have originated from student's note-books, those commencing with Edward II, two of which are preceded by the Novae Narrationes, an obvious work of instruction, were produced under the direction of the Readers to the Inns of Court. As these Readers became negligent, the judges or the King appointed the four said reporters to perform the duties the Readers were neglecting. This suggestion is certainly plausible. The four Lent Readers for one-half of the year and the four Autumn Readers for the others, correspond in numbers with "the four discreet and learned professors of the law," said by Coke to have been appointed by the King as reporters. With Mr. Pike's theory that the Year Books were the work of the more important clerks of the Common Bench, Mr. Turner cannot agree. It is, he thinks, opposed to what evidence we have. In the discussion on the Abridgements of the Year Books, Mr. Turner makes the interesting suggestions that Statham's Abridgement-the earliest finished law book-was compiled by members of Lincoln's Inn under the direction of Nicholas Statham, when Lent Reader in 1471. If this view can be supported, it lends additional weight to his theory of the origin of the Year Books. The remainder of the Introduction is concerned with a description of the twentyfour manuscripts, and in the preparation of the text and of their owners, and with an account of the relations of the manuscripts to one another. A new departure in the Index of Persons is the addition of Christian names. An Index of Places is also new. The Table of Cases is exceptionally full. There is no falling off in this volume from the high standard set by the originator of this series.

Bentham's Theory of Legislation. Translated and edited from the French of ETIENNE DUMONT. By C. M. ATKINSON. London : The Oxford University Press. 1914.

Most jurists are no doubt aware that Bentham himself did not write any treatise, nor did he publish any book bearing the title of Theory of Legislation. In 1802, a treatise on legislation, civil and criminal, with an Introduction on the general principles of legislation, was published by Dumont in Paris from manuscripts handed to him by Bentham. Sixty years or more later, a translation of certain selected portions of this work was published in England under the title of Theory of Legislation. This is the work familiar to English jurists. Dumont, a Swiss pastor, was not an ideal person to whom the exposition of Bentham's ideas and philosophy should have been

entrusted, and his want of knowledge of English law caused him to make absurd mistakes in translating Bentham's language. In the present edition, when access has been possible to the original writings of Bentham, or the same ideas are expressed in other portions of his works, the text has been based on such passages rather than on the presentment of Dumont's exposition in the French edition. The present edition contains in Vol. I the Principles of Legislation and Principles of the Civil Code, and in Vol. II the Principles of the Penal Code. In the reform of the Criminal Law, the influence of Bentham was immense, and his services to legal philosophy transcendent. This influence is yet far from being spent. English jurists will heartily welcome this scholarly edition from the pen of an English lawyer. Whilst officiating as Stipendiary for Leeds, Mr. Atkinson has also found. time to write the life of Bentham. As our readers are aware, he is also a valued contributor to this Magazine. To law students, this edition of Bentham's masterpiece is indispensable.

The Law of Partnership. By J. ANDREW STRAHAN, M.A., LL.B., and N. H. OLDHAM, B.A., LL.B. London: Sweet & Maxwell. 1914.

This work principally consists in an admirable explanatory and critical commentary of the Partnership Act 1890. Following the more modern fashion, the learned Authors, whilst not hesitating to give their own opinions where necessary, in some cases in opposition to such an authority as Sir Frederick Pollock, have been content to take their comments from judicial sources. The old practice was to incorporate in the text a garbled or epitomised version of judicial decisions. This practice is discarded here. The ipsissima verba of such passages from a judgment as are pertinent are given, and each section of the Act is illustrated where possible from the facts of actual decisions. This is as it should be, and in this manner we get as near to a code of the law, as it actually is in practice, as it is possible to get. Two Appendices are added to the text. The first contains all the English legislation on the subject of Partnership and the Rules of the Supreme Court as to actions by and against partners. The second consists of the provisions of the Indian Contract Act 1872; the Indian Trusts Act 1882, and the Indian Companies Act 1882, so far as they relate to partnerships in India. Practitioners in each country have much to learn from the other which will be found extremely valuable in practice, as the present writer knows from

experience. Although both the learned Authors are, we are told, jointly and severally responsible for the whole book, the work is primarily that of Mr. Oldham.

Codification in British India. By BIJAY KISOR ACHARYYA, B.A., LL.B. Calcutta: S. K. Banerji & Sons.

1914.

