Page images
PDF
EPUB

STOCK.

STAY LAW.

See CONSTITUTional Law, 2.

See CORPORATION, 1, 2, 6; LIMITATIONS, STATUTE OF.

SUNDAY.-See LORD'S DAY.

SURETY.

A creditor, who had sued a debtor and his surety, agreed with the debtor, without the surety's knowledge, to discontinue the action, receive part of the debt, and give further time (not specifying how long) for the payment of the rest. Held, that this arrangement did not discharge the surety, unless he was actually prejudiced thereby. - David v. Malone, 48 Ala. 428.

See CONSIDERATION; FRAUDS, Statute of.

TAX.

Land was devised for life, remainder over. A municipal tax for paving was assessed on it. Held, that the tenant for life and the remainder-man should contribute to pay the tax. - Peck v. Sherwood, 56 N. Y. 615.

See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 5; CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, State, 1, 8; DeVISE, 3.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

TRESPASS.—See ACTION, 4; CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, STATE, 3; JUDGMENT, 1.

[blocks in formation]

TRIAL.

- See ATTORNEY, 2; Autrefois Acquit, 1.

See ADVERSE POSSESSION, 1; CHARITY; CORPORATION, 1, 2; EXEC

UTOR, 1.

TRUSTEE PROCESS. See FOREIGN ATTACHMENT; MUNICIAAL CORPORA

TION,

3.

ULTRA VIRES. See CORPORATION, 4.

USURY. See CONSIDERATION; NATIONAL BANK; REPEAL.
VENDOR AND PURCHASER. - See FRAUDS, STATUTE OF, 2.

[blocks in formation]

See AUTREFOIS Acquit, 1, 2; MALICIOUS PROSECUTION, 1. VOTER. See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, STATE, 1.

[ocr errors]

WAIVER. See INSURANCE (FIRE), 1; LANDLORD and Tenant, 2.

WAR.

Where the law declared that payment of a debt should be presumed after a certain lapse of time, held, that the period during which the courts were closed, by reason of war, was to be excluded from the reckoning. — Gwyn v. Porter, 5 Heisk. 253.

See CARRIER, 4; CHARITY; GUARDIAN.

WARRANTY.

The holder of a warehouse receipt for a certain quantity of flour assigned it "without any guaranty." Held, that he was nevertheless liable on an implied warranty that the whole quantity was in possession of the warehouseman. Michel v. Ware, 3 Neb. 229.

WAY.

A person driving on a public street in a town turned off on to a private way which ran at right angles to the street, and which was not fenced off from it, and was injured by reason of a defect in the private way. Held, that the town was not liable. [Per Cur. It is not the duty of the town to point out private ways.] Chapman v. Cook, 10 R. I. 304.

See MUNICIPAL CORPORATION, 1; PROXIMATE Cause, 2.

[merged small][ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

See CHARITY; CONFLICT OF LAWS, 1; DEVISE; EXECUTOR, 3;
NUNCUPATIVE WILL; RATIFICATION.

WITNESS.

1. A witness was objected to for defect of religious belief. Held, that the objection might be supported by the testimony of other witnesses, without interrogating the witness who was challenged. · Odell v. Koppee, 5 Heisk. 88.

2. A promissory note was attested by the payee's wife, who at that time could not by law be a witness in an action to which her husband was a party. In an action on the note by the payee, held, that, though the wife was then by law a competent witness, the note was not within the exception of the Statute of Limitations, which excepts notes signed in presence of an attesting witness. Jenkins v. Dawes, 115 Mass. 599.

See CONTEMPT.

WORDS.

“All Privileges and Appurtenances.” — See LANDLORD AND TENANT, 1.

"Seised and Possessed.". See DOWER, 2.

"Till the Summer. Till the Fall."- See CONSIDERATION.

BOOK NOTICES.

United States Digest: A Digest of Decisions of the various Courts within the
United States, from the Earliest Period to the year 1870; comprising all
the American Decisions digested in thirty-one volumes of the United States
Digest, with careful Revision and important Additions. By BENJAMIN
VAUGHAN ABBOTT. First Series. Vol. III. Bonds-Costs.
Little, Brown, & Co. 1874.

Same. Vol. IV. Counties-Discovery. 1875.

Boston:

FOR a full statement of our views on this series, we refer to 8 Am. Law Rev. 592, where we noticed the first volume. This series is a redigestion, a packing of thirty-one volumes into twelve. It does not purport to refer to all the cases decided in the courts of the several states and of the United States, but merely to such cases as are selected from them as interesting or instructive, on the basis of selection heretofore employed in the Annual Digest. Its form and matter is condensed, revised, and improved, by the master hand of Mr. Abbott, and is a work of great labor and corresponding value, but of more value, as we have said before, as an index or dictionary than as a digest. We can see no evidence that the promise of the first volume has not been kept in its successors.

By URIEL H. CROCKER and Revised and enlarged, includ

Notes on the General Statutes of Massachusetts.
GEORGE G. CROCKER. Second Edition.
ing the Statutes of 1874, and Massachusetts Reports, Vol. CX. Boston:
H. O. Houghton & Co. 1875.

THE second edition of this work has added greatly to our indebtedness to the editors and inventors. Many lawyers make it a practice to annotate their volume of the General Statutes with marginal references to the later statutes and judicial decisions, but few do it so completely as the Messrs. Crocker. The first edition of their Notes was the result of the fortunate idea that a publication in book form of their daily annotations would be of assistance to all lawyers who had not at hand any means of quick reference to the present state of the statute law in this state. In that edition the editors call for the assistance of their fellow-members of the bar to correct mistakes and supply omissions; and through this source, or more probably by means of the same editorial punctiliousness that made possible the earlier edition, the edition before us has swelled into a volume of considerable pretension. We notice a valuable addition in a table of contents and a full and careful index, which make the book complete in itself; and on the whole we should say that wherever, in this state or out of it, any person finds it necessary or agreeable to have a copy of the Statutes of Massachusetts, he must almost of necessity have this book as an interpreter, and of course that edition of this book that contains the latest statutes and the latest decisions.

