details are also given concerning the English and Italian Committees. We trust that England, which received him when his Fatherland sent him into exile, will not be found behind Italy and Holland in shewing her gratitude for the teaching of the Father of International Law in the Schools of Oxford. It is pleasant to find from another part of the "Revue " that a fresh impulse to the progress of Legal and Political Science has been given by the Peruvian Government, which has called M. Pradier-Fodéré, a distinguished French Publicist, to the presidency of a Faculty of Political and Administrative Science at Lima, comprising in a three years' course the study of Administrative and Constitutional Law, Public and Private International Law and Diplomacy, Political Economy and Statistics

We have drawn attention elsewhere to a valuable article in the second number for 1876.

The Partition Acts, 1868 & 1876; A Manual of the Law of Partition, and of Sale in lieu of Partition. By W. GREGORY WALKER, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, B.A, and late Scholar of Exeter College, Oxford. Stevens & Haynes 1876.

This edition of the above Acts by Mr. Walker will be found a handy little compendium of the Law of Partition, and of Sale in lieu of Partition; comprising not only the new law and practice, but also so much of the old law as still possesses an existing practical value. The two Acts of 1868 & 1876 are illustrated by carefully written intersectional notes, containing references to all the reported cases decided under the Act of 1868. In an Appendix are given several useful forms of Decrees and Orders, extracted by the author from the Registrar's books at the Report office.

Oke's Magisterial Synopsis. Twelfth edition. By THOMAS WILLIAM SAUNDERS, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, Recorder of Bath. 2 vols. Butterworths. 1876.

Twelve editions in twenty-eight years say more for the practical utility of this work than any number of favourable reviews. Yet we feel bound to accord to the learned Recorder of Bath the praise of having fully maintained, in the present edition, the wellearned reputation of this useful book.

The many important statutes passed since the eleventh edition appeared, only four years since, and which either impose new duties upon, or modify the old law administered by, Justices of

the Peace, have been carefully incorporated in the present work. Among these we may notice in the legislation of the last Session alone, the Acts concerning Cruelty to Animals, Drugging of Animals, Elementary Education, Industrial and Provident Societies, Merchant Shipping, the Poor Law, Salmon Fishing, and Wild Fowl Protection. A copious Index of over 100 pages offers every facility for reference which can be desired in addition to the alphabetical and tabular arrangement of offences, with their penalties, punishments, and procedure.

A History of Crime in England. Vol. II. From the Accession of Henry VII. to the Present Time. By L. OWEN PIKE, M.A, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. Smith, Elder, & Co. 1876.

To those whom previous study may not have familiarised with Mediæval History, and who probably, however erroneously, regard it as an unprofitable period for modern civilisation to concern itself with, Mr. Pike's concluding volume will make a more forcible appeal for attention than his former one. But it is precisely because Mr. Pike has enjoyed lengthened opportunities for making a special study of his subject in the ancient records of this country, and because he is neither a mere "laudator temporis acti," nor yet a blind enthusiast in favour of the nineteenth century, unable to discern the mingled good and evil of past ages, that his book is deserving of most careful study at the hands alike of the Criminal Lawyer, the Statesman, and the Economist.

With a work treating of so vast a subject, and in so exhaustive a manner, we cannot attempt to do more than point out a few of the salient features of the volume now before us, and draw attention to some of the more important views propounded or suggested by the author. The range of the book is necessarily very wide, embracing such widely different questions as those raised by the case of Mary, Queen of Scots, the charges against Lord Bacon, the Gunpowder Plot, the Star Chamber, and the most recent theories on Crime and Education. The descriptions given of the various modes of torture employed in this country down to a recent period, form a painful but unavoidable part of the task of the Historian of Crime in England. It may be doubted whether torture is not, in some shape or other, still legal both in Germany and Italy; yet the latter country, at least, displays great anxiety to abolish Capital Punishment. The use of thumbscrews (pollici), for the purpose, apparently, of extracting from

a prisoner a confession of being in the wrong in a dispute with Neapolitan boatmen, was clearly proved against Italy in very modern days, and we are not aware that the proof drew forth any disavowal of the system for the future. Mr. Pike may well remind us that the progress of civilisation is very slow, and that it is often but skin-deep. Nations, professedly civilised, no less than those whom they would call barbarians, are very apt to put on a cocked hat and a pair of Wellington boots, and consider themselves in full dress. It is worth while to remember that the Pillory was in use as late as the beginning of the present Reign, and that Professor Mittermaier could write of his country to an eminent American Jurist, Mr. Bishop, in 1860, "the greatest number of our lawyers neglect the study of the human nature;" and, in still more quaint and forcible language, "in Germany very dangerous principles, viz., that of intimidation, or retaliation, or imitation of the divine Justice, have a bad influence."(Bishop, Criminal Law, I., s. 98. Boston, 1872.) What idea the learned German Professor had formed to himself of "the divine Justice," that its "imitation" should so excite his indignation, we are unable to conceive. Possibly, it was a certain affectation of inerrancy, which is one of the tendencies of the Modern State, and which does not pass unheeded by Mr. Pike. "Our forefathers," he reminds us, "thought they burned heretics for the good of the Commonwealth and for the good of the heretics themselves, just as we think we vaccinate infants, send Peculiar People to prison, and fine widows who permit their children to be absent from school, for the good of the children and of the State in general. We believe we know what is expedient better than a small minority who look upon the same matters from a different point of view." The whole of Mr. Pike's last Chapter, in the course of which he discusses the relations between Crime and Instruction, the effects of Compulsory Education, and some of the various forms of what appears to him to be "Modern Intolerance," is very interesting and suggestive. Sometimes the author would seem fanciful, did we not know that his views are based upon documentary researches, and that he is fully alive to the fallacies which may and do lurk in statistics. We may not be able to agree with Mr. Pike at all points, but his arguments and his warnings are alike worth heeding. We shall do well to remember that a grave responsibility is accepted by a State which insists on directing how the earlier years of life shall be spent by its members. In this phase of modern English life, Mr. Pike sees "a distinct advance towards Communism,”