This book consists of the Tagore Law Lectures delivered by the learned Author when Tagore Law Professor at Calcutta University in 1912. Whilst a plea for further codification in British India, where the present Anglo-Indian Codes have been claimed by high authority to have been triumphantly successful, the learned Author does not pretend that codes are the last word. As was well said by Domat, codes cannot regulate the time to come so as to make express provisions against all inconveniences, which are infinite in number." Where codes do not pretend to be exhaustive, their rules must be interpreted in the light of natural justice; in other words, according to justice, equity and good conscience. This, it is true, gives rise to judge-made law, but the evil of an ever-accumulating mass of Case law may be met by frequent revisions and amendments. Although the Criminal law and some branches of Civil law, such as contract " and "civil procedure," have been codified for British India, a large portion of substantive Civil law is still uncodified. The suspension of codification during recent years has been deliberate. It was found that the foundation on which the existing Anglo-India Codes had been reared would not bear the codes of the personal laws of the natives, and that, for the production of such codes, e. g., of Hindu and Mahommedan law, the legislative machinery must be improved. In the present lectures, the learned Author seeks to show the causes which led to the early codes and how far they were desirable and practicable; to examine the principles of codification as applicable in British India; to show how the objections to codification were met; to trace the causes which led to their suspension; to ascertain how and to what extent such causes may be removed, and whether the codification of the personal laws of Hindus and Mahommedans is practicable. All these problems are discussed with a wealth of learning and display of ability of the highest order.

Polarized Law. By T. BATY, D.C.L., LL.D. London: Stevens & Haynes. 1914.

This book represents the substance of three lectures on conflicts of law, delivered by Dr. Baty at the University of London. These

lectures deal with certain disputable and neglected points of Private International law, and they are distinguished by that freshness and originality of thought which we have come to expect from Dr. Baty's facile pen. We cannot recall any juristic writer since the late lamented Professor Maitland who is endowed with quite the same faculty as Dr. Baty of driving the sap of life through the dry bones of legal phenomena and rendering a discussion of legal principles as of absorbing interest to a layman as that of the latest successful play or novel. His humour, too, is delicious. We have been told to regard the law as a tree with its roots planted in the conscience of the people; but, says Dr. Baty, to the average Englishman "the law resembles not a tree but a hat-stand-a useful appendage of books and pages, not inartificially framed, and not always entirely inexpensive." Dr. Baty's choice of a title will not, we think, find ready acceptance from the legal profession. No doubt the definition of this branch of the law will be easily grasped by the scientist, but the average lawyer will be puzzled by this analogy to the mathematical conception of polarity. Conflict of laws is a wellknown definition which everyone understands. As an illustration of Dr. Baty's independence of thought, we may point to his rejection of the Continental doctrine of Renvoi. With Westlake's justification, based on narrow technical limitations, he will have nothing to do. It is, he declares, "a doctrine much more suited to the hard and fast conception of Private International law as a set of rules based on the rigid theoretical tie of nationality than to the elastic conception of it as a set of rules based on practical convenience." With the decision in In re Johnson (L. R. [1903], 1 Ch. 821) Dr. Baty entirely disagrees. The Appendix contains a translation of several of the Hague Private Law Conventions, not hitherto accessible in an English form, which adds greatly to the value of this masterly contribution to some of the most perplexing problems which the domestic and commercial intercourse between nationalities present.

The Department of State of the United States: Its History and Function. By GAILLARD HUNT, Lit.D., LL.D. London: Oxford University Press. 1914.

The purport of this work is to show the formation and development of the Department of State and wherein consists its principal functions to-day and in the past. The Author is not

concerned with the diplomatic history of the United States or the careers of successive Secretaries of State. He deals with the machine of which the foreign service is a part and the movement of which the Secretary of State directs. Long service in the Department has enabled Dr. Hunt to speak with authority upon the practical working of this branch of the Executive Departments, and his statements in the text are invariably supported by references to the appropriate statutes, orders or regulations. Curiously enough, this is the only historical study of one of these Departments which has yet appeared. An early instance of "graft" is afforded by the statutory requirement for printing new statutes in the public press. The selection of newspapers was left to the Secretary of State, and only those which favoured the administration were selected. By the Act of 1874 this method of publication was abandoned.

Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History. Edited by PAUL VINOGRADOFF, D.C.L. Vol. IV. The History of Contract in Early English Equity. By W. T. BARBOUR. The Abbey of Saint Bertin and its Neighbourhood, 900-1350. By G. W. COOPLAND. Oxford: The Clarendon Press.

1914.

The history of Contract has been so much discussed by so many of our legal historians and leading jurists, both in the United States and in England, that it would appear that little more remained to be said. But, since the material upon which this study of the functions of the Chancery in the fifteenth century is based is new and has never been published, Mr. Barbour has no need to apologise for the present undertaking. As Professor Vinogradoff points out, the Court of Chancery only gradually differentiated from the King's Council. The writs of Edward III's reign were generally framed in terms which left it undecided whether proceedings were to be taken by the King's Council or by the Council under the chairmanship of the Chancellor himself with or without assessors. By the time of Richard II, however, the personal jurisdiction of the Chancellor had acquired a fairly definite range and was assuming the aspect of an established institution. Mr. Barbour's object is to show, not only what took place in the Chancery when the parties to contractual transactions applied to it for a remedy, but also to determine, as far as possible, the principles upon which the Chancellor proceeded. The main purport of his essay is to trace the development of contract in equity, but since it is impossible to consider equitable doctrines