OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# Pacific Mail Company v. Lucas/Opinion of the Court

* Court Documents
* Case Syllabus
* Opinion of the Court
United States Supreme Court
258 U.S. 266
Pacific Mail Company v. Lucas
Argued: March 10, 1922. --- Decided: March 27, 1922
This is a libel brought by the respondent to recover $219 for wages, subsistence and medical attendance, the libellant having been left at Honolulu, ill, in the course of a voyage from San Francisco to the Orient and return. The defense is that he was not ill, that ill or well he should have remained upon the vessel, and further that he was discharged, and signed the mutual release required by Rev. St. § 4552 (Comp. St. § 8341), and by that section made a bar. The Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the finding of the District Court that the libellant was not malingering, and, as we take it, although it is argued otherwise, also in finding that the doctor and master of the ship were willing that the libellant should go to the Marine Hospital. The only question that we see reason for considering is whether the two Courts were right in holding that the libellant was not concluded by the release.
Both Courts have found that the respondent was only asked to sign for his wages, that a discharge was not mentioned, and to put it in our own way, that the purport of the overt acts in the circumstances was not to release the libellant's claim. The petitioner cites the words of Rev. St. § 4552, and Rosenberg v. Doe, 146 Mass. 191, 15 N. E. 510, to show that such a position is impossible. But the same case at a later stage, 148 Mass. 560, 20 N. E. 176, admitted a different result, where the sailor knew too little English to understand the nature of the document and there was evidence that it was misstated to him. In the present case we have the further very important fact, which does not appear in the report of Rosenberg v. Doe, that the master did not give the respondent a certificate of discharge, as he was required to, under a penalty of fifty dollars, by Rev. St. § 4551 (Comp. St. § 8340), if the respondent really was discharged. Moreover, by a statute later in its present form than Rosenberg v. Doe, it is provided that notwithstanding the statutory release 'any court having jurisdiction may upon good cause shown set aside such release and take such action as justice shall require.' Act of March 4, 1915, c. 153, § 4; 38 Stat. 1164, 1165 (Comp. St. § 8322). We are not prepared to say that the finding of the two Courts was wrong.
Decree affirmed.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Pacific Mail Steamship Company v. Schmidt

* related portals: Supreme Court of the United States.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
United States Supreme Court
241 U.S. 245
Pacific Mail Steamship Company v. Schmidt
Argued: April 25 and 26, 1916. --- Decided: May 22, 1916
Messrs. William R. Harr, Charles H. Bates, George A. Knight, and Charles J. Heggerty for petitioner.
Mr. James W. Ryan (by special leave) and Mr. John L. McNab for respondent.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 246-247 intentionally omitted]
Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Pacific National Bank of Boston v. Eaton

* related portals: Supreme Court of the United States.
* sister projects: Wikidata item.
United States Supreme Court
141 U.S. 227
Pacific National Bank of Boston v. Eaton
A. A. Ranney, for plaintiff in error.
J. H. Benton, Jr., for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 228-230 intentionally omitted]
BRADLEY, J.

## Notes

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it is a work of the United States federal government (see 17 U.S.C. 105).
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse
# Persian Letters/Letter 104
#### Letter 104

Usbek to the Same
Here you have as nearly as I can, continuing the subject of my last letter, what a sensible European said to me recently.
“The worst course which the princes of Asia could have adopted, is to shut themselves up as they do. They desire to render themselves more venerable; but it is royalty which they cause to be respected, and not the king; they attach the minds of their subjects to a certain throne, and not to a certain person.
“When the power that governs is invisible it is always the same to the people. Although ten kings, known only by name, should have their throats cut one after the other, the public are sensible of no difference: it is as if they were governed by a succession of spirits.
“If the detestable murderer of our great king, Henry IV, had assassinated one of the kings of Ind, master of the royal seal, and of an immense treasure which would seem to have been amassed for him, he would peacefully have seized the reins of power, without its entering into any one’s mind to inquire after the king, his relations, and children.
“We are astonished that there is hardly ever any change in the government of eastern princes: how could it be otherwise, when we bear in mind their terrible tyranny?
“Changes cannot be effected except by the prince or by the people: but there the princes take care to alter nothing, because, possessed of such absolute power, they have all they can have: were they to make any change it could only be to their own injury.
As to the subjects, should one of them form any design, he cannot execute it upon the state; it would be necessary to overturn at one blow a most formidable and unchanging power; for this he lacks time and means: but he has only to attack the source of that power, for which all he needs is an arm and a moment of time.
“The murderer mounts the throne, as the monarch leaves it and falls expiring at his feet.
“In Europe a malcontent thinks of carrying on a secret correspondence, of going over to the enemy, of seizing some town, or of exciting foolish complaints among the people. A malcontent in Asia goes straight to the prince, amazes, strikes, overthrows: he obliterates all memory of his existence: in one moment slave and master, usurper and lawful sovereign.
“Unfortunate is the king who has only one head! In guarding it with all his power he only shows the first upstart where to strike.”
Paris, the 17th of the second moon of Rebiab, 1717.
# Persian Letters/Letter 112
#### Letter 112

