thereunder, has the same rights as a party in privity therewith. If such third party notifies the debtor of its acceptance of the benefits thereunder, the agreement may not be varied without the third party's consent. But if the third party refuses to accept the benefits provided for it in an agreement, the party stipulating for such third party's benefits may claim for himself these benefits except where such a claim be contrary to the intention of the parties as manifested in the agreement.102 Simple interest on loans, unless agreed otherwise, is fixed at 6 per centum annually. Compound interest, except for bank loans, is forbidden.103 Usury does not void a transaction, but debtor may terminate a usurious loan by payment of the principal sum either at the end of three months' notice or by payment in addition thereto of the stipulated interest then due, plus said interest for one month in advance.104 Illegal part of an obligation does not void its lawful parts, provided that the obligation can stand as a complete contract with the illegal part eliminated.105 (h) TORTS. Any person doing damage to the person or property of another is answerable in damages to that other, provided that damages were not caused by either malice or gross negligence of the person wronged, nor the wrongdoer was either authorized by law to commit the tort or the damage caused resulted from an act beyond his control.106 The liability for damages in the case of torts committed by persons and corporations engaged in hazardous occupations such as railroads, street car companies, factories and mills, building and construction, dealers in inflammable materials and keepers of wild animals, is not barred by the proof of malice in the person wronged or lawfulness of the act done by the wrongdoer.107 The court, however, may in its discretion, taking into account the financial standing of the wrongdoer and the wronged, order the wrongdoer to compensate the wronged for the damage caused, even in such cases where there is no legal liability.108 Lunatics, feeble-minded and minors under 14 years of age are not responsible for the torts committed by them, but the responsibility for their acts rests with their custodians.109 102 Ibid., art. 140. The right of action for damages caused by death (including funeral expenses), resulting from a tortious act, passes to indigent persons supported by the deceased in his lifetime.110 For torts committed jointly, the liability is joint, but not severable.111 The measure of damages in tort is restitution of the status quo ante delictum motum, and in case the latter is impossible-payment in damages. In fixing the amount of either restitution or damages caused by a tort, the court must always take into account the financial standing of the wrongdoer and the person wronged." 112 In case of unjust enrichment caused by commission of either an unlawful act or an act aimed at the damage to the State, the person enriched must pay to the State the amount of such enrichment." (i) CRIME. 113 Crime is defined as any action or inaction socially dangerous and inimical to the fundamental institutions of the soviet State and legal order as established by the labour-farmer authorities during the time transitional to communism.114 Such action or inaction to constitute crime must be committed either with malice aforethought or negligently.115 Besides usual crimes against property and person, there are species of crimes in a communist state directed against political activities, economic policies and religion. We will now review some of these crimes in detail. Political crimes are termed by communist penal law-counterrevolutionary. A counter-revolutionary crime is an action directed to the overthrow of the power of the labour-farmer councils won by the proletarian revolution and the labour-farmer government existing by virtue of the communist constitution, or an action directed to the aid of that part of the international bourgeois classes, which refuses to recognize the legality of the communist system of property now replacing capitalism, and strives to undermine it by intervention, blockade, espionage, financing of the press and means similar thereto.116 This crime is committed by mere acceptance of a membership in an organization which either acts with the view of aiding said part of the international bourgeois classes, or opposes for counterrevolutionary purposes normal activities of the communist institutions, or misuses the latter, or, finally, acts by any means manifestly designed to damage the dictatorship of the labour class and the proletarian revolution.117 This crime is retroactive, as it includes activities of the responsible officials of the pre-communist regimes directed against the labour class and the revolutionary movement.118 Manufacture or distribution of the counter-revolutionary literature, as well as agitation or propaganda in aid of the said part of the international bourgeois classes, are also crimes.119 Under this head are also grouped several types of conspiracies, rioting, sabotage, espionage, treason, false rumours and mass passive resistance. Statutory crimes in a communist State are divided into those causing interference with the functions of the government and those comprising violations of official duties. Crime directed against the functions of the government is any act tending to the infraction of the regular functioning of the subordinate offices of the government or of the national economic organizations, accompanied by violence or insubordiation to the laws enacted by the communist authorities, thwarting the activities of said offices, or by other acts, resulting in the impairment of the power and authority of the government.120 This crime covers certain types of rioting, banditry, insubordination to the lawful orders of authorities, violations of industrial property law, antiquities law, election law, tax laws, excise laws, passport laws, customs duties law, labour and military duties' law, domestic relations' law, forest and game laws and mining law, imparting of false information to the State offices, forgery of stamps, currency or State securities, public insult to State officials while on duty, or to the State flag, coat of arms or revolutionary monuments, usurpation of public offices, destruction of written evidence, unlawful dealing in explosives, escape of prisoners, damage to public seals and self-enforcement of legal rights.121 New York. 117 Ibid., arts. 61, 62 and 63. 