hands are the hands of Esau."

The pamphlet is divisible into five parts, corresponding to the five acts of a play; beginning with a vilification of codification in theory, followed by a vilification of codes in practice; then a vilification of the Civil Code now proposed in particular; next, a vilification of the courts and the Legislature; and, lastly, a vilification of me. I propose to take each in turn.

IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As to the theory of codification, I will confine myself to one or two reasons by way of argument and add some by way of authority. The proposition of our adversaries, stated in a con