Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/368

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HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
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Harvard Law Review. Published monthly, during the Academic Year, by Harvard Law Students. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, $2.50 PER ANNUVI 35 CENTS PER NUMBER. Editorial Board. Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Editor-in-Chief. Charles Wai.cott, Treasurer. John A. Blanchard, Hugh W. Ogden, Justin D. Bowersock, James L. Putnam, Robert Cushman, Herbert A. Rice, David A. Ellis, Alex. D. Salinger, Louis A. Fkothingham, Charles B. Sears, Albert K. Gerald, John S. Sheppard, Jr. Richard W. Hale, Frank B. Williams. Archibald C. Matteson, Harvard Law School Association. — The next annual meeting of the Harvard Law School Association, on the day before Commencement, promises to be a notable one in several respects. It marks the twenty- fifth year of Professor Langdell's service as Dean of the school, — a period full of meaning for all students of legal education, — and it is expected that the spirit of the occasion will find a most worthy exponent in the person of Sir Frederick Pollock, the orator of the day. A formal acceptance has been received from that distinguished jurist, whose hearty sympathy with the aims and methods of the school has endeared him to all interested in her progress, and he has definitely announced that he will attend. Sir Frederick, no doubt, will be received by the asso- ciation en masse, and with such an ovation as his eminent talents and great friendliness to the school and her cause demand. Lexow CoMMiiTEE. — Harsh comments have been passed upon the modes of procuring testimony which the Lexow Committee has em- ployed. That quasi-judicial tribunal, it is asserted, in the course of its examination has departed from the most time-honored and cherished principles of our law of evidence, and has adopted in their stead that inquisitorial probing into the presumed guilty knowledge of the witness which obtains on the Continent, but has always been regarded with strong aversion by English-speaking peoples. In this objection there is undoubted force ; but it may well be ques- tioned whether its truth involves as a sequitur the utter condemnation of the methods of examination which the committee has used. No danger to the bench is feared, — even the most severe critics do not anticipate that, — but, at the most, dread the possible use which may be made of this procedure in similar investigations, in New York, at least. Suppose, however, such labor crowned with a far-reaching success which might