W. Noel Sainsbury, Esq., of the English State Paper office, has given assistance, which the editors acknowledge in their learned and valuable preface.

The editors have adopted the year of the Christian era as the better way of naming and citing these statutes, instead of the old method of the year of the sovereign's reign. Perhaps this is more consonant with American usage, although natural conservatism inclines us to an adherence to the former system, and we do not see that the difficulties, of which the editors speak, were by any means insuperable. They have been entirely and easily overcome in England. But, leaving this to their sound judgment, we regret that it did not occur to them to put, nevertheless, the year of the sovereign's reign in which each act was enacted at the top of the page, as well as the year of our era. This would have facilitated reference to this edition for acts found cited in the reports and elsewhere in the former manner. In the English Statutes at Large, both dates are inserted, although the statutes are always cited by the year of the reign. One othér omission we have noticed, and that is that where a statute was explained by a subsequent resolve there is no reference to it, such as is usually inserted in the "Ancient Charters and Laws" published many years ago.

This noble work will be completed in nine volumes, published with the assistance of the legislature, at such a price as will bring it within the reach of most members of the bar in Massachusetts. Its legal importance alone will fully justify the outlay of money which has been required. This is especially true in the light which the early statutes throw upon the often troublesome question of the constitutional powers of the legislature. All written constitutions must of necessity be composed of brief, sweeping clauses, often extremely vague, and constantly applying to classes of powers where powers themselves are named. No one can read the constitutional decisions in the hundred volumes of Massachusetts Reports without being struck with the great aid, which the court has derived from the early statutes in discovering the meaning of the framers of the constitution, and in thus putting a broad, liberal construction on the powers of legislation given to the General Court, where, without the historical assistance thus obtained, a narrow construction might have been placed on constitutional phrases, which would have done much mischief in preventing that untrammelled exercise of the powers of remedial legislation which is so essential to the happiness of the subject, and so difficult to get under any written constitution.

The size adopted for these volumes is that of the large edition of the General Statutes of 1860. We think that the size of almost all our American statutes is too large and clumsy. It is so with the United States Statutes at Large; and, while we are speaking on this subject, we may also add a protest against the detestably awkward, badly printed volumes, which contain our Congressional debates.

A Report of the case of the Queen v. Gurney and others, with an introduction containing a history of the case, and an examination of the cases at law and equity applicable to it; or, illustrating the doctrine of commercial fraud. By W. F. FINLASON, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. London: Stevens & Haynes, 11 Bell Yard, Temple Bar 1870.

THE case of Regina v. Gurney is briefly as follows:

The firm of Overend, Gurney, & Co., was considered, prior to 1865, to be

one of the most flourishing and money-making, firms of bill brokers and quasi bankers in the world. For ten years the average amount of money annually turned over in the house was £150,000,000; and the average annual profit £180,000. But the partners did not confine themselves to their legitimate business, and as a consequence the firm lost about £3,000,000 in a very short time. In 1865, they had securities to the amount of £4,000,000, which they estimated would realize about £1,000,000.

Under these circumstances, they proposed to form a joint-stock company, with the idea of disposing of the £3,000,000 deficit in the following way:

The partnership was indebted to the individual members to the amount of £1,000,000. This debt they gave up, and so reduced the deficit to £2,000,000. They further guaranteed this sum on their personal credit. The property of the individual partners was worth £2,000,000, but was already pledged for £1,000,000, so that their guaranty would only reduce the deficit to £1,000,000.

This £1,000,000 they proposed to cover by the subscriptions of the shareholders.

A prospectus was issued, and the new company was organized under the name of Overend, Gurney, & Co. (limited). Two deeds were executed. In one of them, which was referred to in the prospectus, the deficit was alluded to only in general terms as being guaranteed by Overend, Gurney, & Co.; in the other, which was of a supplementary character, the manner of treating the deficit was fully considered.

The shares were eagerly taken up, and Overend, Gurney, & Co. (limited) went into operation. At the end of nine months it was insolvent. The principal cause of the failure seems to have been the advance in the rate of interest, which during the last four months of the company's existence rose from 34 per cent to 8 per cent. The rise prevented the possibility of re-discounting bills to advantage, which was the main source of profit of the concern.

To raise ready money for carrying on the business, the members of the old firm were called upon in accordance with their guaranty; but as soon as it was known that they were selling their estates the public became alarmed, and a run on the house took place, which forced them to suspend. Incidentally, we find that, during the nine months of its existence, the company had lost about £1,000,000 in speculations. .

The shareholders were now called upon to contribute. The assets, which had to be forced on the market, realized much less than was expected, so that the shareholders were obliged to pay about £5,000,000 instead of £1,250,000 which was the original subscription. Irritated by these losses, they combined together for mutual protection, and the case was taken into chancery, but the Lord Chancellor, on appeal, negatived even equitable fraud.

