utterances makes the averment. That being so, it can only excite our surprise that there is a growing class of lawyers who can believe, for this is what it comes to, that English courts are perforce concluded by American decisions. The wonder is that so eccentric a class has any cases to argue. In another sense, however, American decisions must be regarded as authorities of the greatest weight, in the sense that a statement in Sugden on Powers, or Watson on Sheriffs, is an authority not easily countervailed or evaded; though, till the Lord Chancellor's pronouncement, it is doubtful whether it ever occurred to any one that these "authorities" were ever quoted as by their citation "overruling" any case whatever. The distinction we wish to call attention to may be thus brought out : a considered judgment of Lord Cairns, with Lord Cairns's name suppressed, and that of any well-known legal name, signifying the reverse of authority, substituted, would beyond a doubt yet be a most formidable authority from the strength and cogency of the reasoning alone, quite apart from the prestige which the name of its real author would affix to it. So with American decisions, surrendering altogether any claim. to awe by prestige, they yet may sway one whose opinion is open, as a Judge's should ever be till the last moment of the argument, by the combination of natural acuteness, experience, learning, and sense of responsibility brought to play in the exceptionally momentous matter of giving a solemn Judicial decision. A good instance of the weight attaching to American decisions is seen in the stress laid on the judgment of Shaw, C.J. of Massachusetts, delivered in Farwell v. Boston and Worcester Railroad Corporation, which may almost be said to have formed the basis of the judgment of the House of Lords in Bartonshill Colliery Co. v. Reid, not because it was the decision of the chief court in Massachusetts, but because it was an admirable and conclusive legal argument, based on an appreciation of legal wants, and manifesting a masterly grasp of legal principles. What was precisely in Lord Halsbury's mind, when he made the pronouncement just quoted, we know not. As we have said, we have never heard of an attempt, by the mere citing of an American decision, to overrule an English decided case. An American case, however, may very frequently be cited before a court of jurisdiction competent to overrule some English case, not as authority, per se, but as an important step in the argument for overruling, as tending to shew that the

case questioned does not harmonise with general principles of law, or more frequently, perhaps, with the universal practice of the Law Merchant. Is it, then, Lord Halsbury's opinion that American cases are not admissible for this purpose? If so, here is an absurdity. Rarely is a mercantile case heard out without some reference to the writings of Kent or of Story. These are admissible. But their more deliberate and responsible utterances in their Judgments are to be tabooed. If Lord Halsbury meant this, some even higher authority is necessary to sustain the position. If he meant less, the dictum is scarcely more than a verbal quibble.

We take exception, however, to a want of discrimination in Mr. Hudson's citation of American cases. He will cite the decision of some court of a far-west State with as much faith as if it were a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States -a Tribunal whose judgments embody as much of legal learning and legal reasoning as the most approved Judgments of the Privy Council, or even of the House of Lords. At least, the remark might be adventured that the one decision is that of a State court, while the other is that of the great Judicial body which is a source of such unfeigned and deserving pride to every American.

Mr. Hudson has adopted what we think a very bad practice, viz., making suggestions for legislation in his book. For instance, he wants to see a Builders' Court established. In this practice he is following a precedent set, we believe, in the last edition of Chitty on Contracts. The obvious objection to it is that a legal text writer is, so far as he is concerned with a concrete subject, not a writer on practical legislation. If, then, he occupies his space with canvassing legislative reforms, he takes an unfair advantage of his purchasers, who presumably pay for law, not for speculations on legislation; his researches in law may be accurate, but his conclusions in philosophy are not unlikely to be ludicrous. If, again, he merely states his opinions without reasoning them out, he is using the presumption raised by his authority as a text writer on a subject outside his scope, and speaking as a doctor where he is probably not even a learner. Where no reasons are given, the fact that law is as it is raises at least as great a presumption that it is as it should be as the text writer's mere ex cathedrâ expression of opinion raises the presumption that it should be changed. How law has developed itself is one thing; how it should be trained

to develop itself is another, and only distantly of kin to the former.

As to Mr. Hudson's proposal of a "Building Court," we consider it wholly uncalled for, and if called for, pernicious. A late member of the Judicial bench was sometimes termed by his admirers-very injudicious ones-"Society's Judge," possibly because he was supposed to preside with special zest in the trial of the causes of titled litigants. We have heard suggestions, when scandals about card sharping or horse racing have had to be investigated, of the advisibility of selecting a Judge to try them, as the phrase goes, "with a knowledge of the world," which, being translated, means a graduate of the Jockey Club; but to have a Builders' Judge would, in our opinion, be almost as lowering to the dignity of the Bench, and almost as injurious to the credit of English legal administration, as to set apart a Judge for Society cases, or to assign one as official referee for the Jockey Club.

