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in spite of M. Fustel de Coulanges; from whom he also differs in finding among the Franks the traces of an elective monarchy. He considers that the Merovingian king was an absolute judge, and that all inferior jurisdictions emanated from the Crown. He scoffs at the idea of jurisdiction being connected with a feudal grant; he thinks the Rachimbourgs and Scabini were true judges, and as their number was usually seven, he fathers the institution upon an ancient system of arbitrations. But it is impossible to mention all the interesting questions raised or discussed.

Chitty's Equity Index. Containing the titles Children,' Addenda and

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Fourth Edition. By H. E. HIRST. Vol. VIII.
Ventre Inspiciendo, Writ de' to 'Younger
Appendix. La. 8vo. vii and 7365-8368 pp.

Chitty's Equity Index. Fourth Edition. By H. E. HIRST. Volume IX. Containing the 'Index to the names of Cases' [unpaged]. London: Stevens & Sons, Ld. and Sweet and Maxwell. 1889.

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THE penultimate volume of Chitty's Equity Index' is now in our hands. The first volume came as long ago as 1883, and the last will probably appear in 1890. Not that we should have much reason to complain even if the work nonum prematur in annum, so enormous is the labour for a single pair of hands to do. The pity of it is, that either more pairs of hands were not employed, or else that the work was not published as a whole, smooth and round. We had hoped to have in this eighth volume the most serviceable part of the work, the list of cases. But it is deferred till the ninth volume in favour of an immense mass of 'Addenda' and a vast 'Appendix.' The Addenda' by themselves cover nearly a hundred pages, and to make the 'Index' what it should be patient labour ought to incorporate each addendum' in the body of the work. The editor explains that most of the additions have been derived from some four or five series of reports, that he did not discover the omission of these cases until the work was too far advanced to admit of their insertion in the text of the earlier volumes, but that in the fifth and succeeding volumes they have been digested with the other matter in their proper places in the body of the work. The 'Addenda' also contains the cases which bring the first volume down to the end of 1883. We notice some few decisions in these additional cases which would have naturally come into Mr. Hirst's fifth and sixth volumes, but it is surely better to have them here than nowhere at all. Then as to the appendix. It contains a list of 'the decisions and books digested in this work which have been expressly doubted, overruled, followed, or otherwise commented on' by the Courts. This is a valuable appendix. For safety's sake no one should take an authority to be good without seeing that it is not criticised amongst the cases in this appendix, unless indeed the practitioner's own reports are exceedingly well noted up. In this eighth volume we see no falling off in the laborious accuracy which has consistently distinguished Mr. Hirst's work. Despite the immense character of the labour to which he has submitted himself, his force and vigour have abated no whit, and now he is within easy reach of the end of his task. Finis coronabit opus, we may confidently say, with the ninth volume which will complete a work indispensable to every book-case in Lincoln's Inn.

Since the above words on vol. viii were written, we have received volume the ninth and last of 'Chitty's Index,' and we congratulate Mr. Hirst on the completion of his arduous labours. The task of proof-reading

for this last volume, consisting as it does entirely of names and numerals, must have been very heavy. So far as we can see the limae labor has been done carefully and well. As things stand, a practitioner may say with fair safety, that his point is one of first impression in English law if there is no decision which touches it either in the new Fisher' or the new 'Chitty,' or in the Annual Digests from the end of 1883 onwards. There may be Scotch or American and possibly Irish cases on the subject: but in the vast abundance of case law most lawyers are content nowadays with a knowledge of the English decisions. There is one thing in which Mr. Hirst's last volume is peculiar, if not singular, among books. Its pages are not numbered. We have seen an English book without punctuation of any kind, but we do not remember that we have ever seen one before this, the pages of which bore no numbers. Not that this omission matters much to those, and their number will be great, who will use the rehabilitated index. It will be remembered that Mr. Hirst has adopted a continuous system of paging throughout his volumes. He has with great thoughtfulness put at the foot of each and every page in the Names of Cases,' a statement of the number of the first page in every one of the eight volumes. This simple device will save much annoyance, and is of a piece with the careful prevision which marks every page-and they must be nearly ten thousand—of Mr. Hirst's great work.

A Treatise on the Law of the Domestic Relations; embracing Husband and Wife, Parent and Child, Guardian and Ward, Infancy, and Master and Servant. By JAMES SCHOULER. Fourth Edition. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 1889. lxxiv and 773 pp.

