Mr. Stringer's Guide to Practice as a useful auxiliary to the White Book shows undiminished skill and judgment in its compilation and arrangement.

The Yearly Practice of the Supreme Court 1915. By M. MUIR MACKENZIE and T. WILLES CHITTY. London: Butterworth & Co. With zealous anticipation of professional requirements, this welcome guide to the practice of 1915 is issued by the Editors in the early days of the present sitting. Though no very wide or momentous changes in procedure are effected, all the variations are of course of consequence, and some of them of considerable interest. The rules issued in July last are appropriately placed under Order XXXVI; and with regard to the third of these, the Editors suggest a difficulty as likely to arise. Their forecast will, in its turn, suggest a way by which the difficulty may be encountered. The Postponement of Payments Act 1914, with the proclamations ancillary to it, is set out in a special section of the first volume; in which also is included the Courts (Emergency) Act. The two-volume form of producing the work has some advantages peculiar to itself; and this is aided by the plan of placing in each volume a complete Index to both. As the duplex plan allots to the first volume the Orders and Rules, and to the second the Statutes and Appendices, a relief in portability is attained according as the one or the other has to be consulted in chambers or in Court. The paging is continuous through both volumes; but to meet enlargement of notes, or additions unforeseen, a hiatus, between the final page of the first and the initial page of the second, occurs; but the "solution of continuity" being known, no perplexity ensues. The work has in the past been as near perfection as vigilant care and foresight can reach, and this issue will doubtless be as eminent in this respect as its predecessors.

Stone's Insurance Cases. By GILBERT STONE, LL.B., and K. G. GROVES, LL.B. London: The Reports and Digest Syndicate. 1914. The aim of the two Authors has been to collect all the English, Irish, Scotch, and Indian cases, and most of the Colonial, in every branch of insurance, except Marine. And not only to collect them. but to arrange them in logical order. To this vast assemblage they have also added, on request, all the cases decided up to the early part of this year, on Workmen s Compensation and Employers'

Liability. Such as have been over-ruled have been so indicated. The arrangement of the work is planned with much judgment, and the purpose pursued is to enable a reader to see at a glance both the decisions arrived at and the facts upon which they were founded. This purpose is facilitated by numerous cross-references. The labour in the preparation of the book must have been very great, and the ability with which it appears to have been directed has produced two volumes which will be of much utility. The work is dedicated to the present Attorney-General, with his consent, which probably conveys approbation on his part.

Second Edition. Law and Public Opinion in England. By A. V. DICEY, K.C., D.C.L. London: Macmillan & Co.

1914.

This book may be described as a corrected reprint accompanied by a new Introduction: "The object of which is to trace and to comment upon the rapid changes in English law and in English legislative opinion which have marked the early years of the twentieth century." This task, as the learned Author admits, is one of special difficulty. The success or non-success of legislative enactments can in the main only be tested by their ultimate results. In many instances such results are indirect rather than direct, and are long in making their appearance. As he truly says, “few indeed have been the men who have been able to seize with clearness the causes or the tendencies of the events passing around them." Among modern writers of distinction, there only occur to him Burke, Tocqueville, and Bagehot, and even they were not always correct in their anticipations. This Introduction, therefore, "is written under conditions which make it rather an analytical than an historical document, and introduce into every statement which it contains a large element of conjecture." In his treatment, the learned Author has followed the same method as is employed in the text. He treats of (A) The state of legislative opinion at the end of the nineteenth century; (B) The course of legislation from the beginning of the twentieth century: (c) The main current of legislative opinion from the beginning of the twentieth century; (D) The counter currents and cross-currents of legislative opinion during the same period. In carrying out his self-appointed task, the Author obviously endeavours to be strictly impartial, but his own strong political bias has apparently been too much for him. He is evidently hostile to most, if not all, the social measures of the Liberal Govern

ment since it came into power in 1906.

He has nothing to say on

the Education and Licensing Acts of the Unionist Administration of 1900 to 1905. He, of course, is perfectly entitled to criticise the Liberal measures from his point of view, but an impartial historian would at any rate make some attempt to state the arguments advanced in their favour. In criticising, for instance, the Education (Provision of Meals) Act 1906, he omits altogether the argument that the State is wasting its money in trying to educate ill-fed children, and that it is in the interest of the State to both educate and feed, if necessary, such children. He also omits to state that the cost of such feeding can be recovered from the parent if he has means. If he has no means, to deprive him of the franchise seems to us a doubtful method of compelling a parent to do his duty. His pauperism may be due to no fault of his own, and to deprive citizens of their political rights because they have been compelled to seek temporary relief from the guardians is regarded by the mass of working men as an injustice, and is certainly not the way to make men respectable members of society. Again, on the question of the magic of individual ownership Dr. Dicey altogether misses the point. We say boldly no such magic exists. It is not ownership but security of tenure which mankind desires. Ninety per cent. of the land in Great Britain to-day is in the hands of mortgagees, that is to say, legally it is no longer in the ownership of its ostensible owners. Peasant pro

prietorship, which he advocates, results always and everywhere in subjection to the money-lender. One third of the peasants' land in India is in the hands of these vampires. Dr. Dicey has written what are admittedly the finest works on Private International law and Constitutional History which have appeared in modern times, but in economic and political theory he is decidedly weak, apparently allowing a naturally broad vision to be blinded by party prejudice.

