startled the English members of the Conference. We must admit that we should greatly fear that the "effusive librarian," whose idea is to "meet the reader half-way," and engage him in conversation, would be very apt to degenerate into a bore. And we are quite sure that the mere creation on paper of so dread an officer as the "examining librarian," who should think it part of his duty to catechise us on what we have been reading, would add a new terror to the use of a Library. But, apart from these somewhat untoward suggestions, there is much matter of real interest in the story of the Public Libraries of the United States. We visit under competent guidance places well known to us through literary or historical associations. In the Library of King's Chapel, Boston, we remember the quaintness of some "Old Town Folks," while at Cornell University, Ithaca, we are reminded of a celebrated Oxford Professor, and wonder whether his Odysseus-like wanderings have been brought to a close there. At Harvard we cannot help recalling that there are muscular Christians among the students, who have crossed the ocean to uphold the honour of the New World among the oarsmen of the Old. It is interesting to note among the records how gifts came to various American Libraries in their early days from such men as Isaac Newton and Richard Steele, as well as from Queen Anne and Louis XVI. We regret to find that ten pages appear to suffice for the account of the Law Libraries in the United States, and we should have thought it superfluous to state at this late period of the Nineteenth Century that "the entire body of Municipal Law which governs and regulates society is contained in printed books." But we sympathise with the compiler of the Legal division of the Report, Mr. S. B. Griswold, when he says that "public Law Libraries have become indispensable in the administration of justice." And we would add equally indispensable for the education of both branches of the Legal Profession. It would be well if every Public Library in the United Kingdon had a Legal Department, in which every new Law book should find its place. Of Special Law libraries, the only one with which we are acquainted, outside the Inns of Court and the Law Institution, is All Souls, Oxford, a "NonEducational College" which might yet do a considerable work in helping on Legal science, both directly through its Fellowships, and indirectly through its Library.

The Popular Conveyancer, by James Ball (Butterworths, 1877), is likely to prove useful to the student and articled clerk as an intelligent guide to the branch of Law of which it treats. The author has carefully worked out numerous precedents, which he annotates throughout, and his forms extend from the Ancient Charter of Feoffment to the Modern Articles of Association of a Company, Limited.-Mr. T. F. Martin provides the student with what is intended to be a series of small handbooks, under the title of The Students' Conveyancer (Stevens & Sons, 1877). the opening instalment being devoted to Purchase Deeds. The work, as far as it goes, seems to be adequate for its purposes. Mr. L. B. Mozley publishes a small book on Trade Marks Registration (Stevens & Sons, 1877), in which he gives a very concise view of the Law, as it has been altered by the Acts of 1875 and 1876. This subject has become one of sufficient importance to demand the establishment of a special organ, called Trade Marks, edited by Mr. Edmund Johnson, and intended as a "journal of all matters connected with British, Colonial, and Foreign Trade Marks."-A recent cause célèbre has furnished Mr. W. F. Finlason with an occasion for some characteristically trenchant remarks, prefixed, by way of introduction, to his Report of the Case of Twycross v. Grant, with the Judgments as revised by the Judges (Stevens & Sons, 1877). Mr. Finlason entertains strong views as to the "fatuity," both of a great deal of Modern Legislation on the subject of Companies, and of "people who had so much money that they did not know what to do with it."-Mr. P. H. Lawrence, in his Compulsory Sale of Real Estate, under the powers of the Partition Acts, 1868 and 1876 (Butterworths, 1877), gives a brief but clear account of the state of the Law, from the days when, as recited in 31 Hen. VIII., c. I., joint tenants and tenants in common "extirped, subverted, pulled down, and destroyed," until they were" coacted and compelled" to make partition by writ de participatione facienda, down to the Bill of the present Lord Chancellor, which became Law in 1868, with its supplemental Act of 1876.-In a Lecture on Personal Experience of English Departmental Government (Longmans, 1877), Mr. Richard Herring re-echoes Punch's advice to those about to marry with the intensity of one who believes himself to be a sufferer, if not a martyr. Under the quaint title of The Patient, the Physician, and the Fee (Butterworths, 1877), we meet unexpectedly with a plea

for codification and for the abolition of the duty on solicitors' certificates. In a paper entitled Civil Allegiance in a Free State (Skipton, Craven Herald Office, 1877), Mr. Daniel, Q.C., gives his views on some of the grave questions involved in the relations between Church and State, as well as on other topics, partly of local and partly of general interest.-The Chancellor of the Diocese of Carlisle in two charges delivered at the last visitation, and entitled An Increase of the Episcopate and the Congé d'élire (James Parker, 1877), urgently pleads for the erection of Episcopal Sees in great centres of modern population, such as Liverpool, Sheffield, Nottingham, &c., and sketches out a reform of the present system of nomination and election to the Episcopal order which he believes would restore its pristine character, while preserving inviolate the existing rights of the Crown. Mr. H. H. Geach, in A Plain Outline of Law (Hardwicke & Bogue, 1877), thinks to help the general public and the young student by such valuable information as that "at the time of the Roman invasion (sic) the laws of Edward the Confessor were, no doubt, the standing laws of the kingdom," a historical statement which, we confess, is beyond our limited intelligence. Mr. F. Waymouth Gibbs, C.B., has done good service by publishing a full Report of the case of Lord Henry Seymour's Will, under the title of Les Hospices de Paris et de Londres (Stevens & Haynes, 1877). French, Austrian, Italian, and English Law are alike illustrated by various aspects of this great case, which thus acquires an international importance. We note two or three slips in some of the foreign portions of the work, e.g., p. 95, where "même" has evidently been omitted before "proportion," and on the same page "dû" for "du" (repeated on p. 97); also in the article quoted from the Austrian Civil Code, for "cittadine" should clearly be read "cittadino," and in the Judgment of the Court of Appeal, Milan, "rilasciati da" instead of "rilasciati di," in both the passages in which the phrase occurs.-Mr. Almaric Rumsey has brought out a new and enlarged edition of his useful Chart of Hindu Family Inheritance (W. H. Allen & Co., 1877), which is substantially a new work. Mr. Rumsey is somewhat strong in his expressions of opinion with regard to the late Sir W. H. Macnaghten, and not unfrequently criticises the views of that distinguished author somewhat severely. It should be remembered, however, that while Sir William originally simply made. notes, for his own use, of some cases that struck him as illustrating the Principles of the Hindu and Mohammedan Law,