Usbek to * * *
THE reign of the late king was so long that the end of it had caused the beginning to be forgotten. Now it is the fashion to occupy oneself with the events that happened in his minority; and nothing is read but the memoirs of these times.
Here is the speech which one of the generals of the city of Paris delivered at a council of war: I confess I do not see anything very remarkable in it:
“Gentlemen, although our troops have been repulsed with loss, I think it will be easy to retrieve this misfortune. I have six couplets all ready to publish, which I am certain will restore all matters to a proper balance. I have chosen some admirably clear voices, which issuing from the cavity of certain very powerful chests, will move the people wonderfully. They are set to an air which has hitherto produced quite a peculiar effect.
“If this is not enough, we can bring out a print representing Mazarin hanged.
“Fortunately for us, he does not speak French well; and he mutilates it in such a way, that his importance cannot fail to decline. We take care to make the people observe with what a ridiculous accent he speaks it. Some days ago we made such sport of an absurd mistake in grammar, that it is now a joke in all the streets.
"I hope that before eight days have passed, the people will make the name of Mazarin a generic term to express all the beasts of burden and beasts of draught.
“Since our defeat, our songs about original sin have annoyed him so much, that, to save his party from being reduced to half, he has been forced to send away all his pages.
“Rouse yourselves then; take courage, and be sure that with our hisses we shall send him packing over the mountains.”
Paris, the 4th of the moon of Chahban, 1718.
# Persian Letters/Letter 105
#### Letter 105

Usbek to the Same
All the nations of Europe are not equally submissive to their princes: the impatient humour of the English, for instance, leaves their king hardly any time to make his authority felt. Submission and obedience are virtues upon which they flatter themselves but little. On this subject they say most amazing things. According to them there is only one tie which can bind men, and that is gratitude: husband and wife, father and son, are only bound to each other by their mutual affection, or by the services they do each other : and these various motives of obligation are the origin of all kingdoms and communities.
But if a prince, instead of making the lives of his subjects happy, attempts to oppress and ruin them, the basis of obedience is destroyed; nothing binds them, nothing attaches them to him; and they return to their natural liberty. They maintain that all unlimited power must be unlawful, because it cannot have had a lawful origin. For, we cannot, say they, give to another more power over us than we ourselves have : now, we have not unlimited power over ourselves ; for example, we have no right to take our own lives: no one upon earth then, they conclude, had such a power.
The crime of high treason is nothing else, according to them, than the crime of the weaker against the stronger, simply disobedience, no matter what form the disobedience may take. Thus the people of England, finding themselves stronger than one of their kings, pronounced it high treason in a prince to make war upon his subjects. They have therefore good reason to say that the precept of their Koran, which requires submission to the powers that be, is not a very difficult one to follow, seeing that it is impossible not to do so, inasmuch as they are not enjoined to submit to the most virtuous, but to the strongest.
The English tell how one of their kings, having conquered and taken prisoner a prince who disputed his right to the crown, began to reproach him with his faithlessness and treachery, when the unfortunate prince replied, “It was decided only a moment ago which of us two is the traitor.”
A usurper declares all those rebels who have not, like him, oppressed their country; and believing that where there are no judges there are no laws, he chases the caprices of chance and fortune to be reverenced like the decrees of Heaven.
Paris, the 20th of the second moon of Rebiab, 1717.
# Persian Letters/Letter 106
#### Letter 106

