Daggett v. State, 123. 64 v. Carson, 238. 66 v. Coburn, 236. Dayton v. Walsh, 358. Decatur Gaslight Co. v. Howell, 119. Detroit Shoe Works v. Perry, 76. Devixson v. State, 58. Dexter v. Cranston, 361, 439. Gallery v. Nat. Ex. Bk, 236. Gamble v. Horr, 98. Gantt v. American Ins. Co. 267. Gladstone v. Brighton Aquarium Co. 198. Hart v. Wills, 416. Hatch v. Jenard, 299. Hayes v. Union Mutual Life Ins. Heiskell v. Farmers' etc. Bk. 141. ་་ v. State, 398. Herbert v. Servin, 474. Hewitt v. Ontario Copper Co. 197. Highway Commrs. v. Van Dusan, 19. Hiort v. London etc. R. Co. 215. Jacobson v. Miller, 217. Jacox v. Jacox, 19. James v. Indianapolis &c. R. Co. 179. Jarchow v. Pickens, 77. Jerome v. Ross, 323. Jones v. Knauss, 261. v. Pacific Wood Co., 200. Johnson v. Humboldt, Ins. Co. 237. 66 v. Richmond &c. R. Co. 156. v. Union F. & M. Ins. Co. 46 mons, 498. v. Fitzsim Kearney v. Chicago &c. R. Co. 358. Keith v. Hayden, 337. Kellum v. State, 479. Kennedy v. Nunan, 139. Kinealy v. St. Louis &c. R. Co. 86. Kinney, ex parte, 56. Kirchner v. Myers, 299. Kirtland v. Hotchkiss, 445. Klauber v. Biggerstaff, 488. Knecht v. Mutual Life Ins. Co. 297. Knoxville Nat. Bk. v. Clark, 29. Kohn v. Russell, 418. Krieger, ex parte, 17. Kusel v. Watson, 162. Reg. v. Stett, 197. Rice v. Barnard, 277. Roach v. Van Riswick, 474. Robert Dixon, The, 258. Roberts v. Kelly, 397. 66 Robinson v. Jones, 147. Rogers v. McKenzie, 116. Roper v. Trustees of Sangamon Lodge, 266. Rose v. Jackson, 459. v. Winn, 121. Rosebrough v. Ansly, 318. Rosvear Clay Co., ex parte, 37. Rowland v. Barnes, 116. Ruffin v Green, 235. Ryder v. Burlington, etc. R. Co., 18. v. Wilson, 221. St. Paul, etc. R. Co. v. Minneapolis, etc. R. Co., 376. Salamanca Tp. v. Jasper Co. Bk., 498. Salma B. & L. Assn. v. Nelson, 475. Salzenstein v. Mairs, 179. Sanborn v. Stickney, 299. Sargent v. Roberts, 324. Scheuber v. Held, 416. Schermerhorn v. Conner, 185. Schmidt v. The Pennsylvania, 75. Schneider v. Botsch, 237. Schoening v. Leeds, 158. Schroeder v. Crawford, 45. Searle v. Sawyer, 466. Sheldon v. Lewis, 438. "" v. Rounds, 38. Shepherd v. Whetstone, 181. Sherwin v. Mudge, 396. Shurbun v. Hooper, 38. Simmons v. Green, 318. Skelton v. Manchester, 356. Slaughter v. Green, 123. 66 v. Spooner, 417. v. Wakefield, 405. v. West, 239. v. Whitcomb, 478. v. Wilcox, 407. v. Wyant, 458. Stebbens v. Palmer, 322. Stellar v. Chicago etc. R. Co. 131. Stevens v. Wood, 198. Stevenson v. Watson, 68. Stewart v. Putnam, 350. Stillwell v. Aaron, 126. Stocker v. Planet Bldg. Soc. 121. Stowe v. Gerard Fire Ins. Co. 290. Swoboda v. Ward, 38. Taylor v. French, 21. Teagin v. Irwin, 236. Thurman v. Bertram, 140. Thomas v. Ruddell, 379. Thompson v. Drymala, 17. Thorpe v. Dickey, 416. Tichenor v. Hayes, 470. Tidd v. Rines, 338. Torret v. Crupps, 41. Town of Elkhart v. Ritter, 298. Towne v. Fisk, 116. Townsend v. Smith, 498. Tracy v. Williams, 124. Trustees v. Gatling, 199. Tucker v. Crowley, 357. The Central Law Journal. SAINT LOUIS, JULY 4, 1879. CURRENT TOPICS. The Supreme Court of Illinois in Hoecker v. People, decided on the 20th ult., held that to an indictment for selling liquor without a license it was no defense that the defendant was a druggist and had sold the liquor upon the prescription of a physician. CRAIG, C. J., said: "It was a ground of defense that the sales were made on the prescription of a physician, and it is complained that the court refused to give an instruction asked by the defendant to the effect that if the sales of the liquor were made upon a prescription of a practicing physician, and at the time of such sales the purchasers represented to the defendant that the liquor was wanted to be used as a medicine in case of actual sickness, and that the defendant made the sale upon such prescription and representation in good faith, to be used as a medicine only, then the defendant would not be liable and should not be found guilty in respect to such