extracts from ancient statutes, cases, and the like, the text is fixed on the mind by our being brought face to face with the actual evidences of the ancient law; and the student is at the outset made familiar with the form of much that would be obscure to him if left to his own unassisted inquiry. But the book may well claim a place also in the library of the practising lawyer or of the judge. The same merits commend it equally to them. And we have met no work which gives in so connected and succinct a form the growth and true value of the somewhat composite system known as the modern law of real property. Its range, moreover, in no respect conflicts with the larger treatise of Mr. Williams or the brief Handy Book of Lord St. Leonards, although its general style has much in common with the former. Reports of Cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of Ohio. By E. L. DE WITT, Attorney at Law. New Series. Volume XXIV. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. 1875. THIS volume is out with commendable promptness, and contains the decided cases down to and including the December Term, 1874. There are very few cases, however, of much general interest or importance, turning, as most of them do, on the construction of state statutes or on points of local practice. The volume begins with a short memorial of Judge Walter F. Stone, one of the judges of the Supreme Court during the period covered by these reports, who died December 23, 1874, at the age of fifty-two years. The reporting is creditably done, on the whole, although it falls far below our ideal. There seems to be no effort at compression, but on the contrary, the general effect is expansion. The material furnished should have been published in a much smaller and neater volume. We notice the following cases:— Stanley v. The State, p. 166, which holds, for the first time in Ohio, that the bringing into this state by the thief, of goods stolen in Canada, is not larceny in this state. This is decided the same way in Massachusetts, but the opposite has been held in Maine and Vermont. We think the rule here adopted to be the sound one. Harrison v. Hoyle, p. 254, which involved the question which of two contending bodies was the true Ohio Yearly Meeting of the Society of Friends. The court adopt the rules of the society, and give them the force they think they were intended to have, the effect of which in this case is merely to decide that one of the parties to the action was properly elected trustee, and should have possession of the property of the society. The case is notable, however, as one of the examples of the tendency of courts to enter into polemical discussions on questions outside of the strict line of their judicial duties, especially where some religious question is involved, the result of which is invariably dissension, and long wordy opinions on one side and the other, expensive to the reader, and productive of little value to any one. Breslin v. Brown, p. 565, which decides that where a contract for a public improvement was to be let to the lowest bidder, and A., who had put in his bid, and B., who was about to file his, agreed to become partners in doing the work, provided either of them got the contract, and where B., who made the successful bid, refused to share with A., but sold out to a third party. B. was answerable to A. for one-half the profits he received from the sale of his con tract. Marietta & Cincinnati R.R. Co. v. Picksley, p. 654, where the court say that a charge to the jury consisting mainly of extracts from opinions in reported cases, having no special reference to the circumstances of the case on trial, and being in the nature of an essay on the general subject of negligence, would hardly serve the purposes of a charge, would tend to mislead the jury, and was a proper ground for a new trial, although not strictly objectionable in point of law. ANGELL and SAMUEL AMES. A Treatise on the Law of Private Corporations Aggregate. By JOSEPH K. Tenth edition, revised, corrected, and enlarged. By JOHN LATHROP, of the Boston Bar. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1875. WHEN, more than forty years ago, the first edition of this work made its appearance, it bore manifest traces of its dual paternity, and was somewhat sharply criticised on account of incongruities of style and arrangement, defects which naturally grew out of the peculiar mode of authorship. Mr. Angell was rather disposed to be diffuse, and was not always careful; while Mr. Ames, then a young lawyer with a rapidly increasing business, and plainly on his way to the bench which he afterwards so much adorned, had no time for diffuseness, and no choice but to be accurate. The book, however, was substantially satisfactory from the start, and became at once indispensable to every lawyer. Improved until the seventh edition by the personal supervision of the late Mr. Chief Justice Ames, and since then well cared for by Mr. John Lathrop, who now gives us the tenth, with all the late English and American cases cited in their appropriate places, it may be accepted as without question the best and only satisfactory work in the language on this important title of the law. During the last year Mr. Brice, an English author, gave to the public a separate "Treatise on the Doctrine of Ultra Vires;" in other words, an exposition of the Incapacities of Corporations, all of which substantially may be found in the work under notice, and, for the most part, in its eighth chapter, while a large part of the work is devoted to cases showing the Capacities of Corporations. The British lawyer, under the lead of the strict notions of the old common-law lawyers, who seemed to think that corporations could not be or do much at the best, and that only in the most clumsy way, has been slow to find out how to adapt them to the exigencies of modern affairs. The American lawyer, on the other hand, less trammelled by precedent, and stimulated by the necessities of a comparatively new country to seek for some substitute for individual wealth, laid hold upon the corporation as the proper agency whereby to combine capital and develop industry, and early gave his attention to considering to how great an extent, consistently with sound principles, the powers of such agencies could be developed and applied. Hence the difference in the progress and growth of corporation law in the two