a considerable portion of the old, combine to give a raison d'être to Mr. Wyatt Hart's book. It is not a treatise, or a text-book on the subject, but for the most part an annotated edition of the Act of 1869-(32 & 33 Vict., c. 71;) and is suited rather to the practitioner than the student. The framework, roughly speaking, consists of two parts; the first includes the Act of 1869, with its sections noted and interpreted by judicial decisions; the general rules made in pursuance of the Act; and a schedule of forms; the second, an appendix, embraces certain statutes and rules dealing with cognate subjects, such as the Act for the abolition of imprisonment for debt (32 & 33 Vict., c. 62), &c., besides a useful list of those County Courts which have and those which have not Bankruptcy jurisdiction. This is a good arrangement in accordance with the scope of the work, for while the principal statute is discussed by itself, a ready and easy reference is provided to such matters as are of almost equal importance, and are daily discussed in courts having bankruptcy jurisdiction. Whether or not Mr. Wyatt Hart has chosen the best method for his exposition of the law is a different question. However that may be, he has shown an intimate knowledge of the case-law of his subject, and has honestly and with considerable success faced the difficulties occasioned by the obscure wording of some of the sections, and the conflicting interpretations put upon them. The more important sections, such as secs. 6, 15, 23, 31, 40, 125 and 126, are carefully noted and discussed; and his illustrative propositions are generally accurate. A systematic ordering of the cases under each particular head, and some underlying principle deducible from each set of similar decisions would have rendered this work still more useful; but the former requirement is, in a great measure, met by a very ample and accurate index. Care and industry are conspicuous throughout this book, to which members of both branches of the profession may safely have recourse, as furnishing in a clear and concise form all leading and recent expositions of this complicated subject. We think that the publishers would have done better had they produced the book in a more pleasing form as to shape and style of binding; it is too long to be handy; in the portions containing the forms there are several almost blank pages, which if properly utilised, would have prevented an unnecessary increase of size. This defect might easily be remedied in a future edition.

The Bankruptcy Act, 1869, and the Decisions Thereon. By F. PITTTAYLOR, of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. Second Edition. W. Maxwell and Son. 1880.

The publication of a second edition of Mr. Pitt-Taylor's useful and comprehensive manual of The Bankruptcy Act, 1869, seems to argue a general want of confidence in the probability of the fulfilment of the promise, year by year repeated, of fresh legislation, in amelioration of the acknowledged evils of the existing system. Mr. Pitt-Taylor sees and acknowledges these evils, but it was no part of his present work to offer suggestions for their remedy. Now, however, that the President of the Board of Trade has taken action, and marked out secs. 125 and 126 of the Act of 1869 as among the principal blots to be hit, it would be a good moment for suggestions from so practical a hand as that of Mr. Pitt-Taylor.

The Justices' Note-Book. By W. KNOX WIGRAM, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law, J.P. for Middlesex. Second Edition. Stevens and Sons. 1881.

The favourable reception generally accorded to this useful compedium of the law administered by the "Great Unpaid " has speedily led to a demand for a Second Edition. The Author has carefully revised and corrected the present issue down to December, 1880, and has supplemented the facility of reference previously afforded in the alphabetical arrangement, by the addition of a comprehensive Index. The features which have rendered this book more especially attractive to laymen, whose requirements Mr. Wigram had specially in view, are fully maintained, and will doubtless render it permanently popular.

Transactions of the Social Science Association. Manchester Meeting, 1879. Edinburgh Meeting, 1880. Longmans. 1880 and 1881.

Exceptional circumstances delayed the issue of the Manchester volume. Its Edinburgh successor is now also before the public, and we desire to call attention to both, as containing much directly connected and illustrative matter. With the addresses of Sir Travers Twiss and the Lord Advocate, our readers are

already familiar. Copyright, Trade-marks, Bankruptcy, Marriage Laws, and other questions of the day in Law and Diplomacy have their share in both volumes, under some one or

other of the protean forms under which they are apt to come up for discussion. The Edinburgh volume contains Mr. Westlake's suggestive Paper on " Domicile or Political Nationality," and some very good papers and Discussions on Prison Reform and Police Reform, and the position of Discharged Prisoners. Sir Walter Crofton rightly alluded to the interest which the Italian Government takes in these and kindred questions. We should have been glad if he had brought out the importance of the Pianosa colony, and the agricultural experiment now being carried out at the Tre Fontane, near Rome, the beginning, it is to be hoped, of the vast work of draining the Pontine Marshes. The Appendices to the Edinburgh volume should not be neglected. They contain the Report of the Sub-Committee of the Social Science Association on Copyright, of which the result is now before the House in a Bill brought in by Mr. G. W. Hastings, M.P.; and the Report on the Brussels International Congress of Commerce and Industry, held in September, 1880, addressed to the Council by their Delegate, Mr. C. H. E. Carmichael M.A., is useful as containing some of the latest foreign views on Bankruptcy Law and Art Copyright.

