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which the editors aim to correct with great distinctness, so that if they have failed it is from no lack of comprehension, and we are only surprised, as we read it, that the reform has been delayed so many years. The multiplication of Reports has been a very serious tax on the profession, and has been carried to such an extent that in ten volumes of Howard's Reports, containing seven hundred and seventy cases, there are two hundred and forty reported elsewhere, seventy-three reported three times, and thirty-three four times, in other series. Nor has the rivalry of reporters had any tendency to secure either promptness, or completeness, or accuracy, which might naturally be supposed to result from such active competition. The 62d of Barbour's Reports, published in 1872, contains thirty-one cases, decided in 1861, 1862, and 1863. There are many decisions which have never been reported at all. Not unfrequently have dissenting opinions been given as the opinions of the court; and decisions afterwards reversed have been published years after the reversal, without reference thereto. Moreover, the object of the reporters being merely to make volumes of sufficient size to match the rest of their series, they have not scrupled to fill them with nisi prius rulings, opinions of inferior tribunals, and even the decisions of referees, for all of which padding, as well as for unnecessary spacing, prolix head-note, and valueless argument, the New York Bar has been obliged to pay in order to know what their Supreme Court had decided. We can only wonder that they have submitted till now, and that no reporter has ever occupied the field which the present series now enters.

We are glad to say that the editors of the present volume have taken warning by the example of their predecessors. They give us now the opinions delivered between June and November, 1873, - promptness to which New York has long been a stranger. The Reports are to be issued in monthly parts, after the manner of the English Reports, and will make about three volumes a year. This volume contains full reports of one hundred and seventy cases, and is unencumbered by unnecessary matter. The head-notes are such as we have always commended, and are, in general, clear statements of the facts and decision. The briefs of counsel are inserted in a few instances, the cases cited on each side only being given in many others, which is a good way of preserving the fruits of a counsel's industry for his successors. Indeed, the volume is so much superior to any Reports of this court that have lately been published, that we are not surprised to learn that those who profited by the old abuses find that they "lack countenance," and are retiring from the contest. Both Lansing and Barbour have already closed their labors, and we doubt whether this series will leave room for any others. If the remaining volumes of the series are kept up to the standard of the first, the profession will have every reason to thank the editors, not only for the work they do, but for the example they set to others who still persevere in error.

We have left ourselves no space to discuss the cases themselves; but we are satisfied that our readers will feel a lively sympathy with the defendant in Campbell v. Cotteran, p. 70, an unhappy attorney, who, having recovered judgment against a railroad company for $4328.48, put his execution, with instructions to levy, in the hands of the sheriff, who seized and advertised property enough to satisfy it. Before a sale, the Court of Appeals reduced the judgment to $50, which, under modified instructions, the sheriff collected, but,

being unwilling to share the misfortunes of his employer, he charged poundage on the original amount. The defendant, not unnaturally, objected to the claim, and the Supreme Court sustained him. We hope that the defendant's brothers elsewhere may take courage from his success, for such sheriffs exist out of New York.

Decisions of the Commissioner of the General Land Office and the Secretary of the Interior, under the United States Mining Statutes of July 26, 1866, July 9, 1870, and May 10, 1872. With Appendix of Circulars and Forms. By HENRY N. COPP, General Land Office, Washington, D. C. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Co., Publishers, Booksellers, and Stationers. 1874.

THE title of this book states its contents very fully. It gives the statutes; the construction which has been placed upon them by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, the Secretary of the Interior, and the AttorneyGeneral; the circular instructions issued and the regulations made under them, with an appendix containing forms. We have no doubt that it will prove a very convenient manual to all who have occasion to study and apply these laws.

Reports of Cases heard and determined in the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Vol. III., from August 12, 1871, to November 20, 1872. By J. S. G. RICHARDSON, State Reporter. Columbia, S. C.: Republican Printing Company, State Printers. 1873.