sales. We do not perceive how the prescription of a physician and the representations of a purchaser can be admitted as a justification for making sales of intoxicating liquors contrary to the statute, at least, without proof that the representations made were true. The words of the statute are unqualified; whoever not having a license shall sell, without any exception or limitation whatever as to any class of persons or cases. By the 46th clause of section 62, chap. 24, p. 220, Rev. Stat., 1874, provision is made for the granting of permits by the authorities of a city or village to druggists for the sale of intoxicating liquors for medicinal, mechanical, sacramental and chemical purposes. Without such a permit or a license the sales made by the defendant stand without justification." In Nelson v. White, 61 Ind. 139, the Supreme Court of Indiana held that an agreement made by the holder of a promissory note with the maker, upon a valuable consideration, to extend the time of payment for a Vol. 9-No. 1. definite period beyond the maturity of the note, can not be set up in bar to an action brought on the note before the expiration of the period. This decision is antagonized by several decisions of the same court, which are not cited in the opinion. In Rhodes v. Thomas, 2 Ind. 638; Ward v. Walton, 4 Ind. 75, and Billingsly v. Stratton, 11 Ind. 396, it was laid down as a general principle of the common law that the parties to a written contract, not under seal, may, after its execution, and before breach, dissolve, waive, discharge or qualify the contract, or any part of the same, by a new verbal contract. In Rhodes v. Thomas, supra, the case of Goss v. Lord Nugent, 5 B. & A 58, is cited, in which the principle above stated is limited to contracts which are not required by the statute of frauds to be in writing. In conformity to these rulings, the case of Rigsbee v. Bowler, 17 Ind. 167, was decided. The holder of two promissory notes, neither of which was due, agreed with the maker that, if he would pay off one at once, he should have a given time after the making of the other to pay it off. The maker accordingly paid the former note. These facts were held to constitute a defense to a suit brought on the unpaid note before the expiration of the agreed time of extension. Peck v. Beckwith, 10 Ohio St. 497, is cited and approved, in which it was held that an agreement for value to extend the time of payment, made before the maturity of the note, is a valid and binding engagement, and a bar to a suit brought before the expiration of the time. In Conaway v. Dorst, 20 Ind. 426, which was a suit against the maker on a promissory note, he answered an agreement, made before the commencement of the action, for an extension of time of payment, which had not expired. In support of the answer, to which a demurrer had been sustained, the defendant cited Rigsbee v. Bowler, supra. The court, however, upon the authority of that case, held the answer bad, because it did not appear that the agreement for extension was made before the maturity of the note. A question as to how the facts showing jurisdiction in a suit in the Federal Circuit Court, should appear in the record was ruled on in the United States Circuit Court for the Southern District of Ohio in the recent case of Mexico Southern Bank ». Reed. The case was an ordinary suit brought on a promissory note, the caption of the petition being "The Mexico Southern Bank, a corporation, plaintiff v. Townsend Reed, defendant." The defendant moved to dismiss "because the name and designation of the plaintiff, as a corporation in the said caption, without assuming therein its location, character, and kind, are not the same as is averred in the body thereof. The averment is, referring to the said caption, 'said plaintiff,' when, in fact, in said caption naming the plaintiff, it is not named or described as in the body of the petition." The motion was overruled, SWING, J.,saying: "The vital point in the motion to dismiss the petition, and the only point necessary to be decided by the court, is whether the caption of the petition is sufficient to give the court jurisdiction in this case. 