with which he had officially to deal, Mr. Rumsey enjoys the advantage of having from the first written with a view to the student. Mr. Rumsey's new edition incorporates the results of its author's researches in Native Text-books, and cannot fail to be practically useful to the Selected Candidate and the young Civilian, as well as to the home Practitioner in Indian Appeal Cases.-The Howard Association not only pleads the cause of Prison Reform, but also expounds some personal grievances of its Secretary against the Chief Director of Convict Prisons for England, in a Pamphlet entitled English Convict Prisons; Some Needed Reforms (Howard Association, London, 1877).-Mr. W. A. Copinger has thought the present a fitting moment to publish an Essay on the Abolition of Capital Punishment (Stevens & Haynes, 1876), written some years ago, in the course of which he draws upon many sources, ancient and modern, British and foreign, to enforce his thesis. We could wish, however, that the author had given more careful revision to his quotations from foreign authors, who often appear under most strange disguises, such as "Mr. Burlemaque" for the distinguished Genevan Professor, Burlamaqui. The abolition of capital punishment continues to be urged, both in Italy and in AustroHungary. The Council of the Superior Order of Advocates of Italy, meeting in February last, at Castel Capuano, at the express desire of the Government, for the consideration of this question, voted a series of resolutions in this sense, which were communicated to us by the kindness of Sigr. V. de Tivoli, Hon. Secretary of the Gentili Memorial Committee. The resolutions, which are too long to quote here, seem based chiefly on philosophical and metaphysical arguments. Physiology and psychology have been pressed into the same service by Professor Moritz Benedikt, of the University of Vienna, in a recent address, Ueber die Todesstrafe, delivered before the Scientific Club of Vienna, in which he urges the difference between an Orestes and a Hackler, and expresses his hope that Austria will not be among the laggards, but among the leaders of culture on this point. We observe, however, that the Hungarian Chamber of Deputies in its recent discussion of the Draft Penal Code for the Kingdom of Hungary pronounced in favour of maintaining the penalty of death, although as an exceptional measure, much as among ourselves.-We are glad to draw attention to some Reprints from the Foreign Relations of the United States, in which Mr. C. C. Andrews, U.S. Minister at Stockholm, gives much valuable statistical information in the shape of Reports

on Pauperism and Poor-Laws in Sweden and Norway, on the Revenue from Spirits, and on the Civil Service in Sweden (London, J. S. Levey, 1877), in continuance of previous publications of His Excellency on kindred subjects.-That the Ridsdale Judgment should pass without creating some sort of a Literature was not to be expected. We have received a Pamphlet On the Authority for Vestments in the Church of England; the Judgment in the Ridsdale Appeal Case Criticised, by F. G. S. (James Parker, Oxford and London, 1877), in which much conscientious labour is devoted. to setting forth historical arguments in favour of certain usages and vestures condemned in that case, and in which the judgment is sometimes assailed with more vigour than grammatical accuracy. -M. Georges Louis, Advocate of the Court of Appeal in Paris, has been led, by recent constitutional questions arising in France, to consider the English and American systems of voting the money-supplies. In his Etude sur le Vote des Lois de Finance en Angleterre et aux Etats Unis, (Paris, Cotillon, 1877), M. Louis comes to a conclusion more favourable to our own than to the American system, and on the whole recommends the English Parliamentary method to the consideration of his fellow countrymen. In the Foreign Church Chronicle and Review (Wells Gardner) for June, some curious particulars are given concerning the Austrian Law respecting the civil status of Old Catholics, whose Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, have been alike unrecognised by the State, since 1870. The Ottoman Constitution devised by Midhat Pasha also forms the subject of an article in the same number, which contains much matter of varied interest. Die Justiz-Reform in England, von Dr. Eduard Zimmermann (Berlin, Mittler, 1877), is the work of an esteemed contributor of ours, singularly well qualified, by his International position as a member of the Legal Profession both in Germany and England, to inform his fellow-countrymen of the nature of the Reforms effected by the Judicature Acts. The subject has a practical interest in Germany at a time when Criminal Law Reform has engaged the attention of Parliament. The present Pamphlet is a convenient and seasonable reprint, in an enlarged form, of two Papers read by Dr. Zimmermann before the Berlin Juridical Society in April and November of last year. From Spain we have received with pleasure, the first five numbers (March to June, 1877) of the Boletin de la Institucion Libre de Ensenanza, the organ of a Free University in Madrid, which has already done good service by offering a high-class education, untrammelled by partisanship, embracing in its curriculum