LIMITS OF NORMAL VISION.

In Vol. 1 of Tidy's Legal Medicine, p. 248, we find the following statement: "Passing from microscopic objects, we note that at a distance of one foot a person with normal sight can scarcely see an object less than the one-twenty fifth of an inch. At greater distances the size must increase comparatively." This statement seemed so much opposed to my experience that I have submitted the following described tests to-nineteen different persons of ages ranging from seventeen to upwards of forty with the results given in the accompanying table.

No. 1. consisted of a piece of black paper approximately one millimeter (one-twenty-fifth inch) square pasted upon a white back-ground. No. 2. consisted of a similar white square upon a black back-ground. No. 3. consisted of a black line approximately one millimeter broad upon a white back-ground. To be more exact the dimensions of No. I. were 1.08 mm, x 1.04 mm.; No. II. 1.08 mm. x 1.98 mm. No. III. 1.12 mm. in width.

The manner of making the tests was to hang the cards in a good light, not artificial, and approach them from such a distance that they were invisible, and note the respective distances at which they became visible, and at which the shape of the squares could first be defined.

The accompanying table gives the results of the several tests: The first column gives the name, the second the occupation and age, the third the condition of eyes when known, the fourth the distance in feet and inches at which the black square first became visible, the fifth the distance at which the black square could be defined, the sixth and seventh give the same particulars as to the white square, and the eighth gives the distance at which the line first became visible.

A large number of other tests were made with another set of cards, but unfortunately one of the students lost them before they had been measured, so that the results are not included in the table. There are however, in the accompanying table a sufficient number of observations to show pretty nearly the average limit of normal vision and to demonstrate the gross inaccuracy of the above quotation from Dr. Tidy's work. Some interesting and obvious deductions are, readily made from the accompanying table but lack of space and time will prevent their being presented in this article.

EDITORIAL NOTES.

REFORM IN THE STATUTES OF DESCENT AND WILLS,

SO AS TO INSURE A MORE

GENERAL DIVISION OF PROPERTY AMONG THE PEOPLE.

At the meeting of the Illinois State Bar Association last January, the committee on law reform recommended, among other things, a most important change in the statutes of descent and wills, which we think ought to receive profound consideration. The recommendation is as follows:

"That the statutes of descent of property and of wills be so changed as to limit the amount that any one may take by descent from the same person or by bequest or devise, except for educational and other charitable purposes."

The committee proceed to say that they would not recommend such a limitation as would carry the estate away from the kin of the decedent, or that would change the law as to the great majority of estates, but they would apply the limitation to those "abnormally large fortunes" which by being kept together as they may be as the law now stands "menace the political power of the state."

The exact way in which such estates should be divided-that is among whom as heirs and in what proportions is not set forth. The committee seem to have thought it better to leave the details to the wisdom of the legislature. They do however, by way of example, tell us where the limitation might begin, and how it could be applied. They say that the amount a child might inherit might be limited to $500,000; those standing in the next degree of kinship $100,000; if there is more than enough to satisfy those in that degree the overplus, to go to the next, with a like limitation, and so on until the estate is exhausted.

Suppose the estate to amount to $1,000,000 and that the decedent left one child and brothers and sisters and other kinsmen; the child would take $500,000 and the remaining $500,000 would go, first to the brothers and sisters not exceeding $100,000 to each, and if there remained a balance, that would go

to those standing in the next degree of kinship to the decedent with a like limitation, and so on until the whole estate is exhausted. If there are no heirs or after paying off all who are entitled to share in the estate there still remains a balance, this may go to the state or under the law as it now stands, in case there are no heirs capable of taking the estate of an intestate.

The committee disavow any intention of a departure from the settled policy of the law of this country upon the subject in hand; on the contrary they insist that their "recommendation is in harmony with the spirit of our institutions, and in the same direction as the present laws against perpetuities, entailments and of descent."

That they are not agrarian or communistic in their sympathies is shown by the liberality of their limitation. Those estates which fall short of the limitation would not be affected. Half a million dollars ought to be a reasonably satisfactory fortune for a young man or young woman to begin with and the other poor kinsmen would find life not unreasonably burdensome to whose store a hundred thousand dollars should be added by way of windfall. It is not unlikely that the most serious apprehension which will be excited by the proposed reform will be, that if the legislature once enters upon the policy of limiting the amount one may take by descent or will, that it will run to extremes. In our estimation however this fear is substantially groundless. The conservative force of property itself will be amply sufficient to meet this danger. The greater danger is that the influence of property interest is so great as to render any reform in the direction suggested out of the question, except through the means of revolution.