Second Edition. The Law relating to the Mentally Defective. By H. DAVEY. London: Stevens & Sons. 1914.

The treatment of the mentally defective is, unhappily, one of extreme importance to the country; and there has been already issued so large a quantity of official literature relating to it, as to render good text-books on the subject indispensable to any student of the problem. This book, to all appearance, supplies such a requirement. The subject not only concerns the relatives of the

afflicted individuals, and the professional persons whom those relatives must consult, but it also concerns vitally the many bodies which have the administration of the law, such as county councils, poor law, education, and lunacy authorities, and, perhaps, not least, magistrates and police. The Introduction to the work gives a useful elucidation of the general effect of the Act of 1913 and of the principles on which it is founded.

Third Edition. The Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation. By W. JETHRO BROWN, LL.D., Litt. D. London John Murray, 1914.

It is little more than two years since we reviewed this work at some length, and expressed the opinion that it would rank as the leading text-book on the theory of modern legislation. The appearance of a third edition within such a short period affords some evidence of the correctness of our view. As we then said, the purpose of this book is to state the principles underlying the course of English legislation during the 19th century. These principles, representing the wisdom which lies in the accumulated thought and experience of generations, must, as Professor Brown insists, be made the subject of serious study. "They serve not only to make intelligible the content of that law, which must be understood if it is to be reformed in any worthy sense, but also to provide the social reformer with an intellectual equipment which should be of service in assessing the relative value of the many proposed solutions of existing problems." It is the neglect of the study of legal principles which has so largely rendered abortive that enormous mass of sociological literature which has flooded the market during the last thirty years. Professor Brown again raises the question in the Preface, whether every candidate for a University degree ought not to take the theory of legislation as a subject at some stage in his course. We have no hesitation in agreeing with the Professor, that in view of the increasing democratising of our institutions and the constant widening of the sphere of positive law, this question should be answered in the affirmative. In spite of some complaints from reviewers that the learned Author often failed to indicate his own views as to the best solution of a particular problem, Professor Brown has adhered to his view that the Author of a university textbook ought to be careful in expressing personal opinions upon problems of which the precise solution may be debatable.

Fourth Edition. A New Guide to the Bar. By M.A. and LL.B., Barristers-at-Law.

Sweet & Maxwell's Guide to the Legal Profession. London: Sweet & Maxwell. 1914.

The first of these books constitutes a comprehensive guide to the Bar and to the Bar examinations, containing full details of the official regulations, copies of examination papers, and a critical essay on the present condition of the Bar of England. The particulars given relating to the Inns of Court Officers' Training Corps are of special value at the present moment to those members of the legal profession and the universities and public schools who contemplate joining H.M. forces.

The object of the second book is to introduce the law student to the most suitable books for the examinations for the Bar, the Law Society, and the London LL.B. degree.

Fourth Edition. The Law of Building, Engineering and Shipbuilding Contracts, with Reports of Cases and Precedents. Two Vols. By ALFRED A. HUDSON, K.C., assisted by C. S. REWCASTLE, LL.B. London: Sweet & Maxwell. 1914.

The long period of seven years which has elapsed since the publication of the third edition of this work has necessitated the greatest amount of revision since the original publication in 1891. Indeed some of the chapters have been entirely re-written. It is satisfactory to learn that, although the subjects dealt with have been increased, chapters added, fresh cases cited, and forms and precedents added to, it has been found possible to incorporate this additional matter without materially increasing the size of the work. As might be expected, judicial decisions, since the last edition, have been very numerous; these, it is true, have not effected any serious changes in the law, but, none the less, they are valuable as throwing new light on matters of the highest importance to those connected with Engineering and Building, and with the business of Surveyors and Valuers. The learned Author has continued his practice of including, in his digest of cases, reports of cases unreported elsewhere. This has formed the subject of criticism from some of his critics. For our part we think this practice fully justified, and we are confirmed in our opinion by the learned Author's account in the text of the case of Roberts v. Hickman & Co. This case was unreported, when the learned Author (having himself prepared a report in manuscript) had occasion to cite it in an