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should think successfully, cared for. The compiler provides a short analysis of each chapter, a tabular statement of the divisions of estates, and by the use of various types, separates the doctrinal from the illustrative or critical portions of his author.

Mr. W. A. Copinger, so well-known for his work on Title Deeds, was eminently calculated to assist the practitioner in unravelling the perplexities often surrounding the question of the due Stamping of Deeds set out in Abstracts laid before Counsel. His Tables of Stamp Duties, from 1815 to 1878 (Stevens & Haynes, 1878), have already been tested in Chambers, and being now published, will materially lighten the labours of the profession in a tedious department, yet one requiring great care.

The York-Antwerp Rules of General Average, as finally agreed to by a meeting at the Cannon Street Hotel, under the presidency of Sir Travers Twiss, May 3rd, 1878, are now published by the Central Committee, in order to give them the widest possible circulation among shipowners and insurers before the 1st January, 1879, the date when the firms and associations which have accepted them, intend putting them in force. It would appear that Lloyd's, and the London Salvage and Marine Insurance Companies still stand aloof.

Chambers's Index of Next of Kin, compiled by Edward Preston, Fourth Edition (Allen, Reeves and Turner, 1878), contains, we understand, more than ten thousand names over and above those embraced in the previous edition. Many of the names thus inserted are from recent advertisements. It would

not be difficult to bring out a Romance of the Next of Kin, equal in interest to any of the most startling tales of modern fiction. But Mr. Preston only gives facts and names, and both are occasionally not a little remarkable.

Mr. J. A. Shearwood publishes a volume likely to be of considerable use to the student, a Concise Abridgment of the Law of Real Property (Stevens and Sons, 1878), in which, by an adaptation of various types, and the provision of a Tabular Analysis, as well as by the use of clear and simple language, he sets out the important subject with which he deals in a brief but satisfactory manner.

The importance of Real Property Law is witnessed to by the publication of yet another work, that of Mr. H. Greenwood, on Recent Real Property Statutes from 1874 to 1877 (Stevens and Sons, 1878), in which the author's object is to afford a clue to

recent legislation whether by way of innovation or amendment. The principal sections of the various Acts printed are carefully annotated, and the volume is a very convenient one for reference as the needs of the practitioner may arise.

Mr. Edmund Fuller Griffin, Barrister-at-Law, adds to the utility of the Indian Jurist by publishing for the first time an Indian Jurist Digest (Stevens and Haynes, 1878), embracing all the Home and Presidency Cases cited in the first volume of the Jurist, for 1877. We notice a certain diversity of orthographies, which we presume to be due to the idiosyncrasies of the various Presidency Courts. Thus on p. 51, we have a "Mirassi village," cited from a judgment of the Madras High Court, and on p. 54, "Mirasi lands" from a Bombay judgment. For one diversity, on p. 50, the printers appear to be answerable, where by transposition "Uraima" has been turned into "Uriama" in a judgment of the Privy Council. So far as we have been able to test it, the Digest prepared by Mr. Griffin seems to be well adapted to the convenience of the profession, and may be recommended to all counsel engaged in Indian cases. We think it might have been well to have inserted a cross reference under the head" Puttah," or Puttahdar," which does not appear at all, to the "Miras" case of Pakiri Mahammed Saib v. Terumala Charriar.

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Our friend, M. Clunet, the able Editor of the Journal de Droit International Privé, sends us a very interesting essay (Questions de Droit Relatives à l'Exposition Universelle Internationale de 1878. Paris: Marchal-Billard, 1878) on some practical questions in International Law, which have been raised during the Paris Exhibition. At the late hour at which this Essay reaches us, we are unable to do more than call the attention of our readers to a work combining in a singularly felicitous manner both Theory and Practice, and giving fresh evidence of its author's wide research in the field of International Jurisprudence. We must reserve for a future occasion any discussion of the various points on which we differ from the learned author, contenting ourselves in the meanwhile with commending his work to the careful perusal of members of the Legal Profession at home as well as on the Continent.

Quarterly Notes.

THE Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales are perhaps not aware of the growing dissatisfaction in the Profession with the management and condition of their Reports. The Profession have a right to expect very much from the Council: they have the privileges of incorporation, with no bad debts or borrowed capital; no agents, rent, rates, or taxes to pay; ample funds to secure the best reporters; a practical monopoly of the best means of reporting; and judicial revision at their pleasure for every judgment which they report. The prospectus of the Society in 1866 announced that each decision would be published within a month of its date: four months, often many more, now frequently intervene. We may instance Allhusen v. Labouchere, heard before the Court of Appeal on August 6th. The chief precedent to be cited was Fisher v. Owen, heard on April 3rd, but still unreported in the Law Reports by August, although published long ago in the Law Times, Weekly Reporter, and elsewhere. A report has since appeared in the September number, five months after date. It would seem, too, that on any rumour of an intended appeal, the report of the trial in the Court of First Instance is put aside to wait, so that the two trials may be reported together. Nothing is gained to the Profession by this junction, and the original report is seriously delayed when (as is the case in other than interlocutory matters) twelve months are allowed for an appeal. Of course, sometimes no appeal is brought after all, e.g., Williamson v. Barbour; and then the judgment, in that case a most important one, by the Master of the Rolls, universally valued at the time, is altogether omitted. Whether the delay arises in respect of the original determination to report, or in the reporting, or in the publishing, those who have already subscribed to the Law Reports are put to the expense of subscribing to other reports that they may be able to cite the most recent and relevant cases. Occasionally the appearance of a case in the Law Reports would seem only to be due to the consensus of all the reporters for other publications in recording it. It is, too, an idle form of reporting which, as at pages 305 and 533 of the 16th volume of the Equity Series, omits all arguments, and caps a dry list of Counsel's names (or sometimes of cases cited) with a judgment, which is a mere transcript from the short-hand writer's notes, whilst the value of any report is not much heightened even by the Judge's revision several months after delivery.