WHEN a book of the calibre of Mr. Schouler's reaches its fourth edition within the second decade of its existence, it needs no justification or encomium. It has reached a rank of its own, which it is likely to retain as long as its author lives to keep it up to date. It has become a standard member of legal libraries and a recognised book of reference. It is hardly so well known in England as it deserves to be, having been in a measure supplanted by Mr. Eversley, who has had the advantage of treading in Mr. Schouler's steps, and of profiting, as he avows, by Mr. Schouler's arrangement and research. Mr. Schouler certainly takes the broadest view of each domestic relation indeed we are inclined to doubt whether such disquisitions as his general conclusions on the relations of husband and wife are not more suited to a treatise on morals than to one on law. So again with the excursus on 'parent and child in general:' it is good, but somewhat out of place. The divisions of the work are logical and exhaustive; they are, after the introduction, the following :-husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, infancy, and master and servant. This last relation has not the same importance in the United States as it has in the United Kingdom, being characterised by Mr. Schouler as in theory hostile to the genius of free institutions. We venture to say that there are few provinces of law of which the rules are so little understood or so frequently invoked as this. To descend to details, it would be instructive, alike to British and American readers, if Mr. Schouler would give the dates of the cases which he cites. We do not ask for the double or quadruple references in which the writers of English law books delight, but only for the date of each decision. We frankly confess that a reference to '12 Vt' or 5 Day,' conveys no idea of date to our mind. Mr. Schouler seems to be somewhat unfamiliar with the references to English reports. We find a case of Reg. v. Smith, which is

reported in Bail. C. C. 132; in 22 L. J. Q. B. 116; and in 17 Jur. 24, referred to only in an American series of reprints, 16 E. L. & Eq. 221. And it is not right to quote Royce v. Charlton 8 Q. B. Div. 1 as sole authority for a proposition without a reference to Eaton v. Western 9 Q. B. Div. 636, in which Royce v. Charlton was distinctly overruled. On practical points such as these Mr. Schouler shows himself inferior to his English fellow-labourers in the same field. But in breadth of view and lucidity of arrangement Mr. Schouler's work leaves nothing to be desired. It has won itself a high place in the library and a conveniently low place on the shelf; and these places it will certainly keep.

The Law and Practice in Divorce and Matrimonial Causes. By the late GEORGE BROWNE, Q.C., and L. D. POWLES. Fifth Edition. London: Sweet & Maxwell, Ld.: Stevens & Sons, Ld. 1889. Royal 8vo. xx and 768 pp.

THE reissue of Mr. Browne's well-known work will be welcomed by practitioners, for to tell the truth Mr. Dixon's book was too loosely put together to be of much use except to students. The present edition of Browne will therefore be fairly entitled to be regarded as the practitioners' standardwork on divorce practice. Of course some criticisms not quite favourable may easily be formulated. For example, we are told that in the third edition of Mr. Oakley's invaluable work . . . complete instructions how to obtain a committal order will be found' (p. 232). This is no doubt gratifying to Mr. Oakley, but we should prefer in a treatise on the practice of the Court not to be referred to anyone's work however invaluable, but to have the information supplied to us by the editor. Again the doctrines as to legal cruelty upheld by the Ecclesiastical Courts have been regarded as too narrow by the Divorce Court: the editor would have shown a justifiable boldness if he had at once proceeded to state the law as it now is without troubling himself about the doctrines of the Ecclesiastical Courts. No amount of abuse was regarded as sufficient by these tribunals to justify a charge of legal cruelty, but now if the abuse has been such as to cause a reasonable apprehension of bodily suffering or an injury to health, it amounts to legal cruelty. The index is full and complete, in fact some of the heads are of too detailed a character, so that we should hardly be prepared to search for a subject under them. 'Fall from virtue' would hardly occur to any as a heading synonymous with misconduct. Again 'Ejusdem generis,' and 'Deductions' may be considered rather vague. Mr. Powles has also a habit of putting an adjective as the catchword, which may be considered a bad practice intacta virgo,' 'past misconduct,' are examples of this; in each case the substantive should be the leading word; indeed the phrase in the former case-it is only fair to the editor to sayis also supplemented by 'virgo intacta,' which was quite enough.

The Annual Practice, 1889-1890. By THOMAS SNOW, CHARLES BURNEY, and FRANCIS A. STRINGER. London: Sweet & Maxwell, Lim., and Stevens & Sons, Lim. 8vo. clxvii and 1425 pp.

Supplement to same work (containing Pay Office Statutes and Rules, R. S. C. under Statutes and Lunacy Orders, and Appeals to House of Lords). 8vo. xii and 198 pp.

THIS year Mr. Winstanley's name disappears from the Annual Practice.' On the other hand, Wilson's Practice' is discontinued, and Mr. Charles

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Burney transfers his skill and experience to the 'Annual;' and the notes on a number of special subjects have been revised by members of the Bar and others whose names are a guaranty of competence. We may now safely say that The Annual Practice' is a book which every practising English lawyer must have; Mr. Snow and his colleagues are evidently determined. to make it as good a practice book as he can have, and they may be congratulated on as large a measure of success as human accidents allow in a work of this kind. In this edition text-books of the general law (as distinguished from the quasi-classical books of practice, Daniell, Morgan, Seton) seem to be less often cited than formerly. This is, to our mind, a wholly commendable change.

The Elements of Law Natural and Politic. BY THOMAS HOBBES, of Malmesbury. Edited, with a Preface and Critical Notes, by FERDINAND TÖNNIES. To which are subjoined Selected Extracts from unprinted MSS. of THOMAS HOBBES. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1889. 8vo. xvi and 226 pp.