118 Ibid., art. 67. 119 Ibid., arts. 70 and 72. 120 Ibid., art. 74. 121 Ibid., arts. 75-104. (To be continued). BORRIS M. KOMAR.. AN ADVOCATE OF TWO COUNTRIES. It is not surprising since England, Canada and the United States have the same basic law that some text-books have high standing and value in the three countries. Of such works none has a wider fame than Benjamin on Sales, a new Canadian edition of which has recently appeared and a new American one is now nearing completion if it is not actually in the press. But who would suspect that behind the prosaic imprint "J. P. Benjamin, Esq., Q.C., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law," there is a wealth of romance and inspiration? To surmount difficulties in early youth; to become a successful American attorney and counselor-at-law; to accumulate a fortune and acquire a fine estate only to lose them through acts of vis major and endorsing a note for a friend; to redouble efforts in practice and repair the fortune; to support two families a wife and daughter residing in France and a mother and sister in America; to be admitted to the U. S. Supreme Court and to successfully practise before its bar; to build up a practice of $75,000 a year; to wear out and outlive several partners; to organize, with others, two railroads; to enter politics and become a senator; attorneygeneral, acting secretary of war and secretary of state; and then, to lose all in the termination of a disastrous war and at the age of fifty four to be a hunted fugitive, branded rebel to the land he loved so dearly-here one would expect to write finis to an exciting and hard fought career; but not so,-to leave America forever; to twice escape. shipwreck and fire; to finally reach England; to lose by bank failure within the year almost all the few remaining dollars collected for the support of his family and relatives; to commence de novo at fifty-five the study of law as any youth might;.to become an English Barristerat-Law; to survive the wearying and starving process of building up a practice at the Bar of England (the while ekeing out a living by writing for the press); to gradually succeed; to write a work on Sales; to become more successful until at sixty he was receiving more than $10,000 a year, and at seventy-one, over $70,000; to build a magnificent house in Paris for his wife and daughter; to become Queen's Counsel, and in sixteen years to have otherwise "achieved at the English bar more than most men can hope to achieve in a lifetime." On retiring from the profession at seventy-two to be banqueted by two hundred and fifty of England's highest judicial officers from the Lord High Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice down.-All this, and more, is true of Judah Philip Benjamin, Q.C., who, in the words of Sir Henry James, "held conspicuous leadership at the bar of two countries." "Ideals rule the world" is attributed to Plato, and we can all see that it is the power of thought, will, and feeling which enables anyone to reach glorious heights of service or demoniacal depths of selfishness. An ancient Sanskrit poem enumerates the godlike qualities as: "Fearlessness, sincerity, generosity, self-restraint, study, mortification, and rectitude; harmlessness, veracity, and freedom from anger, resignation, equanimity, and not speaking of the faults of others, universal compassion, modesty and mildness; patience, power, fortitude, and purity, discretion, dignity, unrevengefulness, and freedom from conceit": Benjamin gave evidence of possessing these, and it would be hard to find a general quotation of the kind more applicable to his case than this extract from the late William Q. Judge's translation, himself a well-known New York attorney and counselor-at-law. The motive of Benjamin's life was unswerving love for his mother and sisters, his wife and daughter, and generally for the good, the beautiful and the true. For it he sacrificed his own comfort, labouring incessantly, and through it, exemplified to an unusual degree for the time and race, the godlike qualities mentioned. On August 6th, 1811, the soul to be known as Judah Philip Benjamin, put in its appearance on the British Island of St. Thomas. Benjamin's parents were of "good family," as they say, though not of wealth; in 1816 they removed to North Carolina, where he attended private school, and by the time he was fourteen he was ready for college and entered Yale. After three years, his father being no longer able to pay his way through college, Benjamin sought his fortune in New Orleans. There, after some vicissitudes, he became a notary's clerk and studied law. To supplement his slender pay, he taught English and learned French and Spanish. It was while engaged in this way that he met a beautiful young French girl, and, shortly after he was called to the bar, which occurred when he was going twenty-three, he married her. She was as accomplished as she was beautiful and moved in the best society of New Orleans. And Benjamin, being naturally a gentleman and fond of polite and intelligent society, found in her one of his own tastes. There was no conflict between them over religion for, strangely as it may seem for those times, neither had religious preferences. For the first few years his practice was distinctly slow and during the period of waiting met with by most young lawyers, he compiled. with the aid of one Thomas Slidell, a state digest. First intended |