The report does not enter into an extended argument in support of the recommendation, but one of the points made is, that while the laws as they now stand were sufficient, in the days of slow accumulations, to counteract the tendency to mass the wealth of the country in few hands, that times have changed, and they no more have that effect. The report adds:

"There never was a time in the history of the world when the power of money in skillful hands was so great as the present; or when the use of that power was made so conspicuous. The new forces at its command are augmenting it with wonderful rapidity. Already the scepter has passed from the sword to the counting-house. The fact that one individual may monopolize hundreds of millions of the wealth of the nation and pass it at last by will to another with all its possibilities, is a growing source of uneasiness among all classes of society.

It can not be denied that in the proportion that the very rich are increased, so is the number of the very poor also increased, and the number of those com. fortably off decreased."

After some discussion by members of the bar association present at the meeting, the subject was referred back to Messes. H. B. Hurd, and James A. Connolly, members of the committee making the recommendation with request that they report at the annual meeting of the association to be held at Springfield, next January, giving more fully their reasons in support of the measure, and if they think proper presenting a draft of a bill in accordance with the recommendation.

We shall look with interest for this report and the treatment it will receive at the hands of the members of the association. Lawyers are proverbially conservative, and it is not a little encouraging that so advanced a measure has been brought forward by them.

THE CHICAGO LAW INSTITUTE, was organized under a charter granted by the General Assembly of the State of Illinois on February 14, 1857; amended by acts of February 14, 1863, and February 23, 1867. At the time of the fire, this was the only organization of lawyers which had been in existence since 1858. It was chartered and organized mainly for the purpose of collecting a law library, which object was steadily pursued from the first, so that October 8, 1871, it had acquired seven thousand volumes of law books, valued at about $30,000. The library was the property of the shareholders, and freely used by them, and also by all judges and lawyers living outside of Cook County. It had always been kept in rooms in the Court-house, furnished by the County of Cook, and was in charge of a librarian and assistant. It was insured for $20,000 at the time of the fire, and had $1,318 in the hands of the treasurer. All the books, records, vouchers and papers of the Law Institute were destroyed, thus losing nearly everything but its name and legal organization.

At the annual meeting, on November 6, 1871, the members voted to collect an assessment of $25 on each share of stock, and to sell new shares on the original terms, in order to collect a fund for the establishment of another library. The City provided two rooms for the use of the institute and library, receiving generous and valuable donations of money and books. The first gift was a draft for $500 sent by Hon. Joel Parker. A committee was appointed to conduct the correspondence in regard to the up-building of the library. This committee consisted of the following gentleman: Hon. Thomas Hoyne, Hon. M. W. Fuller and Hon. H. N. Hibbard. We quote from their report;—

"The Committee have succeeded in the effort they were appointed to make, greatly beyond their own expectations, and greatly beyond all expectation, however sanguine. At the time of their appointment, they had the advantage of an able and concise report, prepared by the Committee on Finance. That report was prepared immediately after the fire, by D. L. Shorey, B. F. Ayer, O. H. Horton, Sam. W. Fuller and John V. Le Moyne. It was a comprehensive showing, but in brief detail, stating the full extent of our losses, and the then condition of the institution, financial and otherwise. The Bar were informed also of the progress that had been already made towards restoration, and of the new progress of our affairs. It also contained a summary of all facts necessary to convey abroad, and to strangers, the extent of the calamity which had involved with all others classes, the Bench, the Bar, and the administration of justice. No such calamity had ever before fallen upon an entire city and people. The destruction of twenty thousand houses was only the grosser side of the disaster. To it was to be added the absolute and entire destruction of the public records of every kind, decrees and judgments of courts, municipal and county rolls, and records of the evidences of title to lands. But when to all this there is added the loss of the public and private libraries of the whole legal profession, and the destruction of all the law offices with their contents, so that on the day after the fire the laws themselves seemed to have been suspended, we recall a condition of things before which every former parallel fails in comparison, and remember a calamity beyond adequate description by human faculty, and of so overwhelming a nature that no previous human experience had suffered it.

"From the effects of this disaster the legal profession was among the first to rally. The proverbial spirit of our Western people never manifested its pluck and energy more rapidly. In less than six weeks after the fire the members of the Institute, burnt out in all their offices, and in many instances in their homes, had levied upon themselves a contribution to refound the Institute and restore the library, amounting to the sum of $3,000.