Rhedi to Usbek, at Paris
In one of your letters you said much to me about the arts and sciences cultivated in the west. You are inclined to regard me as a barbarian; but I am not certain that the profit derived from them recompenses men for the bad use to which they are put every day. I have heard it said that the invention of bombs alone has deprived all the nations of Europe of freedom. The princes being no longer able to trust the guardianship of towns to the citizens, who would surrender them at the first bomb, have made it a pretext for keeping large bodies of regular troops, whom they have since used to oppress their subjects.
You know that since the invention of gunpowder no place is impregnable; that is to say, Usbek, that there is no longer upon the earth a refuge from injustice and violence.
I dread always lest they should at last discover some secret which will furnish them with a briefer method of destroying men, by killing them off wholesale in tribes and nations.
You have read the historians: think of them seriously; almost all monarchies have been founded upon ignorance of the arts, and have been destroyed by their overcultivation. The ancient empire of Persia may furnish us with an example at our own doors.
I have not been long in Europe; yet I have heard sensible people talk of the ravages of alchemy. It seems to be a fourth plague, which ruins men, destroying them one by one, but continually; while war, pestilence, and famine destroy them in the mass, but at intervals.
Of what advantage has the invention of the mariner’s compass been to us, and the discovery of so many nations who have given us more diseases than wealth? Gold and silver have been established by a general agreement as the means of purchasing all goods, and as a pledge of their value, because these metals are rare, and useless for any other purpose: of what consequence was it to us, then, that they should become more common, and that to mark the value of commodity, we should have two or three signs in place of one? This was only more inconvenient.
But, on the other hand, this invention has been hurtful to the countries of the New World. Entire nations have been destroyed; and those who have escaped death have been reduced to a slavery so dreadful, that the description of it makes even a Mussulman shudder.
Happy in their ignorance are the children of Mohammed! Their amiable simplicity, so dear to our holy Prophet, perpetually recalls to me the artlessness of the olden time, and the peace which reigned in the hearts of our first fathers.
Venice, the 5th of the moon of Rhamazan, 1717.
# Persian Letters/Letter 110
#### Letter 110

Rica to * * *
The University of Paris is the first-born daughter of the kings of France, and very aged; for she is more than nine hundred years old; and so she dotes now and again.
I have been told that she had at one time a great dispute with some doctors about the letter Q, which they wanted to pronounce like K. The quarrel grew so warm that some of the disputants were despoiled of their substance. It became necessary for parliament to put an end to it; which it did by permitting, in a solemn decree, all the subjects of the king of France to pronounce that letter according to their fancy. It was very amusing to see the two most venerable institutions in Europe occupied in deciding the fate of a letter of the alphabet!
It seems, my dear * * *, that the ablest men grow stupid when they get together; and that, where you have the greatest number of wise men, there you have the least wisdom. Great bodies always pay so much attention to minor details, and idle customs, that essentials are never considered till afterwards. I have heard it said that a king of Arragon, having assembled the states of Arragon and Catalonia, the first sessions were spent in deciding in what language the deliberations should be held: the dispute was lively, and the states would have broken up a thousand times, if they had not hit upon the expedient of putting the question in the Catalonian tongue, and the reply in that of Arragon.
Paris, the 25th of the moon of Zilhage, 1718.
# Persian Letters/Letter 108
#### Letter 108