A distinct merit of Mr. Hudson's book is his system of paragraphing. Each chapter is divided and sub-divided under various headings, and sections and sub-sections. This renders reference easier, though, were the book written in view of continuous perusal, the breaks of the text would be now and again very irritating. The attempt to codify is well conceived and often well executed, but the subject is hardly one suited to that method of treatment, and a hyper-critical critic could undoubtedly point to instances where the method adopted has not been satisfactorily worked out. The general scheme of the book betokens a study of the method adopted by Mr. Odgers on Libel. But that excellent text-book deals with a much less complex subject than that which Mr. Hudson has made his own. The law of Libel stands out in clear outline, distinct from other cognate branches of Law. The law of Building Contracts is implicated inextricably with the general law of Contracts and with half-a-dozen well-recognised heads of Law besides. The difficulties which Mr. Hudson has to deal with are thus very greatly in excess of those in Mr. Odgers's way. To compare the two books, so unlike in their subjects, so alike in the method applied to those subjects, would be impossible; yet we venture to say that Mr. Hudson's book will take as clear and deserved a pre-eminence in the bibliography of Building Contracts as Mr. Odgers's has done in that of Libel and Slander.

If we were constrained to make a selection from Mr. Hudson's chapters we should select Chapter III., on Quantities, Surveyors, and Bills of Quantities, and Chapter XIII., on Arbitration and Award, as containing the most new matter and deserving best an attentive study. Chapter II., on Engineers and Architects, also specially deserves note, though here the ground has, to some extent at least, been pre-occupied by Messrs. Macassey and Strahan's treatise. In this chapter a point of great importance is mooted. At p. 28 we read as follows:-" No licence (i.e., to practice) is necessary, unless an architect wishes to value property, in which case it would seem he cannot recover his charges without being duly licensed under 46 Geo. III., c. 43, ss. 4-7, which appears to have been overlooked by his profession." The practical conclusion from this is pointed out on the next page, where the valuer is informed that he must, "under penalty, write out his appraisement or valuation upon stamped paper within 14 days of making it, and, unless he does so, the employer is, under penalty, forbidden to pay him; 33 and 34 Vict., c. 97, s. 38." So far as we know, this has never been the practice of architects. Now that attention is called to the matter, default will have serious consequence, though the increased impost that conformity requires will not, we are confident, be acquiesced in by the persons concerned without a certain amount of restiveness. Mr. Hudson may therefore expect to find the battle raging round this portion of his work. Very probably a legal decision will be required to set the point at rest; if so, we may express our hope that Mr. Hudson's ingenuity in raising the point may be rewarded by substantial profit in arguing it.

Mr. Hudson's book is not a mere summary of cases indiscriminately jumbled together without any indication of individual preferences or opinion. We have expressed a wish that in his citation of American authorities he had now and again discriminated, and pointed out the greater or less amount of confidence that could be extended to them. And this the more so because he does the very thing we ask with the English cases he cites. A good specimen of his method may be seen at p. 62, where he controverts the reasoning in Cann v. Wilson. The invocation of Heaven v. Pender in a judgment charging property valuers for default of duty to mortgagees for whom they did not value has a startling effect at first, though in time one accustoms oneself to such things, like the practitioners in a

distant County Court, who became used to have their actions on warranty dismissed with an astute reference to Peek v. Derry. But it is well that peculiarities of reasoning, even when they are Judicial, should be brought up for independent consideration.

The Appendix is of great bulk and is rich in precedents, some, at least, admirably drawn. The War Department lump sum Contract has struck us as being specially well drawn. The reports of cases in the Appendix are also of great value, but in many instances they might have been considerably compressed with much advantage. The discursive remarks of divers learned counsel, for example, might with advantage have been entirely omitted. The accuracy of the citations of cases is for a new book quite exceptional, and Mr. Hudson is to be congratulated on the care, accuracy, and efficiency of his collaborateurs, to whom we presume this part of the work was entrusted, and, if so, certainly without any of those after regrets that worry some authors with visions of misplaced cases and misapplied references. The Index is more than usually full.

On the whole, we congratulate Mr. Hudson most heartily on his book. The labour and pains bestowed must have been both immense and protracted, but in our opinion the result amply repays the expenditure of this labour, though much greater than ordinary. Mr. Hudson has written a book, which, taken all in all, is by far the best that we have on his complex and tangled subject; and he has brought together for its elucidation a mass of authority and illustration unequalled by any of his predecessors, while the sum total of his labour is a Treatise so minute in detail, yet so comprehensive in grasp, that for a practitioner to have failed to consult it henceforth will argue signal infelicity, or as signal self-confidence.