Meanwhile the "Weekly Notes" are practically useless as a stop-gap, whilst in their present form, for the Council are most anxious, for some unassigned reason, according to their prospectus and reports, that these notes should not be made available for citation. They may certainly be congratulated on their negative success. The number of this publication, issued on the 10th of August, contained the following:-" From Ch. Div. In re Hay. Farrow v. Wilson. July 31. Order refused by Hall, V.C., made." As the case had never been previously alluded to in the Reports or Weekly Notes in any way, the only information gained is that an ureported judgment, on some unmentioned point, has been reversed!

At least one judge has commented on the frequent absence from his Court of any reporter for the Law Reports. There is too, we think, fair ground for complaint as to a general deterioration in method and matter, a report often appearing to be an ill-digested combination of the counsel's brief, the shorthand notes, and the report of the case elsewhere. Long cases of mere evidence, in which no new or important principle is established, and which depend entirely on their own singular circumstances, are reported with most elaborate details: Plimpton v. Malcolmson and Dowling v. Pontypool, &c., Railway Company, may be taken as examples..

These are some of the defects for which a speedy remedy is required. It might perhaps be found, we venture to think, in some such scheme as the following:-Let there be appointed an auxiliary working Council of younger and practical men, who will see to the above and many other things, of which it is perhaps too much to expect notice from a body of eminent Queen's Counsel and two famous Solicitors. Let there also be appointed two or more sub-editors, whose practice will allow of continuous attention to their duties, and not such an intermittent discharge of them as we should imagine can alone be possible by two busy Queen's Counsel. We might almost suggest that a "binding editor" be also appointed, whose duty it should be to see that the work entrusted to the "Binders to the Council" was executed with despatch, and in actual uniformity with the "office pattern." It is very necessary that attention be paid to punctuality and to the diligent reporting of well chosen cases. The Indices should be issued simultaneously with the completion of the volumes. If the Weekly Notes continue to notice any decisions of the Courts, they should be made of more real use, by changing the style of their reports, and adding to them a yearly index of subjects, and not

only of names as at present. Any point of practice or otherwise, if deserving a report at all, should be readily accessible afterwards. The usage might be restored of selling the reports by divisions and parts separately, e.g., Appeal cases, two guineas; Chancery Division, three guineas; and Common Law Division, three guineas, with parts in proportion. If these suggestions, or some of them, were adopted, it would probably be found that an increase in the number of subscribers would soon enable the Council to fulfil the hope which was originally held out to the Profession, of a reduction in the annual price.

*

Count Saffi, himself once an exile on British soil, and during that exile the occupant of an Oxford chair, seemed pointed out by the fitness of things as one who should add yet another stone to the cairn which Italy and England have combined to raise in memory of ALBERIGO GENTILI. At once historical, philosophical, and critical, Count Saffi's work addresses itself to a many-sided public, and to an audience wider than that which listened to his course of lectures at the Athenæum of Bologna, the origin of his present interesting volume. In his pages we see Rome the juridical as well as theological, " caput mundi" of Western Europe, to which all looked up from Boëthius to Thomas Aquinas, as the giver of laws, of speech, of civilization, the Civil Amphictyony of Western Christendom. By degrees, out of the new nationalities which are formed, and the relations necessarily arising between them, there springs, in concert with Roman legal tradition, a new law of nations, the institutes of the new European Commonwealth. But Rome, considered in its Ecclesiastico-Political aspect, becomes a reactionary factor. When the New Learning fills Europe with fresh life, and makes its borders overflow with eager, stirring Thought-that life and that Thought are at once on the side of Liberty, and against Rome. Gentili, the thinker, the jurist, the reformer, is with Liberty, against Rome. Hence his exile; and hence his best work for Humanity and Jurisprudence. It must be admitted that Gentili was not consistent throughout his chequered career. Had it been less chequered he would probably have been more consistent. But should we, in that case, have inherited his greatest gifts to Western Jurisprudence?

*Di Alberigo Gentili e del Diritto delle Genti. Letture di Aurelio Saffi nell'Ateneo Bolognese. Bologna, Zanichelli, 1878.

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