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the Judicature Acts came into operation down to Easter of the present year appear to have been carefully worked in, and a few new forms have been added to, or substituted for, those given in the Schedule to the Judicature Act of 1875. In the Table of Cases, the system-which we have ourselves always advocated -of giving a reference to every report of each case has been adopted, and a marginal analysis and full Index smooth the path of all wishing to consult the book on any particular point. The practitioner will in most cases probably prefer Griffith's, Wilson's, or some of the other larger books of practice, but the student will find Mr. Peel's treatise a valuable aid in getting up the procedure of the Chancery Division.

A Treatise upon the Law of Principal and Agent in Contract and Tort. By WILLIAM EVANS, B.A., Oxon., and of the Inner Temple, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. W. Maxwell & Son. 1878.

Between the comprehensiveness of Mr. Justice Story's work, which comprises not only the English and American but also the Civil Law of Agency, and the limited nature of the Treatises of Paley and Russell, which are almost entirely restricted to Mercantile Agency, it seemed to Mr. Evans that there was room for a book which, while confined to the English law of agency, should give a general view of it in all its various ramifications. The volume is divided into twenty-seven chapters, each subdivided into sections, and grouped in three books which treat respectively-(1) "Of the Contract Generally, its Origin and Dissolution"; (2) "Of the Authority Conferred, its Nature, Extent, and Execution"; and (3) “Of the Rights, Duties, and Liabilities arising out of the Contract.” Mr. Evans has evidently expended much intelligent labour in the accumulation of his materials, which are clearly arranged and expressed in lucid language. No statement of any importance occurs unsupported by a reference to some decided case or other accepted authority, and, to a certain extent, the author has set forth the Principles of Agency in a digested form. The last chapter in Mr. Evans's book is devoted to a careful discussion of a subject of great and growing importance the Liability of Employers for injury caused by negligence of fellow workmen; and a useful digest is offered of the rules deducible from the latest decided cases. In a second edition we should suggest the insertion of a marginal analysis, the absence of which detracts from the facility of reference in a

work so likely to be consulted under pressure. We should have preferred to see the author attempt, and successfully accomplish, the task-the advantages of which he acknowledges-of casting the whole of our Law of Agency into the form of a Digest or Code. But in its present shape the work cannot fail to be most useful to all, whether Practitioners or Students, who have occasion to look up the English Law on this important subject.

Under the Red Ensign. By THOMAS GRAY. Simpkin, Marshall & Co.; Kent & Co.; Pewtress & Co. 1878.

The extensive knowledge which the author of this handy book for the Merchant Service has derived from his official relation with the Board of Trade enables him to speak with great weight on all subjects connected with life under the "Red Ensign." Mr. Gray takes up a boy at the age when the "saltwater fever" has got possession of him, advises the parents or guardians in such a case to let him go, and then proceeds to explain clearly the various steps which should be taken to give the boy the chance of becoming a good officer, and, in time, a good captain. Of the so-called "dangers of the sea," Mr. Gray has a very small opinion, and the statistics which he prints concerning the annual casualties in some of the best known channel and ocean lines certainly make out a very strong case in favour of his view. It is, in truth, the sailor's own conduct when ashore which is likely to prove his greatest danger. A series of Appendices furnish much indispensable information, legal and other, respecting the Rights of Seamen as regards unseaworthiness of ship, Forms of Apprentices' Indentures for England and Scotland, Examinations, and, in fact, everything that can be thought of to smooth the way for taking a good place in the far-famed Mercantile Navy of Great Britain.

The Law relating to Solicitors of the Supreme Court of Judicature. By A. CORDERY, of the Inner Temple, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Stevens and Sons, 1878.

Solicitors, we imagine, and even laymen who have been, are, or expect to be, in the position of clients, will be grateful to Mr. Cordery for this useful compendium of the law regulating the various rights, duties, and obligations arising from the peculiar relation of solicitor and client. Solicitors might be

supposed to be well up in this special branch of the law, but, as a matter of fact, we believe that a large number of them are by no means perfectly au courant with its many details, and to such the present volume will readily supply the information which they might otherwise have to seek out for themselves in the pages of various other works. The recent very curious and, we believe, unprecedented case of Maxwell-Lyte v. Wickham, which so well illustrates one of the disabilities of the solicitor with respect to his client, has been decided since Mr. Cordery's volume went to press. In this case, as will be in the recollection of our readers, the client being anxious to make a gift to his solicitor of a share in the profits of certain inventions, in the bringing out of which the defendant had rendered much friendly assistance, brought an action in the Chancery Division and obtained from Vice-Chancellor Malins a judicial decision that, notwithstanding the relation of solicitor and client existing between the parties, the plaintiff might make the intended gift to the defendant. The law of costs has an especial interest for the solicitor, and Mr. Cordery has done well to cite, in considerable detail, those decided cases which govern the question of costs as between solicitor and client, while omitting it as between party and party, the latter being in reality a branch of general law.