Nevertheless, on the 1st of June, 1869, six of the directors of Overend, Gurney, & Co. (limited) appeared at the Justice Room on a charge of conspiracy to defraud the shareholders to the amount of £3,000,000. They were committed for trial, and a bill of indictment was found against them by the grand jury. The first six counts of the indictment were under the 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96, § 84, which relates to fraud on the part of directors, &c.; the other counts were for conspiracy to publish a prospectus with intent to deceive and defraud.

The proceedings were instituted by Mr. Thorn, one of the shareholders, and

he was bound over in the sum of £5,000 to prosecute. Then arose a question as to the expenses. By rule of court, Mr. Thorn was not allowed to prosecute in person; there is, in England, no public prosecutor, and the government declined to have any thing to do with the matter. The injustice of the case was so apparent that the Lord Chief Justice, alluding to the necessity for a public prosecutor, observed, "that the case had deepened in his mind the impression, now amounting to conviction, that such an officer was necessary for the due administration of justice."

The matter seems to have finally been arranged among the shareholders, and the case came on for trial in December, 1869, in the Court of Queen's Bench, before Lord Chief Justice Cockburn.

The case, as explained to the jury by the Lord Chief Justice, involved four questions :

1. Was the business of Overend, Gurney, & Co. worthless, hopeless, and insolvent?

2. If so, was its condition known to the defendants?

3. If so, have they misrepresented its state and condition to the world?

4. If so, what was their intention?

The evidence in the case was rather confusing from the immense sums and complicated accounts involved, but the truth seems to be substantially as given in the above sketch; and the jury accordingly found a verdict of not guilty.

In the trial, the good or bad management, either of the old firm or of the new company, was not in issue; and the subject of the wild and disastrous speculations, which ruined the former and contributed so much to the failure of the latter, was mentioned only incidentally, but the Lord Chief Justice in his charge took occasion to dwell upon the moral lesson taught by the downfall of Overend, Gurney, & Company.

The editor, in his introduction, gives a clear and full history of the subject in all its bearings, besides an exhaustive examination of the cases at law and equity applicable to it, and commercial fraud in general; and though evidently a warm partisan of the defendants, his learning and research make the present work a valuable addition to the existing authorities.

The House of Lords Cases on Appeals and Writs of Error. Claims of Peerage and Divorces. Vols. I.; II., and III. By CHARLES CLARK and W. FINNELLY. Boston: Little, Brown, & Company. 1870.

WE heartily welcome these three volumes, and hope they are only the precursors of a complete reprint of all the published decisions in the House of Lords. A case before the House of Lords has been pretty well sifted and tested on its way up, it is sure to be argued by counsel of ability, and it is decided by men who, often, though it must be admitted not always, are the most learned judges of their time; some cases, it is true, are totally inapplicable in this country, such. for instance, as the claims of peerage; but those which are applicable, and they are not a few, are of the highest authority.

The reprint is very handsomely done, but we are annoyed by the disuse of the ordinary abbreviations, and by the writing out of the names of the reports in full, thus: 2 House of Lords Cases, 28; 6 Barnewall & Cresswell, 154; 12 Clark & Finnelly, 546; we know this has been sanctioned by the usage of some very

respectable writers in this country, notably by the editors of the Leading Cases; but it has always seemed to us as if intended in usu tironum, and as distasteful as the marking of the quantities of the penults in an edition of a Latin classic. Beside, there seems to be no fixed rule about it; thus while we have Crompton, Meeson & Roscoe at full length, we have Vesey shortened into Ves., and Modern into Mod.

These volumes do not contain so many interesting and important cases as some of the later ones, but in them will be found Irving v. Manning, 1 H. L. Cas. 287, which first clearly decided in England that the value in a valued policy is conclusive in the case of a constructive as well as of an actual total loss; Dunlop v. Higgins, ib. 381, on the acceptance of a contract by posting a letter; Ricketts v. Turquand, ib. 472, on the admission of extrinsic evidence to explain a will; Fleming v. Smith, ib. 513, on constructive total loss; Wilson v. Wilson, ib. 538, on separation deeds; LeFanu v. Malcomson, ib. 637, on libel; Glasgow College v. Attorney General, ib. 800, on cy près on charities; Cole v. Sewell, 2 H. L. Cas. 186, on contingent remainders; Piers v. Piers, ib. 331, on the presumption of marriage; Beckham v. Drake, ib. 579, on the rights of action which pass to an assignee in bankruptcy; and Drummond v. Attorney General, ib. 837. Paterson v. Paterson, 3 H. L. Cas. 308, on cruelty as a ground of divorce; Ellcock v. Mapp, ib. 492, on gifts to executors; Lewis v. Hillman, ib. 607, on purchase by trustees; Mangles v. Dixon, ib. 702, on the assignment of choses in action; and Dimes v. Grand Junction Canal, ib. 759, on the disqualification of a judge by reason of interest. In our copy of the second volume (we do not know whether the error has been made in all the copies) the Lindsay pedigree, which should have been inserted at page* 534, is to be found at page * 742.

