provisions of sect. 10 of the Married Women's Property Act 1870, which is nearly identical with sect. II of the Act of 1882. Has he, during his wife's life, any legal interest in the policy-moneys? In the present case such a policy was effected by a husband in 1882. In 1901, his wife being still alive and the policy in force, he assigned to a trustee for the benefit of his creditors (inter alia) all his personal estate of every kind, present or future, certain or contingent. The wife died intestate in 1907, and the husband took out administration to her. A contest then arose as to whether the policy-moneys were captured by the assignment, or passed to him by virtue of his marital right. Ross, J., held that the husband had, even during the wife's lifetime, and subject to the trust in her favour, an interest capable of assignment. It had been contended on behalf of the husband that during the wife's life he had a mere spes successionis. The decision suggests some difficulties. The wife here died intestate; but if she had made a will, could she not have disposed of these policy-moneys? Suppose she had creditors; could they not have claimed that the policy-moneys were assets for the payment of her debts? If the present decision is right, apparently both these questions must be answered in the negative.

Ireland shows a larger crop of cases on Old Age Pensions than her wealthier neighbours have yet been able to produce. Rex (Pawley) v. Local Government Board ([1910], 2 Ir. R. 440) is important as to the powers of the central pension authority in dealing with an appeal. A local pension committee had given Pawley a pension of 2s. per week. He, not unnaturally, wished to have this increased to the more usual 5s., and for that purpose wrote to the committee a letter which purported to raise what is technically called "a question" as to the rate of his pension, but which did not allege any change in his circumstances. The committee

refused to make any increase, and Pawley appealed from this refusal to the central authority. The result was a perfect example of the evils of "not letting well-enough alone," for the central authority took away his pension altogether, on the ground that his means did not entitle him to any. Nothing daunted, however, Pawley sought from the High Court a certiorari to quash this order of the central authority; and after an adventurous journey, he eventually succeeded in the Court of Appeal. They held that the original decision of the local committee, not having been appealed from, was under sect. 7 (2) of the Old Age Pensions Act 1908 final and conclusive, and that therefore the order of the central authority was made without jurisdiction. With what looks like grim humour, however, they gave Pawley no costs.

The decision of the Court of Appeal (subsequently affirmed by the House of Lords) in M'Cartan v. Belfast Harbour Commissioners ([1910], 2 Ir. R. 470) is noteworthy as a refusal to follow Donovan v. Laing ([1893], I Q. B. 629). The plaintiff, while working in the hold of a ship discharging in the harbour, had been injured by a bucket negligently lowered from a crane on the quay. Under their statutory powers the Commissioners have control of the harbour and all quays and piers therein; they have power to provide cranes for the discharge of vessels, and it is their duty to provide proper servants and labourers for the working of these cranes. The master of the ship in which the plaintiff was working had hired a crane for its discharge, and had signed a "request" containing an agreement that he should be responsible for all loss or damage arising from the improper use of the crane. The hirer's servants, in the hold, filled the buckets, and one of them directed the crane-man when to raise and lower. The crane-man was employed and paid by the Commissioners, and it was expressly found

by the jury that the hirer had no power to control the craneman except as to the time and place of movement and the time of raising and lowering. In these circumstances, the plaintiff's injuries having been found to be caused by the crane-man's negligent lowering of the bucket, the vital question in a Common-law action obviously was, could the crane-man be held a fellow-servant of the plaintiff? This question the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords have answered in the negative, the latter tribunal appearing to think that it was really a question of fact, and was concluded in the plaintiff's favour by the finding above mentioned. Still, the case is practically undistinguishable from Donovan v. Laing, and that case is virtually over-ruled. The Court of Appeal found it impossible to reconcile it with three cases in the Times Law Reports, none of which had found its way into the authorised Reports-Moore v. Palmer (2 T. L. R. 781), Cahalane v. Met. Ry. Co. (12 T. L. R. 611), and Dewar v. Tasker (23 T. L. R. 219).