In an Appendix will be found all the unrepealed sections of the various Solicitors' Acts, such of the Regulations of 1875 as are still in force, and the New Regulations made by the Incorporated Law Society, and by certain of the Judges, in November and December, 1877: together with the direction as to notices for admission issued from the Petty Bag Office in January last.

The Common Form Practice of the High Court of Justice in Granting Probates and Administrations. By H. C. COOTE, F.S.A., late Proctor in Doctor's Commons. Eighth Edition. Butterworths. 1878.

The eighth edition of so well-known a work requires only to be made known, to find its due place on the shelves of the practitioner. We observe that Mr. Coote takes occasion, in his advertisement to the new edition, to explain what some readers of the previous one seem not to have understood, viz., that in retaining the unrepealed forms annexed to the Rules of 1862, he never intended them to be employed in their actual shape for

existing Common Form Practice. With this warning, the present edition cannot but be found a most useful companion for the constantly recurring needs of the branch of practice with which it deals.

The Statutes; Revised Edition. Vol. XV. (1866-8), and Supplements. Eyre & Spottiswoode. 1878.

"Exegi Monumentum," may now be the ejaculation of every member of the Commission whose valuable labours we have from time to time noticed, and which are completed with the volume now before us. To the Constitutional Lawyer this concluding volume is most interesting, from the fact of its containing, by way of supplement, besides other later landmarks of our history, careful reprints and translations of " Magna Carta," the "Carta de Libertatibus Foreste," as confirmed by Edward I. a. r. 25. This is, we think, what has lately been secured, under the form of an "Inspeximus," for the library of Sir Robert Taylor's Institution at Oxford, so far as the librarian's description in a recent number of Notes and Queries enables us to judge. We must say that we regret the quaint archaism of the English translation adopted by the Commissioners for the Revised Statutes, who print " Duke of Guyan," if anything rather suggestive of British Guiana, as the rendering of "Aquitania" in the original text. But this is a criticism. of rather minute textual lore, and in no wise hinders us from heartily recommending the entire series alike to the practitioner, to whom it is well-nigh indispensable, and to the Constitutional lawyer and historian. Our chief regret in penning these words is, that we are taking leave of pleasant and useful guides through many a century of English History.

A Concise Treatise on Private International Jurisprudence. By J. ALDERSON FOOTE, Barrister-at-Law. Stevens and Haynes.

1878.

The length of time which has elapsed since the publication of Mr. Westlake's classical work on Private International Law, affords a fair opening for such an undertaking as Mr. Foote's handbook of Foreign and Domestic Law. We are glad to see the Whewell scholarships in International Law bearing such good fruit, and can only wish that similar foundations existed in the University which Albericus Gentilis adorned. Mr.

Foote has evidently borne closely in mind the needs of students of Jurisprudence as well as those of the practitioner. For both, the fact that his work is almost entirely one of Case-law will commend it as one useful alike in Chambers and in Court. From such a sphere of usefulness the absence of scientific jurisprudence is not likely to detract. As a rule, Mr. Foote only discusses cases, not principles, and when he does enter upon the more theoretical side of his subject we find ourselves somewhat sharply at variance with the views which he appears to hold. We had marked several instances of this divergence between us, but space and time alike warn us to name but one or two of the more salient points. On Diplomatic Immunity Mr. Foote appears to us to use language which is the exact opposite of the true statement, resting the immunity upon the "fiction of extraterritoriality," instead of showing how that fiction has been invented to account for the immunity enjoyed by Ambassadors as the representatives of a foreign Sovereignty. The word. "ex-territoriality" was doubtless unknown in the reign of Richard III., and yet it was even then laid down by the Parliament of England that "Ambassadors should be protected like Princes." And the distinction which does require to be drawn is not, as Mr. Foote would have it, between the immunity of the Sovereign and that of the Ambassador, but, as General Halleck puts it, "between the inviolability of the public minister and the legal fiction of his ex-territoriality." conceive that Mr. Foote's language on this point is of a nature to confuse the student. On the questions connected with slavery, which have in recent times roused keen discussion in both our Houses of Parliament, we should certainly advise the student to read the careful juridical statements of Sir Travers Twiss, in the pages of this. Review, and the earnest words of the late Sir Edward Creasy. From Mr. Foote he would only learn that once such a practice "placuit gentibus." That we may now "say with honest pride displicet gentibus" (with the exception, seemingly, of Portugal and Holland), he must learn from the late Professor of Jurisprudence in the Inns of Court. That "the universal voice of Christendom has repudiated this practice as a relic of barbarism, moribus qui nunc frequentantur alienum," he must learn from the former Regius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Oxford. These points on which we differ toto cælo from Mr. Foote, are purely Theoretical, and do not detract from the general utility of his book as a convenient source of reference on the principal

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