Warrington's Manual. A Manual for the Information of Officers and Members of Legislatures, Conventions, Societies, Corporations, Orders, &c., in the practical Governing and Membership of all such Bodies, according to the Parliamentary Law and Practice in the United States. By WILLIAM S. ROBINSON, "WARRINGTON," Clerk of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts from 1862 to 1873. Boston: Lee & Shepard, Publishers. New York: Lee, Shepard, and Dillingham. 1875.

Ir is currently reported that the author of this manual once said that the fundamental rule of parliamentary law was, "Never put an ass in the chair.” We fail to find this explicitly stated in the work before us; but yet we cannot infer, from any thing found under the head of "The Presiding Officer," that the author has changed his mind on a matter that certainly goes to the bottom of his subject.

A more experienced master of parliamentary law than we has pronounced this to be by far the best manual of its size that has been produced; and we certainly can testify to its conciseness, to its clearness of statement, and to its orderly arrangement. "For the largest part," says the preface, "this book seeks to give the reasons for the ordinary and the best practice of the best ordered bodies;" and of this, as of any text-book, the value to the practitioner, as well as to the student, consists in the statement of principles rather than precedents. "Given the reasons, and the practice adjusts itself."

Principles of Conveyancing: an Elementary Work for the Use of Students. By HENRY C. DEANE, Barrister. American Edition. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

1875.

THIS is the unassuming title of an admirable little work upon conveyancing as now practised in England. The American editor, who, in his preface to the present reprint of the work, refers to the unnecessary modesty of the author in his use of the above title-page, and who, in a spirit of imitation perhaps, conceals his own name from an eager public, adds a second more pretentious title-page, as follows: "An Epitome of the Law of Corporeal Hereditaments and Conveyancing." It would have been much better had he let "well alone;" for the book is exactly what the author described it to be, and what he intended to make it.

[ocr errors]

As we advance in the perusal of the work beyond the title-pages and prefaces, we discern the cause of his concealment, and admire the modesty of the American editor. He seems to have exhausted his energies in the creation of his improved title-page and preface; for we seek almost in vain through the book for the tell-tale brackets which he informs us encircle his own additions and notes. Once only he is betrayed into prolixity, and indulges even in poetry, the latter, however, not original, — on the subject of dower. We regret that we must take issue with him in many of his statements of fact in that note, for it is his most ambitious effort. In describing the antiquity of the law of dower, he gives, as one of the earliest recorded instances, the gift of necklaces and rings to Rebekah by Abraham's servant. We of course are all familiar with the brief history of Isaac's short and comfortable courtship. Little Samuel himself is not more familiar to us pictorially than Rebekah at the well. But surely there is no evidence of dower there. It was and still is

the custom of the East, to buy the bride from the father, and the gift to Rebekah was nothing more than a propitiatory offering to reconcile her to marriage with an unseen and unknown Isaac. The editor's other quotations from the Iliad and the Bible seem to us to be equally foreign to the subject. We believe it to be well established that the wife's right of dower is an inheritance to us from our Anglo-Saxon forefathers.

Exhausted by this effort, our editor confines himself to occasional brief statements that the law as existing in this country is quite different from what it is stated to be in the text. If he had gone one step further, and stated what the law was in this country, and referred the reader to a few of the leading American decisions, it would have added greatly to the value of the work.

As it is, however, Mr. Deane's little book is an admirable résumé of the common law and of the many English statutes upon all the topics which he attempts. The greater part of it is, however, of little value to an American conveyancer, as the laws of real property, both here and in England, at the present time are chiefly statute laws, and many of the cumbrous and perplexing intricacies of English conveyancing have been wholly abandoned here. To a young Englishman we think the work would be invaluable, for it is clear in its diction, authoritative in its language, and exhaustive in its statement of the principles of the law. To an American reader the space, and it is by no means small, occupied in the discussion of English statutes, such as the Private Money Drainage Act, the Public Money Drainage Act, Land Clauses Consolidation Act, and many others, is of course wasted; and the editor should have omitted them from the reprint. Moreover, the chapters upon the law of Copyholds, Mortgages, Husband and Wife, Equity of Redemption, Statute of Uses, Settlements, and Long Terms, which constitute nearly the whole book, and are of great importance and interest to the English professional reader, are, from the changes in the laws, of little practical value to a practitioner here.

dower, and especially of On this latter subject he

The author's statement of the laws of leases, fixtures, strikes us as the best part of the book. refers to a recent case which he comments upon as carrying the law to its extreme limit. It is the case of D'Eyncourt v. Gregory, L. R. 3 Eq. 382, where a tenant for life, an evident lover of art, put up all over his house tapestry pictures in panels, frames fitted with satin, statues, vases, stone gardens, and glasses and pictures not in panels, and upon his death the glasses and pictures not in panels were held alone removable.

The execution of the book is simply perfect. The print is clear and enticing to the eye, the paper thick and clear, the size of the book such as should be made the uniform one for all law-books by statute, and the binding excellent. It is a pleasure to read it on these accounts, and from its admirable style.

An Analysis of Kent's Commentaries. BY FREDERICK S. DICKSON. Philadelphia: Rees Welsh.

1875.

THIS book is the skeleton of Kent's Commentaries, and is prepared, the author tells us, with a view of enabling "the student more clearly to comprehend the system upon which the commentaries are constructed," and, at the

« PreviousContinue »