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It is impossible at the present day to contend that an agreement between the members of a trade to keep up prices is, per se, unenforceable as being in restraint of trade. Its validity depends primarily upon its being reasonable. A ring" of traders agree not to sell certain goods below certain prices. If this agreement is reasonable as regards limits of space and time, and is made with a view of protecting local trade, it will even be enforced by injunction against a member of the "ring" who breaks it. Cade v. Daly ([1910], 1 Ir. R. 306).

J. S. B.

109

Reviews.

[SHORT NOTICES DO NOT PRECLUDE REVIEWS AT GREATER
LENGTH IN SUBSEQUENT ISSUES.]

F. W. Maitland: a Biographical Sketch. By H. A. L. FISHER. Cambridge: The University Press. 1910.

The death of Professor Maitland in 1906, at the early age of fifty-six, robbed legal literature of one of its greatest and most lucid minds. Precisely the place that his name will occupy in the roll of history it is premature to say; and to estimate the verdict of posterity would be presumptuous. One thing is certain, that rarely, if ever, has any man brought to bear upon mediæval and general law history the experience of a practising barrister, added to the scholarship of the erudite student in the library. His was the brain that conceived the scheme of work carried on by the Selden Society since 1886, work which has given to the reader a living picture of the daily work of our mediæval Courts. Associated as he was with such men as Frederick Pollock, Leslie Stephens, Sidgwick and Vinogradoff, it is not hard to realise that work, which on its surface appeared dull, became to him a labour of love. No doubt the one who had most in common with his aims and objects was Professor Paul Vinogradoff, the talented Russian who has devoted his life to the elucidation of our legal system. A complete list of the books and articles by Professor Maitland would read like a publisher's catalogue, but he will ever be remembered for his History of English Law up to the time of Edward I, which appeared in 1895, the Year Books of Edward II, his six essays on Roman Canon law in the Church of England which appeared in the English Historical Review, and his life of Leslie Stephen, 1906. Lord Acton once spoke of "our three Cambridge historians, Maine, Lightfoot, Maitland"; each had his own style, and each had his own region of research. Professor Dicey summarised him in a statement apt, but too lengthy to quote here. It is to be regretted that his famous pupil, Miss Mary Bateson, whose work for the Selden Society is so well-known and appreciated, predeceased him by a few months. Professor Maitland had a way of dressing up the old bones of history in a garb of nervous lucid English, which not only arrested the attention

of the casual reader, but made the subject clear to the most uninitiated. Independent of mind, he was indifferent to criticism, his opinion of reviewers was not high, as was instanced by a letter written to Vinogradoff on March 12, 1889. However, one forgives the somewhat hasty conclusions common to many men who from the pinnacle of their great knowledge are apt to forget that a reviewer not only cannot have a universal knowledge, but has to oftimes write his reviews against time. Mr. Fisher's biographical sketch is the work of a loving hand, and will be much appreciated by the many admirers of Professor Maitland.

Stock Exchange Law and Practice. By W. A. BEWES, LL.B. London: Sweet & Maxwell.

1910.

It is hard to say too much in praise of this book, which will appeal alike to lawyer and to layman, for it has the great advantage of being written by an Author who is a lawyer and has been a member of the Stock Exchange. In the first chapter is given the history of the Stock Exchange; the reader is initiated into the mysteries of the various securities and the verbiage attached to dealings in them. Such technicalities as "continuation," "contango," and "splits," are fully explained and the system made clear. In the course of twelve chapters such important matters as the relationship between broker and client, the position of the jobber, and forgery of transfers, are adequately dealt with. The twelfth chapter, headed "Miscellaneous," contains a wealth of information, not unlike a literary "Box of Pandora," including a kind of Stock Exchange Glossary. In the Appendix we get, under Part I, the portion of the Finance Act 1910 dealing with Stamps, sections applicable of the Stamp Act 1891 (54 & 55 Vict., c. 39), and a list of Clearing Banks included in the Town clearing. In Part II is set out the Rules and Regulations of the Stock Exchange and Appendix thereto, without which any book on the subject would be incomplete. In the Index references to the Rules are in black, leaded type, whereas references to pages are in ordinary type, an innovation which makes for ease and rapidity of reference. Mr. Bewes is to be congratulated upon the simplicity and lucidity of language employed throughout the text, in fact he possesses a "homeliness" of phraseology all his own.