THE PRESIDENT: Gentlemen of the Pennsylvania Bar Association and Distinguished Guests: This is a motion. upon which everybody is entitled to vote-the ladies, however, only in the negative.

After a unanimous vote in the affirmative:

Governor Montague, you have received the most flattering vote that I have known of since my connection with this Association. All the gentlemen are unanimous and no lady dissents. By virtue of this resolution, I now bestow upon you all the privileges and prerogatives of membership in this Bar Association, with none of its pains and penalties.

On motion, adjourned.

SECOND DAY, MORNING SESSION

WEDNESDAY, June 28, 1911.

The Association assembled at 10 o'clock a. m., President SMITH in the Chair.

order.

THE PRESIDENT: The meeting will please come to

THE SECRETARY: Before proceeding with the business of the morning I would ask that unanimous consent be given to Mr. John H. Jordan, of Bedford, to make a statement to the members of the Association.

JOHN H. JORDAN, Bedford: Mr. President, and Members of the Association: Last summer my vacation was spent in Bedford, as it always is, it being my home town, and I spent a considerable portion of that time going over the records of the Courts of this County, and to my amazement I found matter there that was altogether new to me and new to our people, and I know it would also be new to the members of the Bar Association. I have had taken

from the records certain things that I thought would be most interesting, and put them in pamphlet form, and I have the honor to present with my compliments a copy of it to each member of the Bar Association.

The pamphlet contains first the dedimus potestatem on the part of John Penn to John Fraser, Bernard Dougherty and Arthur St. Clair, authorizing them to administer oaths of office and also the oath of allegiance. 2. The form of oath required to be taken by officials serving under King George III, and a copy of the first oath administered. 3. The form of oath that officials were required to take after Pennsylvania joined the union of the States. 4. Copies from the criminal records of the Quarter Sessions Court for the County of Bedford showing the sentences imposed on conviction for crimes; that the pillory and whipping post were in use in the old town of Bedford, in the place where we now are. A man by the name of Daniel Palmer was convicted of horse stealing, and the sentence of the law was in part that he be taken to the whipping post and receive thirty-nine lashes well laid on his bare back and immediately afterwards be placed in the pillory for one hour and have his ears cut off and nailed to the pillory.

I followed that with excerpts from the deed of the Six Indian Nations to Garrett Pendergass, Sr., for the land on which Allegheny City is now built. There is a nice little history connected with that showing the magnanimity of the Indian chiefs. Pendergass first had from the Indians a grant of land in this section where we are now. The town of Bedford is built on part of that land. He lost that during the French and English War, made complaint to the Chiefs of the Six Nations who gave him a second grant of land at the Youghiogheny River immediately opposite Fort Pitt. From that point he was to have a semi-circle with a half mile radius. The principal portion of Allegheny City is built on part of that tract. I present a copy of this pamphlet to each member of the Association.

THE SECRETARY: I would be very glad, indeed, if it were not contrary to the written law of this body, to move that the thanks of the Association be given to Mr. Jordan for his work; but as we are prohibited from giving thanks to any member of the Association, I think he will understand that we individually and all heartily thank him for his labors in preparing this material for the instruction of the members of the Association.

ALEX. SIMPSON, JR., Philadelphia: I would like to go a step further. Pamphlets, such as the one Mr. Jordan has so kindly prepared for us, are very easily lost. If this matter were put into the report of this meeting of the Asso-ciation, it would be preserved very much better. I therefore move, with Mr. Jordan's consent, that this pamphlet be printed in the report of the proceedings of this meeting. Duly seconded.

THE PRESIDENT (to Mr. Jordan): Have you any objection to this motion?

JOHN H. JORDAN, Bedford: None whatever.

The question being upon the motion of Mr. Simpson,. it was agreed to.*

THE PRESIDENT: Mr. H. J. Steele, whom I appointed. yesterday upon the Committee on Nominations, has been obliged to return home, and I therefore substitute in his place Mr. Edward J. Fox, of Northampton, as a member of that Committee.

THE PRESIDENT: The first business this morning isthe consideration of the report of the Committee on Law Reform Mr. Simpson, Chairman.

ALEX. SIMPSON, JR., Chairman, Philadelphia: The first matter referred to in the Report of the Committee on *The reprint of Mr. Jordan's pamphlet appears in the appendix. to this volume.

Law Reform, which requires the action of the Association, is the draft of an act providing for supplemental proceedings where an execution has been issued on a judgment and nothing recovered, or not sufficient recovered on the execution to pay the debt. It was two years ago that the resolution on that point was referred to the Committee, and its consideration was laid over at our request from last year until this. The draft of the act is now before the Association.

There are two points which have been referred to in correspondence by other members of the Association with your Chairman, to which I wish to refer at this time, before making the usual motion for the approval of the draft. In the first section of the act the Committee have provided that before there can be a right to compel the testimony of the defendant for the purpose of determining whether or not he has property which ought to be subject to the judgment, the plaintiff shall be required to present a petition under oath, setting forth that he believes the defendant has property. The criticism has been made that that would require a plaintiff who did not know, either to take the chances of averring that he believes the defendant has property, or to lose the opportunity of having an examination made as provided by the act. It does not seem to me, nor to other members of the Committee, so far as I have been able to converse with them, that that is a serious objection. On the contrary, by the defendant's manner of life, or by what the plaintiff has learned of the defendant, the plaintiff ought to be able and willing to go that far before subjecting the defendant to an examination of the kind stated.

The other criticism which has been made is a criticism of Section 2. The proposition which is there made relieving the defendant from prosecution or from being subjected to any penalty or forfeiture for or on account of any transaction, matter or thing concerning which he may testify, may, it is said, result in those who ought to be very much

punished entirely escaping by reason of that provision. That criticism, in point of fact, goes to the life of the act, because, unless an exemption at least that broad is allowed, you will run up against the provision both of the Constitution of the United States and of this State, as witness the construction of the former by the Supreme Court of the United States in Counselman vs. Hitchcock, 142 U. S. 547. In that case the Supreme Court said that, while an examination of this kind is not, strictly speaking, a criminal proceeding, it none the less requires the defendant to give evidence which, while you may not use that evidence itself, may nevertheless lead you along lines which will enable you to get other evidence to convict him which you otherwise could not have obtained, and therefore it is absolutely essential that he be relieved from prosecution if you require him to testify at all.

These are the only two objections which the Chairman of the Committee has heard. And now, having stated them to the Association, so that motion touching them may be made if any member so desires, I make the usual form of resolution that the act as presented be approved.

Duly seconded.

GEORGE WENTWORTH CARR, Philadelphia: I would like to ask Mr. Simpson whether an act somewhat similar in its purpose to the proposed act was not adopted by the Legislature about 1875, and whether that was not afterwards held to be unconstitutional? I have an indistinct recollection of it, but I do not see that the Committee refers to that act if it was passed, and to the decision of the Supreme Court under it.

ALEX. SIMPSON, JR., Philadelphia: There was such an act construed in Horstman vs. Kaufman, 97 Pa. 147, and held to be unconstitutional; but it had no provision relieving the defendant from prosecution such as there is in this act. There are, I may say without being guilty of lese