countries. In England it has been slow and difficult, while in this country it has been rapid and easy. We are still somewhat in advance of England in our views of the powers and capacities of corporations; but she is gradually coming up, and doubtless both systems of law will, in no long time, agree in holding that a corporation, so far as the object of its creation, its special faculty, is concerned, is substantially a natural person, clothed with all his powers and subject to all his liabilities. It is the tendency towards this view which has made here, and will make elsewhere, the soulless corporation a most efficient handmaid of industry and a most powerful agency in the march of civilization. A Treatise on the Law of Trespass in the Twofold Aspect of the Wrong and the Remedy. By THOMAS W. WATERMAN. In two volumes. Vol. I. New York: Baker, Voorhis, & Co. 1875. THE author's plan contemplates a general review of the law of trespass. The volume before us relates to trespass to the person and to personal property, while the second volume, yet to be published, will be devoted to trespass to real estate. We have examined the work with great interest, and are gratified to find it lucid, accurate, and well designed for use by the active practitioner. The first volume comprises three books, entitled respectively Trespass in General, Trespass to the Person, and Trespass to Personal Property. Under the first head the subdivisions are the Definition and Nature of Trespass, and Trespass as a Remedy. Trespass to the Person embraces assault and battery, and false imprisonment. Trespass to Personal Property includes a consideration of title to the same, wrongful taking by private person, taking by an officer, who may maintain the action and the remedy for wrongful taking and injury. We have the learned author's assurance that in the preparation of this work he has undertaken to eschew, with few exceptions, all books of reference but law reports; to read carefully every reported decision, and to adopt his conclusions only after a systematic and patient study and comparison of the cases: and in this attempt it appears to us he has succeeded admirably. We are especially pleased with the manner in which cases are stated in the text. A text-book now-a-days is of comparatively little use unless it enables one for ordinary reference to dispense with an examination of the reports. It is doubtless much easier to make a general statement of principles, with a reference to the various authorities, than it is to state the exact points decided by those authorities, and to state the facts with sufficient fulness to make the points clear; but the one who does the last work is specially entitled to thanks at a time when the number of reports is increasing with such alarming rapidity. The Pacific Law Reporter. San Francisco, Cal. The Monthly Western Jurist. Bloomington, Ill. The American Law Register. Philadelphia, Pa. The American Law Times and Reports. New York, N. Y. The Solicitor's Journal and Reporter. London, Eng. The Legal Intelligencer. Philadelphia, Pa. The Legal Gazette. Philadelphia, Pa. The Canada Law Journal. Toronto, Canada. The Lower Canada Jurist. Montreal, Canada. Weekly Notes of Cases. Philadelphia, Pa. The National Bankruptcy Register Reports. New York, N. Y. The Internal Revenue Record and Customs Journal. New York, N. Y The Physiological and Medico-Legal Journal. New York, N. Y. The New York Medical Journal. New York, N. Y. The Law Magazine and Review. London, Eng. A LIST OF LAW BOOKS PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND AND AMERICA SINCE APRIL, 1875. Alley Trial. Report of the Trial of Leavitt Alley, indicted for the Murder of Abijah Ellis, in the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Reported by Franklin Fiske Heard. 8vo, cloth, $2.50; sheep, $3.00. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston. American Reports. Digest of Vols. 1-12, inclusive. By Isaac Grant Thompson. 1870-75. 8vo, sheep, $3.50. John D. Parsons, Jr., Albany. American Reports. Edited by Isaac Grant Thompson. Vol. 13. 8vo, sheep, $6.00. John D. Parsons, Jr., Albany. Archbold's Pleading and Evidence in Criminal Cases. Eighteenth edition. 8vo, cloth, 31s. 6d. Sweet, London. Bankruptcy. New Rules and Orders in Bankruptcy, as passed and promulgated by the Supreme Court of the United States, to April, 1875. 8vo, paper, 25 cents. McDivitt, Campbell, & Co., New York. Bedford's Digest of the Preliminary Examination Questions, with Answers. 8vo, cloth, 18s. Stevens & Sons, London. Bigelow's Reports of the Life and Accident Insurance Cases determined in the Courts of America, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Canada. Vol. 4, down to January, 1875. 8vo, sheep, $7.50. Hurd & Houghton, New York. Black Book of the Admiralty. half Roxburgh, 10s. 6d. Edited by Sir Travers Twiss. Vol. 3. Royal 8vo, Brice's Law relating to Public Worship. 8vo, cloth, 28s. Stevens & Haynes, Bunyon's Profitable Book on Domestic Law. Post 8vo, cloth, 6s. Longmans, London. California Digest, etc. Digest of California Reports, from Vol. 34 to Vol. 46. By Robert Desty. Vol. 3. 8vo, sheep, $7.50. A. L. Bancroft & Co., and Sumner Whitney & Co., San Francisco. California Reports. Vol. 48. (Tuttle.) 8vo, sheep, $5.00. Co., and A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco. Sumner Whitney & Chitty's Treatise on the Law of Contracts and upon the Defences to Actions thereon. Ninth edition. Royal 8vo, cloth, 32s. Sweet, London. Connecticut General Statutes. Revision of 1875. Royal 8vo, sheep, $3.00. Hartford. Copinger on the Custody and Production of Title-Deeds and other Documentary Evidence at Law, in Equity, and in Matters of Conveyancing. 8vo, cloth, 14s. Stevens & Haynes, London. Cowen's Treatise on the Law and Practice relating to Attachments. With Forms, &c. 8vo, sheep, $7.50. Banks & Brothers, New York. Crocker's Notes on the General Statutes of Massachusetts. Second edition. Royal 8vo, sheep, $8.00. Hurd & Houghton, New York. Deane on Conveyancing. An Epitome of the Law of Corporeal Hereditaments and Conveyancing. By Henry C. Deane. With Notes by a Member of the Boston Bar. 8vo, sheep, $5.00. Little, Brown, & Co., Boston. Delaware Reports. Houston, Vol. 4. 8vo, sheep, $12.00. Wilmington. Digby's Introduction to the History of the Law of Real Property. With Original Authorities. Crown 8vo, cloth, 7s. 6d. Clarendon Press, Oxford. |