Rica to Ibben, at Smyrna
I have seen the young king. His life is very precious to his people: it is not less so to the whole of Europe. But kings are like gods; and as long as they live must be considered immortal. His face is majestic, but pleasing; a good education in conjunction with a happy disposition, already give promise of a great prince.
They say that one can never tell the character of the kings of the west until they have passed through the two great ordeals of selecting their mistress and their confessor. We shall shortly see the one and the other labouring to possess the mind of this one: and on that account he will become the subject of great contentions. For under a young prince these two powers are always rivals; but they are reconciled and leagued together under an old one. Under a young prince a dervish has a very difficult part to play; the king’s strength is his weakness; but the other triumphs alike in both his strength and his weakness.
When I arrived in France, I found the late king altogether governed by women, although at his age I believe him to have been the one monarch in the world who had least need of them. I heard a woman say one day, “Something must be done for that young colonel; I know his worth; I will speak to the minister for him.” Another said, “It is surprising that that young abbé should have been overlooked; he must be made a bishop; he is well-born, and I can answer for his morals.” You must not however suppose that the women who talked in this way were favourites of the prince: they had perhaps not spoken to him twice all their lives; which is nevertheless a very easy thing to do with European princes. But there is not a single person employed in any way at the court, in Paris, or in the provinces, who is not acquainted with some woman through whose hands pass all the favours and sometimes all the wrongs which he may wish done. These women are all in each other’s secrets, and form a sort of republic, the members of which are always busy aiding and serving each other; it is like a state within a state; and anyone at court, in Paris, or in the provinces who sees the activity of the ministers, the magistrates, and the prelates, if he does not know the women who govern them, is like a man who sees a machine at work, but who is ignorant of the springs that move it.
Do you think, Ibben, that a woman consents to be the mistress of a minister for love of him? What an idea! It is in order that she may lay before him every morning five or six petitions; and the goodness of these women appears in the zeal with which they serve an infinite number of unfortunate people, who obtain for them an income of a hundred thousands livres.
They complain in Persia that the kingdom is governed by two or three women: it is much worse in France, where the women govern generally, and not only usurp all authority wholesale, but retail it among themselves.
Paris, the last day of the moon of Chalval, 1717.
# Persian Letters/Letter 111
#### Letter 111

Rica to * * *
THE rôle of a fine lady is much more serious than one would imagine. Nothing could be more important than what takes place in the morning at her toilette among her servants: a general of an army devotes no more attention to the disposition of his right or of his reserve corps, than she gives to placing a patch which may fail, but from which she hopes or foresees success.
What mental worry, what care, to be continually reconciling the interests of two rivals; to appear neutral to both, while she is giving herself to them; and to act the part of peacemaker in all the strife she makes between them!
How she is occupied with the success and the renewal of pleasure parties, and in the prevention of all accidents that might interrupt them!
And with it all, the greatest trouble is taken, not to amuse oneself, but to appear to be amused. Bore them as much as you like, they will forgive you, so long as it is understood that they have been very merry.
Some days ago I was at a supper given by some ladies in the country. All the way they kept saying, “We must at least enjoy ourselves immensely.”
We happened to be very ill paired, and were consequently very dull. “I must confess,” said one of these ladies, “that we are very merry; there is not in Paris to-day a party so gay as ours.” As the wearisomeness of it all began to overpower me, a lady rallied me, and said, “Well, are we not getting on charmingly?” “Yes,” I replied, yawning; “I believe I shall split my sides laughing.” Melancholy, however, invaded all our thoughts; and as for me, I felt myself fall from yawn to yawn into a lethargic sleep, which put an end to all my mirth.
Paris, the 11th of the moon of Maharram, 1718.
# Persian Letters/Letter 109
#### Letter 109

Usbek to * * *
There is a species of book unknown to us in Persia, and which seems to me to be very fashionable here: these are the journals. Idleness feels flattered in reading them; it is so delightful to be able to run through thirty volumes in a quarter of an hour.
In most of these books, the author has not made the ordinary compliments, before the reader is in despair: he is made to enter half dead upon a subject drowned in the midst of a sea of words. This one would immortalise himself in duodecimo, that one in quarto; another with loftier propensities aims at a folio; he must therefore extend his subject to proportion; which he does without mercy, counting as nothing the trouble of the poor reader, who worries himself to death reducing what the author took such pains to amplify.
I cannot see, * * *, what merit there is in making such works; I could do it myself quite well, if I chose to ruin my health and a publisher.
The chief faults of these journalists is, that they talk only of new books; as if truth were always new. It seems to me that until a man has read all the old books, he has no right to prefer the new ones.
But when they lay it down as a law that they must never speak except of works hot from the press, they impose upon themselves another-which is, to be very tedious. They are very chary of criticising the works from which they make extracts, whatever their reason may be: and, indeed, what man is bold enough to wish to make ten or twelve enemies every month?
Most authors are like poets, who will take a caning without a murmur; but who, indifferent as to their shoulders, are so very jealous of their works, that they cannot endure the least criticism. It is necessary then to be very careful not to attack them in so sensitive a spot; and the journalists know it well. They therefore do just the contrary: they begin by praising the matter treated of; from this their first ineptitude they pass to the praise of the author, forced praise, for they have to do with people who are always on the alert, ever ready to see justice done themselves, and to attack with trenchant pen a foolhardy journalist.
Paris, the 5th of the moon of Zilcade, 1718.