THE cases contained in this volume might easily have been compressed into a smaller space without sacrificing any thing that was valuable. Mr. Richardson has made his reports unnecessarily long by giving the opinions of the court from which the appeal was taken in some cases, and by almost always inserting at length the briefs of counsel, much of which might be spared. Except this, we see little to criticise. His head-notes are concise, and, except occasionally, not encumbered with a statement of all the principles adverted to in the opinion, nor is there any superfluous statement of facts. We should say that the volume was on the whole decidedly better than the average Report of the period.

Our limited space in the present number will prevent our noticing the cases contained in the volume; but in comparing it with the Reports of more northern states, it is observable that the subjects of litigation change with the latitude. Thus the first case in the volume-Redding v. South Carolina R.R. Co. is an action brought by a husband and wife against the company to recover damages for injuries to the wife, caused by her expulsion from a waiting-room, which was done by a servant of the company on the ground that she was a negro. She denied the charge, but how far her color was material to her case does not appear. The defendant claimed that the servant was not acting within the scope of his authority, but the court held it a question for a jury.

The book is very well printed, but we can hardly commend the binding.

The Law Magazine and Review, Loudon, has changed its editorship, being now under the charge of W. F. Finlason, Esq., who for some time has been a

contributor to its columns, and is known as editor and annotator of Reeve's History of the English Law. Almost all the articles in the January number are said to be from his pen, the most ambitious of them being the first, on "The Functions and Influence of Legal Journalism," in which he says:

Another way in which legal journalism may be of use in aiding both the students and practitioners of the profession is in the exposition of new statutes. There used to be an office in our Inns of Court, that of the Reader, which now exists only in name, but which used to be of some practical utility in giving readings of new statutes. Such were Callis's Readings on the Statutes of Trusts, and Bacon's Readings on the Statute of Uses. These readings were of course carefully prepared, and probably written; and they were originally read, because in ages anterior to the invention of printing the oral lecture was the only possible mode of instructing students. But when lectures could be printed, it is manifest that they would be far more available and valuable for purposes of study and instruction in a printed form, and then they could be studied at leisure, with far more effect than by being once heard. Hence, probably it is, that the readings became obsolete, and though in our own day they have been revived by Bowyer and Phillimore, yet their learned productions had a permanent value only when printed and published.

And he proposes to himself a series of such expositions. We consider this a very well-conducted and valuable periodical.

The Western Jurist, 1873. Vol. VII. Des Moines: Mills & Co., Publishers. 1873.

THIS is the bound volume of the twelve numbers of the Jurist for 1873, and contains the usual department of current events, and many standard articles of permanent value, some of which are original, and some reprints from domestic and foreign periodicals. The Jurist has been enlarged during the last year; it is issued on the first of each month, and is a wide-awake, carefully conducted periodical, principally intended for the bar of Iowa, - the general editor indeed claiming that he shall make it "absolutely indispensable to every Iowa lawyer," — but yet of service to the profession elsewhere.

With the large increase of circulation of the newspaper press in this country, the periodical literature of the law has gone hand in hand, and to such purpose forsooth as to draw from our contemporary in England - The Law Magazine and Review — the editorial suggestion that to the development in America of legal journalism the superiority of American lawyers as jurists is to be ascribed. How true the deduction is we will not discuss, but that legal journalism has developed in America is a fact that no one who saw our exchange list would dare to deny.

The Central Law Journal. St. Louis.

WE gladly give place among our exchanges to a legal newspaper that shows such enterprise and good sense as this. The Central Law Journal is published every Thursday at St. Louis, and is edited by Judge Dillon, with S. D. Thompson, Esq., as associate editor. A paper so edited is certain to be successful both in contents and, consequently, in its subscription list. How Judge Dillon finds time for his manifold tasks; how he can preside so constantly in his court, and decide so many novel and difficult questions, and at the same time

edit a work on Corporations

so well done, withal, that one edition is exhausted and another issued with additions in a year; be his own reporter, and edit this paper, as well as keep his name on the staff of the Law Register, are questions he must be often asked, and perhaps can answer. He has an active mind, and has evidently found out the secret that they can do best who are constantly doing.

On Expert Testimony in Judicial Proceedings. By JOHN ORDRONAUX, M.D., LL.D., State Commissioner in Lunacy. [From The American Journal of Insanity, for January, 1874.]

