the new rules of the road at sea since the last edition of 1891 have now made a new edition indispensable. The effect of the Act of 1894 upon the law of collisions at sea is well stated in Mr. Marsden's book. The rules of the road at sea are not to be summed up, like the rules of the road on shore, in a few short sentences; but they are in themselves an elaborate code of regulations. Mr. Marsden's task in dealing with them has been more difficult than anything which is required in the ordinary revision of a legal text-book. But it has been well accomplished. We are glad to see this treatise in a useful condition to do its work once more; and the old wine has been put into the new bottles quite as successfully as could be expected. Mr. Marsden's commentary on the new regulations is very well worthy of attention. In such cases as these the commentator is not a mere collector of cases and judicial dicta. No such material was of course to hand for a commentary on the new regulations, where they differ from the old; but the author makes pertinent remarks of his own as to the effect of the amendments-e.g., as to the addition of the words "and speed" in Art. 21, an alteration in the law which, according to Mr. Marsden (and his argument seems to us most clear and logical), is of some importance to navigators of steamships.

5th Edition. Archbold's Practice of the Court of Quarter Sessions and its Civil, Criminal and Appellate Jurisdiction: with Tables of Allowances to Witnesses, Costs of Appeal, Procedure of Appeals, and of the Principal Indictable Offences Triable at Quarter Sessions. By Sir G. SHERSTON BAKER, Bart., of Lincoln's Inn and the Western Circuit, Barrister-at-Law, Recorder of Barnstaple and Bideford. London: Shaw and Sons, and Butterworth and Co. Pp. xlviii., 703. Price 27s. 6d.

The learned editor of the new edition of this well-known work has had an experience at Quarter Sessions of upwards of a quarter of a century; besides which he is himself the President of two Courts of Quarter Session by virtue of his office of Recorder of the Boroughs of Barnstaple and Bideford. He is, moreover, a recognised authority on Quarter Sessions law. The preparation of the new edition was, therefore, we think, wisely placed in such competent hands.

Courts of Quarter Session may, not inaptly, be termed the nursery of the Junior Bar. Every Junior Barrister who

purposes practising his profession at the Common Law Bar, must begin at Quarter Sessions. It is there that the stern reality of his advocacy first dawns upon him, and he becomes accustomed to the sound of his own voice in the hushed stillness of a Court of Justice. Most barristers who have risen to eminence at the Common Law Bar, commenced their career at a Court of Quarter Sessions. Many of them speak with pride and pleasure of their early triumphs in those Courts. Briefs at Courts of Quarter Session are, usually, the steppingstone to Briefs at Assizes. A work, therefore, upon the practice and procedure of such Courts is, to the junior practitioner, well-nigh indispensable.

The new edition, though reduced in bulk, has been so treated with careful and discriminating judgment. Superfluous and obsolete matter having been deleted to make room for new and more appropriate subjects—in some cases the result of recent legislation, in others, of judicial decision.

In this edition we observe, on comparing it with the previous one, that the text has been thoroughly revised throughout, and in many parts entirely re-written; besides which, a considerable amount of new matter has been added; amongst which we find, at pp. 34-40, the Scheme of the London County Council for regulating the holding of Courts of Quarter Session for the County of London, as provided by the Local Government Act, and approved by the Home Secretary. Useful additions to the text have also been made throughout the entire work; notably in relation to the procedure, and, with reference to the Crown Office Rules; Presentments by Grand Juries, Indictments, with numerous forms and precedents of indictments in cases triable at Quarter Sessions; all which are fresh subjects in this edition. The Appendices to the work are one of its most important and useful features. Appendix A, as to the Allowances to Witnesses at Quarter Sessions and the Costs allowed on Appeals, is, we believe, entirely new, and will be of special value to Clerks of the Peace in their taxation of Costs in Appeals. Other most useful Appendices are, a descriptive and detailed Table of the Procedure; and Appendix C, a similar Table of the Principal Indictable Offences triable at Quarter Sessions. Upon the whole this new edition appears to be a very comprehensive and useful one, not only to Junior Members of the Bar, but also to Clerks of the Peace, Solicitors, and others having business at Quarter Sessions.

The work has been carefully and con

scientiously revised throughout, and is, we believe, a thoroughly reliable guide to the practice and procedure of Courts of Quarter Session.

7th Edition. Powell's Principles and Practice of the Law of Evidence. This edition by JOHN CUTLER, Q.C., and C. F. CAGNEY. London Butterworth and Co. 1898. Pp. 660. Price 20s.

This well-known work has re-appeared again under able editorship. It contains a discussion, which is of great interest at the present moment, on the inconsistencies of the existing law with regard to the admission of the evidence of prisoners. A complete list of the cases, in which prisoners may go into the box, is given on page 623.