for the parents of children in receipt of State education, he urges, "receive, if not money, the value of money, out of a common stock." And this policy, he thinks, must go further, or be inconsistent; the reproach of intolerance, at any rate, he believes it can hardly escape.

So Mr. Pike, from his point of view, sounds the Cassandra note of warning. Whether he be right or not in thinking that he has shown us our "rocks ahead," we have much reason to thank him for the able contribution of an original thinker to the solution of some of the chief problems in the Political and Social History of England.

A Sketch of the History of Taxes in England. By STEPHEN DOWELL. Vol. I.-To the Civil War, 1642. Longmans. 1876.

Mr. Dowell here breaks ground in a different kind of literary soil from that with which his name has hitherto been associated. From his more strictly technical works on the Stamp and Income Tax Laws he has aspired to the position of a Historian, and has undertaken to treat an important branch of the story of the English people. For, if it be true that money is the "Sinews of War," no less is it the "Sinews of Peace" and good government. Among the radical evils which appear to render a better administration and an internal reformation of abuses in the Ottoman Empire so hopeless is the wretched state of the Revenue System, and the enormous drain upon the people arising from a Taxation under which Pashas and Middle-men flourish, while the State and the Tax-payer alike derive little or no benefit from it. Under such circumstances discontent must needs be chronic and universal. Mr. Dowell is a historian who thinks a dry subject requires to be made palatable by plums of quotation, and of peculiarly modern illustration. He tells us what Lothair would have paid to enter the lists at Ashby, had he lived in the reign of Richard Coeur de Lion, and gives us as the modern version of the Emperor Sigismund's advice to Henry V. respecting Dover and Calais, "Keep up your Channel Fleet." His range of authorities is wide, sometimes embracing in the same page the prince of old travellers, Mandeville, and Mr. J. R. Green, some of whose most rhetorical assertions he accepts without challenge. Michelet is among Mr. Dowell's most favourite sources of inspiration, and it seems to us that his style has been somewhat affected by the peculiarities of the brilliant French historian, which, like those of Victor Hugo, are apt to seem spasmodic and inflated when translated into English. But our

author has carefully studied his subject, and has something of interest to tell us about it from the "portoria" and "capitatio humana," of the Western Roman Empire, down to Bates's Case. Several useful tables of medieval taxation are given, and, besides the statistics of the various periods described, Mr. Dowell affords much assistance to his reader in gaining an insight into the manner of life in England, down to the War between King and Parliament. Looking onwards from 1642, Mr. Dowell sees in the vista of the future a long array of taxes on "almost every document that can bear a stamp, and every trade or profession that can bear a license," so that there can be no lack of matter of interest for his second volume.

The Inns of Court Calendar. By CHARLES SHAW, UnderTreasurer of the Middle Temple. Butterworths. 1877.

The first publication of an "Inns of Court Calendar," modelled to a certain extent on the long familiar University Calendars, can hardly fail to be suggestive to many minds of the oft-mooted idea of a Legal University, with the Four Inns of Court as its component Colleges. And when we look at the details here afforded concerning the professorial instruction given under the Consolidated Regulations, and the rewards in the shape of prizes, studentships, and other distinctions, which may be gained by those who are "in statu pupillari," the suggestion seems almost to become the reality which a slight extension of the present system, embracing the appointment of Tutors in each Inn, would go far to make it.

There is a mass of information in this work which both members of the profession, and the lay public, will welcome, and which they would otherwise have to search for in many separate publications. But it is essential to the success which we should gladly see the Inns of Court Calendar obtain, that the next issue should contain an Index Nominum. Without this it cannot fulfil its purpose of being a handybook of reference, in which those who consult it may expect readily to find all the information that they desire respecting the dates of admission and call, the official position, and the academical and other distinctions of members. of the Four Inns.

On some points there is in the Calendar almost a redundancy of information, as for instance, on p. 225, where the late Liberal member for Oldham is described as still sitting and as being Parliamentary Secretary to the Local Government Board, con