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detective correct, for he is very nearly as scientific as the late lamented Sherlock Holmes himself. He is an expert in burgling a safe, in putting up electric light, and the use of the Röntgen rays, to say nothing of plumbing, and the manufacture and use of sympathetic ink. He is also possessed of extraordinary powers of facial transformation. We are much afraid that there would have been no chance of convicting the doctor in the poisoning case, or of smuggling a bill repealing the Fraudulent Conveyances Act through both Houses of Parliament. Such trifling objections, however, do not detract from the interest of the stories.

Elementary Law for the General Public. By AMHERST D. TYSSEN, M.A., D.C.L. London: William Clowes & Sons, Limited. 1898. Pp. 194. Price 5s.

This book does not pretend to be written for lawyers, nor even to be an exhaustive treatise for the benefit of the public, but it contains a good deal of carefully written information on the principles of law most often connected with the management of business and property, such as the law of cheques, shares, land, rates and taxes, etc., and is likely to prove useful to all those who desire to obtain a general view of such principles. It also contains some information about the post office and funds.

Digest of Cases in Criminal Law down to the end of 1897. By JOHN MEWS. London: Sweet & Maxwell and Stevens & Sons. 1898. Price 25s.

This is practically a well-arranged collection of the head notes to the criminal cases reported down to the end of 1897, and seems to be exhaustive. It should be very useful to any one wishing for short accounts of all the cases on a particular point. We notice that, although in the body of the work references are given to all the reports, in the table of cases the reference is generally given to the Law Journal only, and never to the Law Reports.

Paterson's Practical Statutes for 1898. Edited by JAMES SUTHERLAND-COTTON. London: Horace Cox. 1898. Price 5s.

The session of 1898 was not a very eventful one for legislation, but the present volume contains the statutes, passed in that year, of practical utility. It is edited with the usual care shown in previous issues, and contains useful tables, showing the principal enactments

repealed and the principal subjects altered by the Statutes included. The value of the text of the Statutes is considerably increased by the introduction and notes, and the whole forms a very handy and useful volume for practical purposes.

NEW EDITIONS.

Second Edition. Acts relating to the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and the Colleges therein. By W. B. SKENE. London : Sweet & Maxwell. 1898. Pp. 152. Price 7s. 6d.

The powers of the Universities and their colleges to hold and deal with property are so dependent on statutes that an annotated edition of the Acts relating to them is of great use to all "engaged in the administration of college property;" and to supply that want the first edition of this book was published in 1894. The passing of the Universities and Colleges Estate Act, 1898, has necessitated a new edition, which is well and carefully prepared.

Third Edition. The Law and Practice under the Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Acts, 1883-1888. By WILLIAM NORTON LAWSON, M.A., assisted by CHARLES SHARP and MARSHALL DENHAM WARMINGTON, M.A. London: Butterworth & Co. 1898. Pp. 636. Price £175. 6d.

The Law of Patents is of increasing importance, and this edition of a well-known work quite sustains the high standard of the previous editions. The work is, as far as we can see, severely confined to the Law and Practice as they are, and no attempt is made to examine the alterations and reforms proposed by Mr. Fletcher Moulton and others. The notes are gradually in each edition increasing in length, as cases are decided and rules are added, until many of the notes form treatises in themselves. For instance, the notes on sections 29 and 30 of the Act of 1883 fill very nearly 160 pages, an increase of nearly forty pages on the previous edition. The notes are, as may be imagined, both full and accurate; and Mr. Lawson has been fortunate enough to have been supplied, by the kindness of the Attorney-General, with a most valuable note on the practice of obtaining the fiat on petitions for revocation of patents. Other valuable additions to this edition are the new Rules of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Patent proceedings, and the various Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks Rules issued since 1889.

Third Edition.

The Yearly County Court Practice, 1899. By G. PITT-LEWIS, Q.C., C. ARNOLD WHITE, B.A., and ARCHIBALD READ, B.A. 2 Vols. London: Butterworth & Co. and Shaw & Sons. 1899. Pp. 844, 547. Price 25s.

This edition has been somewhat increased in size by the addition of the Rules under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897, with notes. These have, as well as the Act, been transferred from the second volume into the first, to ensure facility of reference between it and the Employers' Liability Act. The parts of the Highways and Locomotives Act, 1878, and the Locomotives Act, 1898, which apply to County Courts have been inserted in the second volume and annotated. Parts of the Inebriates Act, 1898, will also be found there. The recent cases are well noted up to date, and great care seems to have been taken in the revision of the notes. We notice a very useful Time and Practice Table under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897. The whole forms a most useful work to all who have anything to do with County Court proceedings.

Third Edition. Redress by Arbitration. A Digest of the Law relating to Arbitrations and Awards. By G. H. FOULKS LYNCH. Revised by G. D. F. DE L'HOSTE RANKING, M.A., LL.D. London : Effingham Wilson. Third Edition. 1898. Pp. 95. Price 5s.

