42 HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
has first been proved by other evidence ; only then does the evidence of other similar acts become admissible to rebut the theory of accident.
The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the '* telephone cases/' on March 19, involved a principle of patent law of far reach- ing importance. The court held not only that Bell was the first dis- coverer and inventor of the telephone, but that his patent covered the entire principle of transmitting sound by means of the vibratory or undu- latory electric current, and not merely the special apparatus by which he accomplished that result. The reasoning of the court is as fol- lows : —
Bell found out that by gradually changing the intensity of a continuous electric current, so as to make it correspond exactly with the change in the density of the air caused by sonorous vibrations, vocal and other sounds could be transmitted to a distance. This was his discovery. He then devised an apparatus for making these changes of intensity, so that speech could be actually transmitted. This was his invention. The law patented not only the invention but the discovery. The patent granted him is not limited to the mere appliance by which the discovery is made of actual value, but extends to the process or principle itself. His patent, therefore, extends to the entire art of transmitting sound by means of the changing density of a continuous electric current.
The justices who dissented from the opinion, on the ground that Drawbaugh was in fact the inventor of the telephone, did not dissent from this general principle.
Wk have received from Mr. John F. Baker, of New York City, an interesting communication upon the subject of the authorship of the Statute of Frauds, from which we make the following extracts : —
- ' Lord Mansfield, in the important case of Wyndham v. Chetwynd
(i Burr. 418), assumed that the act was introduced into Parliament in the common way, and not upon any reference to the judges ; and there expresses the belief that Lord Hale could not have drawn the statute, as it was not passed by Parliament until after his death. . . .
'* The Statute of Frauds must have been prepared as early as 1673, for at the first session of that year it was introduced in Parliament ; and after that it went before several committees, and was discussed at several sessions previous to its passage in the spring of 1677. Hence, the theory advanced by Lord Mansfield would hardly seem tenable or sound, nor is it certainly borne out by the facts of contemporaneous history.
- After a careful investigation of the question, I think the conclusion
will not escape the mind of the student that Sir Matthew Hale was the master-spirit in formulating the statute, and that he prepared the bulk of that instrument ; that Sir Leoline Jenkins, an able authority in pro- bate law, drew the sections as to wills ; that Lord Guilford took some part in preparing the statute ; and that Lord Nottingham not only drew the sections in relation to trusts and devises, but was conspicuously active in piloting the bill through Parliament."
The following classified list of the members of the Harvard Law School Association, by States and Territories, on April i, 1888, has been kindly sent us by Mr. Winthrop W. Wade, treasurer of the Asso- ciation. He also writes the gratifying statement that '* since January