Principles of Torts and Contracts. By W. E. BALL., LL.B., of Gray's Inn, Barrister-at-Law (late Holt Scholar). Stevens and Sons. 1880.

Mr. Ball here addresses himself to the supply of the student's wants, for whom the classic volumes of Addison are as "caviare." Thus while acknowledging his necessary indebtedness to those master works on this branch of the Law, our author is able to strike out for himself a different line and to digest for the use of the discipulus the Law which the practitioner seeks in Addison. Mr. Ball places the illustrative cases which he has selected, in a separate place at the end of the chapter to which they refer, and not at the foot of the page. This method has both advantages and disadvantages. It avoids the crowding of the page, and leaves the author more freedom as to the length of his extract from the judgment cited. But unless the student turns at once to the reference indicated by the numerals in the margin, he may have a good deal more turning to and fro of the pages, before he grasps the illustration in its bearing upon his text. One illustrative case the student is pretty sure to remember; it is No. 11, on p. 78, Aberdeen Arctic

Co. v. Sutter, and defines when a whale is a "loose fish." The volume will be a useful companion to the student while attending lectures at the Inns of Court.

The Law of the Road. By R. VASHON ROGERS, Jun., of Osgoode Hall, Barrister-at-Law. Carswell and Co., Toronto, and Edinburgh. 1881.

This book, written in Ontario, published in Canada, in the United States, and in Great Britain, well deserves the success with which it appears to have met. It is, in some respects, very unlike the ordinary law-book, for it decidedly means to combine utile dulci in a manner whereunto the graver Briton is a stranger. Not so the lively American, whether from the Granite State or from the land erstwhile ruled by Carpet-baggers. The tone of the writing is, indeed, very American, and reminds us forcibly of the legal facetia which some of our American exchanges print. But for this very reason, it would be possible for the handy compendium of Travellers' Law here furnished us to be read profitably in a railway car, or on board a lake or river steamer, which is distinctly one of the objects its author had in view. The cases cited, and they are cited throughout, in support of every proposition of importance, however quaintly put, are American and Canadian, of course, quite as much as English. But that is rather an advantage than otherwise, in these days of" Round the World" Tickets, when even a British reader of Mr. Vashon Rogers's book may chance to study it first on the Lake Shore Railway quite as probably as on the London and Brighton line. There is a slight divergence of opinion, we observe, between our author and his binders, or printers, as to the spelling of his name. It is given as "Rodgers" on the back of the volume, while printed "Rogers" on the title-page. We trust the "Canadian Beaver" will not wrathfully whisk his maple leaf at us for delicately hinting at an antinomy which should be removed in a future issue. We can recommend the book, under whatever form of its author's name, as a useful and lively companion for the traveller by road, rail, or river, and at the same time a trustworthy source of reference for the practitioner. For the latter, a Table of Cases would be a desirable addition.

*

*

Pressure on our space obliges us to postpone several Reviews.

:

THE

LAW MAGAZINE AND REVIEW.

No. CCXLI.-AUGUST, 1881.

I. SHERIFFS AND SHERIFF COURTS IN

SCOTLAND.

THERE is scarcely any older office in Scotland than

that of Sheriff. The name is derived from shirereeve, that is, the magistrate or ruler of the shire, or part of the country sheared or cut off; and to this day a large and important part of the common law jurisdiction exercised by the Sheriff is as "Judge Ordinary of the bounds." In Scotland, as indeed in all countries where the Feudal system prevailed, the great landed proprietors asserted of old an almost unlimited jurisdiction in regard to crimes committed within their territories, as well as a civil jurisdiction of a less extensive character, whose duties they discharged with the aid of their vassals or freemen as jurors. In some cases the right of criminal jurisdiction was derived from royal grant, either in the form of a barony, or of a holding cum fossa et furca, that is—as it was pithily translated—“ a right of pit and gallows." This latter class of grant was of frequent occurrence. In nearly all the

*It is noticed, says Sheriff Barclay (Digest of the Law of Scotland. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1880), under Alexander I. (1107-24). A statute of Alexander II. (1214-49), cap. 14, directs the attendance of Sheriffs or their deputies at the Courts of Bishops, Abbots, Barons, and Freeholders (Alexander Robertson, The Government, Constitution, and Laws of Scotland: Stevens and Haynes, 1878).