This little digest contains a great deal of the law on the subject of which it treats, arranged in order of events from submission to award. It was primarily intended for the use of arbitrators and for students. That it has been found useful for this purpose, the fact that it has reached a third edition is a strong proof. A number of cases is cited, but the system of reference to them is bad. For instance, the references to the reports are given generally in the table of cases at the commencement of the book; sometimes they are given in the text, but not in the table of cases; and in a considerable number of instances no reference is given in either place.

Fourth Edition. A Compendium of the Law of Torts. By HUGH FRASER, LL.D. London: Sweet & Maxwell and Reeves & Turner. 1898. Pp. 210. Price 6s.

This is an excellent little work; though written for students, to whom it should be most valuable, its logical arrangement and clear grasp of principles make it very useful to those practitioners who desire to consider any part of the Law of Torts. That the first

edition was published in 1888, and that the one now issued is the fourth, is enough to show the success it has met with. The subject most fully dealt with is Libel and Slander. The author's Principles and Practice of the Law of Libel and Slander is well-known, and from it, as the author states, the chapters in the present work on this subject are mainly taken. The law is set out with great clearness, and particular pains are devoted to distinguishing between the different defences to an action of libel. The treatment of the question of Employers' Liability is also very good, and gives in a compact form a clear idea of the common law on the subject and its successive alterations by Statute. The work, of course, does not pretend to be a complete treatise on the Law of Torts, and, we think, in some places little additions might be made with advantage. For instance, in the second chapter, we think it would have been clearer, especially to students, if the author, when dealing with the categories of persons who are not capable of suing or liable to be sued in tort, had qualified the statement that a convict cannot sue. The expression "convict" in the Forfeiture Act is limited to cases of a man sentenced to death or penal servitude, and the better opinion appears to be that even such a convict is only debarred from suing for injuries to property and not for personal injuries. We also notice that no mention is made of stage right when referring to the subject of copyright. These, however, are but small omissions.

Seventh Edition. Studies in Roman Law, with Comparative Views of the Laws of France, England, and Scotland. By LORD MACKENZIE. Edited by JOHN KIRKPATRICK, M.A., LL.D., Advocate, Professor of History in the University of Edinburgh. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons. 1898.

Lord Mackenzie's well-known work was first published in 1862. Since that date numerous editions have appeared, but the original idea of the learned judge-that of a short and elementary treatise on comparative law-has been kept in view by successive editors. Edited as it is by a Scots advocate, it may appear to the English lawyer a little deficient in places-in fact, not quite up to date. The Married Women's Property Act, 1882, and the Marriage Act, 1886, are not named. Probably Professor Kirkpatrick knows well enough that the Married Women's Property Acts, 1870 and 1874, the only ones named in the text as amending the common law, have been repealed, and that the canonical hours of marriage have been extended since 1886. But he does not say so, and the text is not a

little misleading to students. Again, the history of divorce legislation in France ends with 1852; there is no reference to recent hotly-contested amendments of the law. References to cases are not always given it is no use naming Brook v. Brook and Lolly's case without telling the student where to find them. In some parts, too, the work is a little thin. The English works on Roman law, whether comparative or otherwise, are surely very inadequately treated on p. 45. Later works are no doubt inserted in the list of authorities at the beginning of the volume. But the interesting early comparisons or imitations of the Roman system by Fulbecke (1601), Cowell (1605), and Booth (1656), seem worth a word or two, as being at least equally interesting with Arthur Duck's treatise. The chapter on the Roman bar remains one of the best in the book. The learned editor gives a translation into verse of the famous Greek satire on the bar by Lucilius, but not of the (probably) earlier one by Martial to the same effect. Perhaps the following attempt might do :

"No claim for trespass do I bring,

Or homicide, or poisoning;

I claim that by my neighbour's theft
Of she-goats three I was bereft.

The judge, of course, wants evidence,
But you go deviating thence,

And with a mighty voice proclaim

Of Mithridates and the shame

Of Cannæ, and the lies of old

That Punic politicians told.

And why should you pass Sylla by,

The Marii and Mucii?

When, Postumus, d'ye hope to reach

My stolen she-goats in your speech?"

Subject to what has been said, the book can be recommended to students at the Universities and the Inns of Court as a first book on comparative jurisprudence, a matter of study as yet in its infancy. There is so much for the student to read in a limited time, that it can hardly be expected that he will go very far into a subject which will only indirectly "pay " in his examination. Nor, as far as the Roman law is concerned, will he be likely to add another to the numerous compendia which help him on his road to University honours or to the profession. It is a question on which there is much difference of opinion whether the present scanty amount of Roman law required is really worth learning. It is generally swallowed as a nauseous medicine, and all that has been assimilated is quickly forgotten. The only remedy is a post-graduate course at the Universities; of

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