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DR. TÖNNIES has been engaged on the praiseworthy work of restoring to its original form and reinvesting with its original title the earliest and shortest, yet at the same time a well-matured' statement of that theory of law natural and politic which Hobbes gradually developed. Molesworth's Edition of Hobbes' Works, the only edition which many readers are likely to have at hand, may fairly be charged with being uncritical.' The editor does not tell us whence he obtained his text, and in the case of Hobbes we ought to have such information, for he was constantly recasting and elaborating his doctrines, and others were engaged as it seems in printing his work without his authority. We ought therefore to be thankful to Dr. Tönnies for having enabled us to see in one handy volume one particular stage in the evolution of that theory of law which was to leave an enduring mark not only on English philosophy but on English jurisprudence. It is interesting to catch a great writer annotating his own book, striking out a paragraph here, inserting a sentence there, changing one word for another; and this our editor enables us to do. And so, though it cannot be said of him that he has given us much more of Hobbes's work than was already published, yet it can gratefully be said that by careful labour on manuscripts he makes it possible for us to see more clearly than before the process by which Hobbes's theories formed themselves and found expression. As a critical edition of one exposition of the doctrine, an exposition not yet incumbered by over-many polemical passages, this book should be welcome, and a reader of Leviathan should have it by his side.

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Ueber den Willen im Privatrecht [extracted from Thering's Jahrbücher, vol. 28, N. S. 16]. By Prof. J. KOHLER.-The present essay is on one of the most fascinating and interminable topics of speculation which exercise philosophical jurists. We may be excused for going at once to the point which may be of most interest for our readers. Prof. Kohler cites English authority freely, though through the medium of text-books, with high approval of the judicial common sense which presides over the development of our law. English law,' he says, 'has kept a perfectly right course, as it is needless to explain to any one acquainted with the singular practical insight of English judges.' By a curious slip he cites Mr. Leake in the

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same judicial category with Lord Blackburn ('die Richter Leake und Blackburn'). Few text-writers, however, have better deserved such an accidental compliment than Mr. Leake. Under the heading Der Irrthum im Gemäldehandel,' Prof. Kohler gives a series of amusing examples of disputed warranty of genuineness on the sale of works of art, mostly from French decisions. This is a topic on which our own reports, though not silent, are not abundant.

Rechtsvergleichende Studien über islamitisches Recht, das Recht der Berbern, das chinesische Recht und das Recht auf Ceylon. By J. KOHLER. Berlin: Carl Heymann. 1889. 8vo. 252 pp.-Nothing seems to come amiss to Prof. Kohler's research. We cannot follow him through the Mahometan world, to say nothing of Ceylon and China. But we doubt not that students of Asiatic institutions will find his work both interesting and useful.

Essays on Government. By A. LAWRENCE LOWELL. Boston and New York. 1889. 8vo. 229 pp.-This is a neat and attractive specimen of the modern American school of constitutional law, or perhaps we should rather say legal politics. More than one able American writer has in the last few years cast doubt upon the efficacy of the Constitution of the United States as a self-equilibrating machine, and suggested that a centralizing process is steadily and not very slowly taking place. Mr. Lowell maintains that the received opinion is sound, and that the balance of powers in the Constitution is a real and stable one. He considers recent English legislation to have gone far towards state socialism. No English lawyer would ever guess what enactment he takes as his extreme example-nor will we tell. It was perhaps gratuitous cruelty to expose, with great professions of respect, the futility of Austin's attempt to make the United States fit into his theory of sovereignty.

Il Diritto Comune (anglo-americano). Per O. W. HOLMES, Jr. Traduzione di Francesco Lambertenghi. Sondrio: 1888-9. 8vo. 556 pp.— Judge Holmes's work on The Common Law,' first published in 1881, has already taken a classical rank among the limited number of our really scientific law-books. It is generally found pretty strong meat even by English and American students who already have some legal training; and the experiment of translating it into Italian may seem a bold one. None the less does Signor Lambertenghi, the Italian consul at San Francisco, deserve all credit for the undertaking. He professes himself almost converted by Judge Holmes to thinking better of our law than of the system in which he was brought up.

Le droit international: la guerre. Par Sir HENRY SUMNER MAINE. Traduit de l'anglais avec autorisation des éditeurs. Paris: E. Thorin. 1890. 8vo. xxxiv and 312 pp.-This is a careful and trustworthy version of Maine's posthumous Whewell lectures, and something more; for the translator has modestly but effectively corrected various blemishes-omission of quotationmarks, obvious verbal confusions, and the like-which the English editors either overlooked or did not feel it within their province to correct. Sir F. Pollock's public lecture delivered at Oxford on Sir Henry Maine and his work (Contemporary Review, Feb. 1889) is translated, and also very well translated, by way of introduction.

The Conveyancing Acts, the Vendor and Purchaser Act, the Solicitors' Remuneration Act and the General Order made thereunder. With Notes and an Introduction. By AUBREY ST. JOHN CLERKE and THOMAS BRETT.

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