United States District Court Reports, Second Circuit. By ROBERT D. BENEDICT. Vol. II. No. 4. New York: Baker, Voorhis, & Company. 1870.

WE notice the usual number of cases relating to the Law of Bankruptcy, Collision, Charter Party, Lien of a Material-man, &c.

In The General Sheridan, p. 294, a vessel was chartered in New York for a voyage from ports in Florida to New York. She did not go to Florida, and did not enter on the performance of the charter-party. Held that an action in rem against the vessel would not lie to recover damages for the breach of the charter.

In The Washington Irving, p. 318, the law as to the lien of a material-man is stated thus: "If it appear that the vessel was in apparent need of the repairs for her employment or preservation, and if she was foreign to the port where the necessity was supplied, then, in the absence of contradictory circumstances, the maritime law presumes a necessity for the credit of the vessel, from the fact that she was at the time in a foreign port. The fact that the vessel was not in her home port, in the absence of other circumstances, makes a case of apparent necessity for the credit of the vessel." This case was decided in 1858, and its correctness is now settled by the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of The Grapeshot, March, 1870.

In The Louisiana, p. 371, a bark close hauled on the starboard tack with her regulation lights set, was struck on her port side by a steamer which came from a direction abaft the bark's beam. The steamer was held in fault for running at too great a rate of speed, and for changing her course when the bark was first

seen, in ignorance of the true course and position of the bark. The bark was held in fault for not showing a blue light or a flash light when the steamer was first seen, and the damages were divided. From the position in which the steamer approached the bark the regular lights were hidden by the screens.

Reports of cases at Law and in Chancery argued and determined in the Supreme Court of Illinois. By NORMAN L. FREEMAN. Vol. XLVII. Containing the remaining Cases decided at the January Term, 1868, those decided at the June Term, 1868, and a part of those decided at the September Term, 1868. Printed for the Reporter. Springfield: 1870.

WE have received this volume too late to use it in our digest, and we note here a few of the more important cases.

In Peine v. Weber, p. 41, the court adopted the rule, which has been generally, though not universally, adopted in the United States, and admitted parol evidence to show the authority of one partner to execute a sealed instrument in the name of himself and of the other partners.

In Fleming v. McHale, p. 282, land was bought in the name of A., who gave a mortgage for part of the price, the balance of the consideration was paid by B., who also paid the interest of the mortgage, and finally the principal. Held, that there was a resulting trust in favor of B., and that he was entitled to a conveyance from the heirs of A.

It has been held by several of the courts that the provision in the United States Internal Revenue Acts, which prohibits the admission in evidence of any instrument not stamped, applies only to the Federal courts. So Carpenter v. Snelling, 97 Mass. 452; Griffin v. Ranney, in Connecticut, vide infra; but considerable doubt has been felt whether the State courts would go so far as to treat in like manner that other provision of the Stamp Act, which declares that the record of an unstamped instrument shall be " utterly void; " but in Craig v. Dimock, p. 308, in the present volume, the Supreme Court of Illinois seem to have taken the further step and to have held that the record of a chattel mortgage, which had been accidentally left unstamped, was yet valid. The court do not advert in their opinion to the case of Latham v. Smith, 45 Ill. 29, in which they held (if we remember rightly, we have not the volume by us) that the provisions of the Stamp Act, laying down rules of evidence so far as they applied to the State courts, were invalid; in this opinion they hold that such provisions were not intended to apply to State courts.

In The Tug Montauk v. Walker, p. 335, the court reaffirm the doctrine laid down in Williamson v. Hogan, 46 Ill. 504, that a domestic material-man can sue a vessel wholly employed within the State in rem in the State court, but in this case the suit was dismissed because it did not appear that the employment of the vessel was wholly within the state.

In Timmons v. Broyles, p. 92, which was a suit by a female servant, a married woman, against her master for an alleged indecent assault, the court say what judges, though they often must think, have seldom the hardihood to declare: "It is said by appellee's counsel that the rights of Mrs. Broyles are as sacred in the eyes of the law and as safe in the keeping of this court, as the rights of any woman in this State, be she the wife of a senator or of the chief magistrate. But we, while admitting this as a mere question of right, would undertake to