which contained what were evidently selections from an old Shumerian code.

At last we have a fragment of the actual code which scholars had so confidently awaited. It has survived in miserable shape. Originally it was but one tablet of a series whose colophon, unfortunately, had been lost so that we know neither its author, its title, or its date, save as this last can be surmised by the character of the writing. The obverse has been entirely lost, so that of the 190 lines on the tablet but 72 have been preserved and these have been so damaged that, as is clear from the photograph, only an expert with the patience and unrivalled skill of Professor Clay could have deciphered it.

Fragmentary as it is, its great importance justifies a complete presentation of its text:

I. If a man jostle the daughter of a man and the foetus within her cause to fall, ten shekels of silver shall he pay.

II. If a man strike the daughter of a man and the foetus within her cause to fall, a third of a mana of silver shall he pay.

III. If a man in the undertaking of his mission get into difficulty and cause the ship to perish, the lord of the ship shall determine its value, to his lordship shall he pay.

IV. If a son say unto his father and his mother, "Thou art not my father, thou art not my mother," from the house, field, plantation, servants, property, animals, he shall go forth, and his portion, to its full amount, shall he give him. His father and his mother shall say to him, "Thou art not our son." From the neighborhood of the house shall he go. V. If to a son his father and his mother shall say, "Thou art not our child," from the city shall he go forth.

VI. If a man seduce the daughter of a man and the home transgressor had not consulted her father and her mother, he shall acknowledge the price of house violation. It shall be the decision of her father and of her mother. Her father and her mother for marriage shall give her to him.

VII. If a man abduct the daughter of a man and the home transgressor had consulted her father and her mother, the home transgressor was cognizant. He is guilty. By the decision of the god shall he die.

VIII. If a lion devour an ox of the fold, an equivalent for its life shall he receive credit.

IX. If an ox of the fold be let perish, ox for ox shall he give.

It is well worth while to follow Professor Clay in his comparisons with the Hammurapi Code. In the case of the pregnant woman, the latter code no longer punishes unintentional injury as a crime and the punishment for wilful injury is much less. For a woman of gentle blood, it is one-half, which naturally means, with the increasing amount of the precious metals in circulation, a very much greater reduction in the actual value of the fine. In one respect, the older code is the more modern for it asserts equality before the law, while the code of Hammurapi,

based on the caste distinctions of the new conquering West Semitic dynasty, distinguishes the three classes. Thus for an abortion caused to the woman of gentle birth, the fine is ten shekels, to the free woman of low birth, five, and to the maid servant two. When the woman is killed, the difference is still more striking. If she is of gentle birth, the law of talio holds and the offender's daughter is put to death. If a woman of the lower class, the fine is thirty shekels and if a maid servant, the fine to her master is twenty.

As regards loss of a ship by negligence, the same principle is followed in the later code, though, curiously enough, the earlier simply demands payment in value, the other payment in kind. It also distinguished between boat and cargo, charges a fine of a half against the man who sinks and then refloats the boat, and, by giving right of way to the boat coming down stream, places the burden of negligence on the boat going up.

Perhaps the most interesting case is that of parent and child. The earliest form is that given in the phrase book:

If a son say to his father, "Thou art not my father," he may brand him, lay fetters on him and sell him. If a son say to his mother, "Thou art not my mother," they shall brand his forehead, drive him out of the city, and make him go out of the house. If a father say to his son, “Thou art not my son," he shall leave house and enclosure. If a mother say to her son, "Thou art not my son," he shall leave house and furniture.

Next in order of development comes our code with the provision that, if the son shall be disinherited or released for adoption elsewhere, he shall of right have his full portion, "wages" in its literal meaning. Clay has pointed out a particularly striking survival of this principle in the story of the prodigal son where the son has still the right to demand his full portion and is then legally dead. The Hammurapi code represents a great advance for the act of disinheritance must be formally carried out before judges, it cannot take place unless there has been felony, and even then in the first instance the judges must reconcile father and son. In actual practice, as we learn from the contracts of adoption, the adoptive father, if he later wishes to cast off his adopted son, must actually pay him his portion as if the child of his body.

The cases of marriage without consent of parents are not paralleled in the later laws, the nearest being the case of the betrothed wife whose rape is made a capital offense. It is interesting to observe how completely the affair is a matter of property rights. If these have been ignored, the case is settled by paying the parents the bride price. If, however, the parents have refused the marriage contract, the lover has no redress, and, if he attempts self help, the act is aggravated theft and the penalty is death.

The last provisions deal with bailments and lay down the rule, found also in the Hammurapi Code, that the bailee is responsible only when negligence can be proved.

It is much to be regretted that so little of this most important code, the earliest code of laws known to exist, should have been preserved to

us.

Even from the scanty remains, it is clear that it represents a much more primitive form than that which we have in the code of Hammurapi. We can only hope that other fragments will soon be discovered and that they will find as competent an editor as Professor Clay.

HELLENIC CIVILIZATION: RECORDS OF CIVILIZATION. By G. W. Botsford and E. G. SIHLER. New York. Columbia University Press. 1915.

In a recent source book of ancient law, the Greek material consisted of selections from Homer, Plutarch, and the Law of Gortyna, and the reviewer regretted that more had not been included. This lack is now in part made good by the publication of Hellenic Civilization, a source book for Greek history in which the legal and economic sides of the culture are especially emphasized. One chapter is devoted to "Private and Criminal Law," including an elaborately documented translation of the Gortyna Code and of the fragment of Draco's homocide law which is one of the most important of the legal inscriptions which have come down to us. Scattered through the remainder of the book, especially in the portions where we have extracts from orators, are many other selections which illustrate such subjects as property, partnership, commercial law, dower, wills, loans. Attention should be particularly directed to the long inscription recently discovered by the American excavators at Sardis, the capital of Lydia, which tells us so much about the actual working out of mortgage law. While not intended primarily for the lawyer, his attention should be directed to this book as containing the best collection of legal material at present accessible in English.