The Legal Chronicle. Pottsville, Pa.
Legal Gazette. Philadelphia, Pa.

Pacific Law Reporter. San Francisco, Cal.
Pittsburgh Legal Journal. Pittsburgh, Pa.
The Legal Intelligencer. Philadelphia, Pa.
Chicago Legal News. Chicago, Ill.

The Lower Canada Jurist. Montreal, Canada.

The Internal Revenue Record and Customs Journal. New York, N. Y.
New York Medical Journal. New York, N. Y.

The St. Louis Journal of Law. St. Louis, Mo.

The Canada Law Journal.

The American Law Register.

The Albany Law Journal.

The American Law Record.

Toronto, Ontario.

Philadelphia, Pa.

Albany, N. Y.

Bench and Bar. Chicago, Ill.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Western Jurist. Des Moines, Iowa.

The National Bankruptcy Register Reports. New York, N. Y.
The Law Times, the Journal of the Law and the Lawyers. London, Eng.
The Illustrated Annual of Phrenology and Physiognomy. New York, N. Y.
The American Law Times and Reports. New Series. New York, N. Y.

A LIST OF LAW BOOKS PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA SINCE JANUARY, 1874.

Abbott's Digest of New York Statutes and Reports. New edition, complete to the year 1873. Vol. 4. Royal 8vo, sheep. Baker, Voorhis, & Co., New York. American Railway Reports. Vol. 2. (Mallory.) 8vo, sheep, $6.00. James Cockcroft, New York.

Bigelow's Fire, Life, and Accident Insurance Reports. Vol. 3. 8vo, sheep, $7.50. Hurd & Houghton, New York.

Bispham. Principles of Equity. 8vo, sheep, $7.50. Kay & Brother, Philadelphia. Byles, Treatise on the Law of Bills. Eleventh edition. Svo, 25s. Sweet, London. Cabinet Lawyer. Twenty-fourth edition. 12mo, 9s. Longmans, London. California Reports. Vols. 42, 43, and 44.

Sumner Whitney & Co., San Francisco. Chitty's Treatise on the Law of Contracts.

(Tuttle.) 8vo, sheep, $8.00 per vol.

Eleventh American edition from the

Ninth English edition. Edited by J. C. Perkins, LL.D. 2 vols. 8vo, sheep, $15.00. Hurd & Houghton, New York.

Cooley's Constitutional Limitations. Third edition. 8vo, sheep, $7.50. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston.

Court of Claims Reports. Vol. 8. (Nott & Hopkins.) 8vo, sheep, $6.00. W. H. & O. H. Morrison, Washington.

De Gex, Jones, & Smith's Reports. Edited, with Notes and References to American Law and subsequent English Decisions, by Hon. J. C. Perkins. Vols. 2 and 3. 8vo, sheep, $5.00 per vol. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston.

Doria's Law and Practice of Bankruptcy. 12mo, 31s. 6d. Law Times Office, London.

English Reports. Vol. 5. Edited by N. C. Moak. 8vo, sheep, $6.00. William Gould & Son, Albany.

Every Man's Own Lawyer. By a Barrister. Eleventh edition. 12mo, 6s. 8d. Lockwood, London.

Fisher's Patent Cases. Vol. 5. 8vo, sheep, $25.00. Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati.

Gaius. Translated, with Notes, by J. T. Abdy and Bryan Walker. New edition. Post 8vo, 16s. Rivingtons, London.

Georgia Reports. Vol. 47. (Jackson.) 8vo, sheep, $7.00. J. W. Burke & Co., Macon.

Gibbon & Nathan. Equity in the County Court. Second edition. 12mo, 12s. 6d. H. & T. Cox, London.

Horrigan & Thompson. Select American Cases on Self-Defence. 8vo, sheep.
Soule, Thomas, & Wentworth, St. Louis.

Indiana Reports. Vol. 40. (Black.) 8vo, sheep, $5.00. Indianapolis.
Kansas Reports. Vols. 8 and 9. (Webb.) 8vo, sheep, $6.00 per vol. Topeka.
Leigh & Marchant's Guide to Election Law. Second edition. 12s. Davis & Son,
London.

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