8th Edition. Principles of the English Law of Contract and of Agency in its relation to Contract. By Sir WILLIAM R. ANSON, Bart., D.C.L. 8th Edition. With Notes of American cases by ERNEST W. HUFFCUTT. London: Henry Frowde, and Stevens and Sons, Limited. 1898. Pp. 456. Price 10s. 6d.

This established work of the Warden of All Souls needs no commendation; it has been generally accepted as the standard text-book for students upon the subject. The special interest of the present edition attaches to the American notes of Professor Huffcutt. American students are to read from the same text-book as English students-the points in which American contract law differs from English being carefully shewn in these notes. On carefully perusing the notes in question, the reader will be surprised to see how few such differences of any importance are to be found: the substance not only of the chief part of our common law, but of a very large proportion of our statute law, having been reproduced in the new world.

11th Edition. A Manual of Common Law for Practitioners and Students, comprising the Fundamental Principles, with useful Practical Rules and Decisions. By JOSIAH W. SMITH, Q.C. This edition by C. SPURLING, M.A., B.C.L. London: Stevens and Sons. Limited. 1898. Pp. 561. Price 15s.

This is one of the best of students' books, and a student who uses it in connection with the other text-books named therein in

every instance of difficulty, and who turns to the original report for all the cases referred to by the author-and the number of them is very moderate-will have a very fair working notion of what the Common Law of England is. The present edition fully maintains the high standard of the work.

CONTEMPORARY

FOREIGN LITERATURE.

Journal du Droit International Privé. Paris, 1897 and 1898. Recent numbers of this journal fully keep up its high standard. Unlike most foreign legal periodicals it contains contributions by English and American jurists of eminence, sometimes original, sometimes translated, as well as notices of English decisions of international interest. Mr. Justice Phillimore gives his opinion on the legality of seizure of a British ship by a British vessel of war during the pacific blockade of Crete, and Messrs. L. J. Scott and M. MacIlwraith conclude their interesting and trustworthy article on La Profession d'Avocat en Angleterre. There is perhaps no subject on which most Continental jurists are more at sea than the English system of legal education and admission to the Bar. In the review of English decisions the largest space is occupied by Moss v. Moss, 1897, 2 P.D. 263. French law appears to be in accordance with the English decision, following the somewhat brutal maxim En mariage trompe qui peut. In an exhaustive article Professor Colin of Algiers regrets that, while the Code Civil, art. 999, meets the case of a testament made by a Frenchman abroad, it omits the case of a testament made by a foreigner in France. There is nothing in the French Code corresponding to Lord Kingsdown's Act. But in a recent case in the Tribunal of the Seine (Clunet, 1895, p. 847) it was held that a will of personalty made by an Englishwoman in English form was valid. In this decision the Court seems to have practically departed from a previous decision of the Cour de Cassation in 1853, the English sequel of which is well known to English lawyers as Bremer v. Freeman, 10 Moore P.C. 361, the case which led to the passing of Lord Kingsdown's Act. the end of No. XII. is a most careful and complete analyticalbibliography of books and articles on International law published during 1897.

At

La Giustizia Penale. Rome, 1897-8.

As has been more than once pointed out in earlier numbers of the Law Magazine and Review, there are few periodicals which the English student of criminal law will find more suggestive than the Italian weekly review, La Giustizia Penale. Questions of evidence are treated in so entirely different a manner, and the procedure is sometimes startling to one accustomed to the English Courts. A good deal of space is occupied by proposed reforms of the jury laws. No doubt the jury is still on its trial in Italy, and there has hardly been time to frame a quite workable tribunal. The continuity of Roman names is strikingly illustrated by the name for what we should call the "panel" in Italian law. It is albo pretorio, a phrase which carries one back to remote days in the Roman Republic. Occasionally there are to be found reports of points of criminal law impossible in England, e.g., whether the alteration of the number of a ticket in the public lottery is fraud or forgery, and whether a particular form of appointment of a procurator by the parte civile is good.

Revue Bibliographique Belge. Brussels, August-November, 1897. This is a periodical which deals only incidentally with law. It contains, however, a section entitled Jurisprudence-Législation, and under this section all legal works published in Belgium appear to be included. There are occasional notices of books published outside the limits of Belgium, chiefly French.

Kosmodike, Zeitung für den Internationalen Rechtsverkehr. Berlin, No. 1, January, 1898. 1

This is a new departure in legal journalism. Like Cosmopolis, on which it is evidently based, it contains articles of international interest in German, French and English. It will be interesting to see whether such a periodical has any chance of success. The contributors of English articles appear to be an advocate at Edinburgh and an attorney at Washington, D.C. It is a pity that one of them did not revise the editorial notices which profess to be in the English language.