'It is a settled doctrine of this court that, in cases where the jurisdiction of the Federal courts depends upon the citizenship of the parties, the facts essential to support that jurisdiction must appear somewhere in the record,' says Judge Harlan in Robertson v. Cease, 7 Cent. L. J. 476. In Railway Company v. Ramsay, 22 Wall. 326, the Chief Justice said: They need not necessarily, however, be averred in the pleadings. It is sufficient if they are in some form affirmatively shown by the record. That view was approved by the subsequent case of Bridges v. Sperry, 95 U. S. 403. In the present case the only record is the petition. Therefore, the necessary allegations must be contained somewhere in the petition, and must be distinctly and positively averred, but not necessarily in the caption; and it is not sufficient that the facts of jurisdiction may be inferred argumentatively from the averments. Now, though in this case the statements of the location, character and nature of the corporation, the plaintiff herein, are not set forth in the caption of this petition, yet allegations essential to support the jurisdiction of the court, so far as pertains to the plaintiff, appear in the body of the petition, namely, that the plaintiff is a corporation, organized under the laws of the State of Missouri, and is engaged in the business of banking in the City of Mexico, in said State' and, in cases where the jurisdiction of the Federal courts depends upon the citizenship of the parties, the decisions hold that for the purposes of suit, a corporation is a citizen of the State under whose laws it has its existence and being." COMMON LAW EXEMPTIONS. Although many of the States have made such provision by statute for an exemption from sale on execution of property of resident citizens as to include all that was exempt at common law, many, perhaps the most of them, have not. The statutory exemption is generally allowed only to householders or heads of families; in some cases the exemption is of property of a specified value to be selected by the debtor, and few or none of the States have extended the benefits of their exemption laws to non-residents or aliens. These exceptions suggest questions which are important and worthy of examination, the more especially as the opinion seems to prevail that statutory exemptions are in derogation of the common law,1 and because the rule is firmly established that all are excluded from their benefits who are not specially named in them.2 Indeed, the rigorous rule is sometimes asserted to be that even the wearing apparel of a debtor not entitled to the benefit of the exemption laws of a State, if found off his person or out of his possession, so that no trespass would be committed in the taking, might be lawfully taken on execution for debt. Rut such a rule is certainly neither to be tolerated by humanity or justified by law. In examining these questions we are obliged to rely very considerably upon general principles, and can derive very little aid from the books, for the reason that the questions have very seldom come before the courts for direct adjudication. In practice the questions are common enough, but the debtors who most need them cannot afford the expense of claiming the limited privileges granted them by the common law; and a creditor wouldseldom find it profitable to appeal in such a case from an adverse decision of an inferior (1.) Herm. on Executions, 87; Ward v. Kuhn, 16 Minn. 159. (2.) Hill v. Johnson, 29 Penn. St. 362; Corp v. Griswold, 27 Iowa 397; Swan v. Stephens, 99 Mass. 7; Finley v. Sly, 44 Ind. 266; Bowne v. Witt, 19 Wend. 475. (3.) Cook v. Gibbs, 3 Mass. 193; Bowne v. Witt, supra. |