Bankruptcy Bill may be expected, as a matter of course, in every Session; and while such is the case it is distinctly advantageous that, in addition to the Law as it exists for the time being, the history of the Law, its objects and leading principles, should be kept clearly and constantly in view. The historical retrospect of Bankruptcy legislation contained in Mr. Robson's work is by no means one of its least instructive and useful features. In the case of the third edition of so well-known a work it is unnecessary to go much into details, especially as the author has retained the original arrangement, correcting and supplementing where necessary. The references to cases are numerous throughout, and the notes are short and to the point. In discussing the alteration in the old law as to Disclaimer by Trustees, effected by the 23rd section of the Bankruptcy Act, 1869, Mr. Robson pertinently remarks (p. 401):-"So far as the clause empowers the trustee to disclaim onerous property and unprofitable contracts it was unnecessary; and so far as it relates to leasehold property it creates difficulties which did not exist under the former Statutes. And the best course would, perhaps, be to repeal the clause and re-enact the 145th section of the Bankruptcy Act, 1849 (which, on the whole, was generally considered to work satisfactorily), releasing the Bankrupt from all liability in respect of the covenants in the lease, whether the trustee accepts or rejects the lease, with liberty for the lessor to prove under the Bankruptcy if the lease is rejected by the trustee." In the Appendix are given the Bankruptcy Act, 1869, the Debtors Act, 1869, the Bankruptcy Repeal and Insolvent Court Act, 1869, with all the various Rules and Schedules of Forms; the Absconding Debtors Act, 1870; the Bankruptcy Disqualification Act, 1871; and the Bills of Sale Acts, 1854 and 1866. The Index is both copious and good.

The Law relating to Mines, Minerals, and Quarries in Great Britain and Ireland; with a Summary of the Laws of Foreign States, &c. By ARUNDEL ROGERS, Esq., of the Inner Temple, Barrister-atLaw. 2nd Edition. Stevens & Sons. 1876.

Thirteen years ago we had occasion to observe that there

a need for the revision of the Foreign Department of Mr. Rogers's work on Mines. We are glad to see an improvement in this respect, and we find from his Preface that he has for the most part had those portions revised by residents in the districts referred to. This is a good precaution to take, but it

does not save Mr. Rogers from a certain antiquarian leaning towards the introduction of obsolete titles and extinct States, or even the reproduction of Laws which the authorities whom he quotes state to have been almost entirely abrogated. We still, as in 1864, have the French Law on Mines of 1791, occupying about six pages of text, although, on p. 37, the Laws of 1810 are stated to have established "Des règles presque entièrement nouvelles."

Perhaps still more striking instances of Mr. Arundel Rogers's antiquarianism may seem to be exhibited in the persistency with which he gives us the Legislation of the old Duchies in Central Italy, and also of "Rome and the Pontifical States," while yet recognising in his text the fact that the soil to which they relate "formerly constituted" those States. This might be considered a lukewarm advocacy of two opposing theories.

It is a more serious oversight, as one pertaining to the quaint terminology of English Law, when Mr. Rogers talks in his Table of Contents of "profits à pendre in alieno solo," though he had taken care to have the phrase correct in the text to which it refers at p. 600.

In connection, however, with the more purely English part of his work, Mr. Arundel Rogers gives useful Tables of the Authorities, Statutes, and Cases cited by him, and he also devotes considerable space to the elucidation of the terms "Mines, Minerals, and Quarries," whether occurring in deeds. or Acts of Parliament, or according as "local signification" may give them a special interpretation. Special chapters are devoted to the Rights of the Duchy of Cornwall, as apart from the Rights of the Crown, and also to the Rights of Ecclesiastical, Eleemosynary, and Municipal Corporations, Ownership under Trustees in Bankruptcy, and other important divisions of the subject. On the whole, Mr. Arundel Rogers's Second Edition, which is increased by about 200 pages, will afford a really useful, though somewhat bulky, work of reference, alike for the Government Inspector and for the practising Barrister who is engaged in cases involving the Law of Mines. Those who remember how a European complication was very nearly brought about by the case of the Laurium Mines will not be the last to recognise the value of such a Treatise.

A Treatise on the Law Relating to the Pollution and Obstruction of Water-courses: together with a brief Summary of the various.

Sources of Pollution. By CLEMENT HIGGINS, M.A, F.C.S., Barrister-at-Law. Stevens & Haynes. 1877.

The Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, which is given. in extenso in the Appendix to the volume before us, though moderate in dimensions, and in many respects falling far short of the expectations of sanitary reformers, is the outcome of much thought and inquiry, and of more than one abortive effort at legislation. The importance of the subject of the pollution of rivers is only equalled by the difficulty of dealing with it satisfactorily. Sanitary authorities, whose raison d'être is the preservation of the public health, rank with manufacturers among the chief polluters of rivers. The Commissioners appointed in 1868 to ascertain how far the use or abuse of rivers for the purpose of carrying off the sewage of towns and the foul liquids of manufactories could be prevented, without injury to health or manufactures, endeavoured, in their Report, to meet the initial difficulty of defining the word "polluting" as applied to liquids. They accordingly recommended ten "Standards of Purity," which met with the strong support of many eminent chemists, and were embodied in the Bill introduced in the House of Lords in 1873. The Select Committee, however, to whom that Bill was referred, impressed with the real difficulties attaching to these tests, struck out the clause containing them, and they were not again inserted in the Bill of 1875, or in the present Statute. The task which the Legislature found too hard for them has thus been cast, in the first instance, upon the County Court Judges, who are empowered to restrain, by summary order, offences against the Act. Some idea of the difficulties in store for our tribunals in determining what constitutes "pollution" may be gathered from a case which recently occupied the New York Court for four weeks, during which no less than 186 witnesses, chiefly scientific experts, were examined. The question raised was whether the slops and whey from a cheese factory could pollute a stream so as to injure the cattle of the Plaintiff, which drank the water. There was a further complaint that this alleged pollution was a nuisance and a source of disease to the neighbourhood. Finally, on the 23rd March, the Jury found for the Plaintiff, with five dollars damages, the amount being purposely made small on account of the heaviness of the costs which the Defendants would have to pay. No prosecution under the English Act can take place until next August, and in the meantime County Court

Judges, Sanitary Authorities, and Riparian Owners will find in Mr. Higgins's Treatise a valuable aid in obtaining a clear notion of the Law on the subject. The résumé of the expressed opinion of scientific men on the Standards of Purity, and the summary of the various sources of rivers pollution, will be found especially useful. Part II. of the work is devoted to a short but comprehensive discussion of "Riparian Rights and their Protection," and an Appendix sets forth the principal Statutory provisions relating to water-courses, the vesting of sewers, &c. Mr. Higgins has accomplished a work for which he will readily be recognised as having special fitness, on account of his practical acquaintance both with the scientific and the legal aspects of his subject.

The Theory and Practice of Banking. By H. DUNNING MACLEOD, Esq., M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge, and of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-Law. Third Edition. Vol. II. Longmans. 1876.

The concluding volume of Mr. Macleod's complete work is quite as interesting as its predecessor, and it is enriched by features of great utility to the practitioner no less than by the vividness of the narrative. Besides his careful analysis of the Evidence before the Committees of both Houses of Parliament, in 1819, Mr. Macleod, in the present volume, enters at some length into the history of Scotch Banking, paying special attention to the well-known failures of recent years, as well as to the earlier case of the Ayr Bank, in 1772. So far as appears, the Ayr Bank might have continued its operations for years without its real insolvency being discovered, but for the accidental failure, through speculations, of a London agent. But it seems to have been based on an economic misconception akin to that of Law, and to have collapsed as suddenly as his magnificent schemes. Nearly a century passes away before we hear of another such catastrophe in Scotland. It raises a similar storm, at the moment, against the Scotch Banking System, but Mr. Macleod marshals a strong array of evidence to prove that the failure of the Western Bank, in 1857, was due to its having throughout the whole of its career "pursued a system which was diametrically opposed to the usual course of the other Scotch Banks." When such a safeguard is neglected as that described in the following terms of a remonstrance by a number of Scotch Banks against the grant of a charter to the

Western Bank, no failure could well astonish us :-"The safeguard of the Scotch system," say the Bankers, whose remonstrance Mr. Macleod quotes (p. 219), "has been the uniform practice adopted of retaining a large portion of the capital and deposits invested in Government Securities, capable of being converted into money at all times and under all circumstances." It is easy to see, of course, that "this requires a sacrifice, because the rate of interest is small;" but it is a sacrifice worth making, if, as the authors of the remonstrance believed, and as Mr. Macleod believes with them, "It has given the Scotch Banks absolute security, and enabled them to pass unhurt through periods of great discredit." The Report of the Committee of the House of Lords, in 1826, had given expression to an equally high opinion of the excellence of the Scotch Banks, which had "for more than a century," they said, "exhibited a stability which they believed to be unexampled in the history of Banking." In his chapter on Theories of Currency, Mr. Macleod gives a full discussion of what he calls "Lawism," and exemplifies his view of its erroneous character by the fate of the celebrated Assignats, in a later period of French History. Law had said that his Paper Currency would not fall below the value of silver, yet the Paper Assignat sank, as Mr. Macleod shows, "to the 30,000th part of its value in silver!"

Chapter XIII., on the Definition of Currency, besides treating the subject historically, and giving, as "constitutional curiosities," excerpts from the Dooms of Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edgar, and other Anglo-Saxon Kings, also contains an interesting and valuable fragment of the Digest of the Law of Bills of Exchange, &c., which Mr. Macleod prepared for the Digest Commissioners. Here, as in Chapter XVI., on the Business of Banking, the practitioner will find the decided cases noted under the divisions of the subject to which they respectively relate. The various relations in which a Banker may stand to his customer are thus made clear in the light of Judicial decisions, and both parties may profitably study this section, as well as the later portion of the same chapter (p. 475 to end), in which the Law of Credit, Bills, and Notes, is given, in numbered paragraphs, with the illustrative cases, special care being taken to mark the changes effected by the Judicature Act. We have lately read of a good step having been taken by an eminent Banking Firm, which has resolved upon filling up vacancies among its junior clerks by a Competitive Examination. We should think more highly of this plan if we saw included in the subjects of