as recorder of the City of Philadelphia and later as judge of the Criminal Sessions, he worked upon this task and in 1839 brought out his first edition, which consisted of two volumes. This work was received with the approval of eminent judges and lawyers, including Justice Story and Chancellor Kent, the latter saying of it, "After running over almost every title, I am deeply impressed with the evidence of industry, skill and judgment with which the work was compiled." It was recognized as a distinctly American work. It embodied a large mass of material relating to the operations of our government, our constitutions and our political and civil institutions, as well as technical expressions peculiar in their meaning to American law, such as the rights of descent and distribution, the mode of acquiring and transferring property, and the criminal law and its administration. The author himself prepared the first three editions, while the fourth was prepared in 1852 from his manuscripts after his death. The fifth edition was prepared by an editorial staff of distinguished lawyers and made its appearance in 1867, the general plan of Bouvier being adhered to strictly. The editions of 1883, 1897, and the present edition were edited by Francis Rawle, of the Philadelphia bar. Because of the notable enlargement of the work, particularly on its encyclopedic side, these editions are known as "Rawle's Revisions." The present edition, besides containing a large number of new titles, represents a further enlargement on its encyclopedic side. For this reason, it becomes of greater value to the student and lawyer because, besides enlightening him as to the meaning of technical expressions, it will often give him the bit of law he seeks with its corresponding authority. Many of the titles, relating to branches of the law which have undergone distinct developments recently, have been practically rewritten. Citations of authorities. have been increased and it has been made to approximate much more closely what it purports to be, namely, "A Concise Encyclopedia of the Law." As a practical implement and time saver for the law student and the busy lawyer it leaves little to be desired and is easily the first American work of its kind. H. W. A. A History of French Public Law. By Jean Brissaud, late, Professor of Legal History in the University of Toulouse. Translated by James W. Garner, Professor of Political Science in the University of Illinois. With Introductions by Harold S. Hazeltine, Reader in English Law in Cambridge University and by Westel W. Willoughby, Professor of Political Science in Johns Hopkins University. Little, Brown, & Company. Boston. 1915. pp. LIII and 581. We have, in this volume, another issue in the exceedingly valuable "Continental Legal History Series" and a work, too, which will add much to the obligations of all English-speaking students of history and jurisprudence toward those scholars who are engaged in the translation and editing of the series. This exacting labor has been excellently accomplished in all respects. Brissaud's work itself brings before us a striking panorama of the public institutions of France from Roman days to the general overthrow in the Revolution. So wide and sustained a view must, of necessity, pass many important aspects of the general subject without the illustration of which French institutions are so peculiarly susceptible. We, nevertheless, do not lose any vital element of the complex story, which is carried along with a sureness of grasp only possible to the most laboriously trained scholarship. Among the many sections of Prof. Brissaud's book specially noteworthy for clearness of presentation, we remark Chapter VI, Topic 2. The copyhold (fensive); and Chapter VIII, Topic 1. The royal power. In Chapter XII, Judicial Organization, we could have wished some mention of the Parlement's work in detail, as for example, the interpretation of Communal Charters, where judges of the ancien règime closely approached the field of constitutional interpretation so much in evidence in modern days with us. The later fortunes, too, of the famous tribunal, would have added, had it lain within Brissaud's plan, an illuminative chapter to a work which muşt easily be regarded as indispensable to every student of comparative and historical jurisprudence. G. E. S. Criticising courts and lawyers and the law is one of the popular pastimes of the day. Surely all the discontent with the administration of justice is not without some foundation, and it behooves all who are interested in social progress to examine critically our legal system in order to discover its defects and remedy them. Within the limits of an article such as this, it is possible to take up only one phase of the legal situation, but the one that is here discussed is, perhaps, the most fundamental of all. Courts of law exist to give justice, but of course the question immediately suggests itself, What is justice? Obviously, the definition which the legal profession gives to the word is most important. The history of jurisprudence shows that there have been three conceptions of justice in the past, and that now we are shifting to a new one. In order to appreciate the first conception of legal justice that we find in both the Roman and the Anglo-Saxon law, it is necessary to realize the condition of the societies out of which it arose. Nowhere was there order or a central power. The family group was the unit. There were no courts. If a man were injured, his recourse was to take personal revenge upon his assailant. If the injured person were unable to help him * Much of the material for this paper has come from the writings of Professor Roscoe Pound, of the Harvard Law School, and from notes of his lectures. It would not be practicable to specify each point for which I am indebted to him, so this wholesale acknowledgment is made in advance. self, he appealed to the head of his family and then the force of that unit was used to secure vengeance from the aggressor or his kinsmen. Self-help was about the only method of redressing wrongs. Of course this led to the rule of physical giants. Physical strength was the means by which men protected their persons and their acquisitions, and naturally those who were stronger could not only protect their own interests, but they could take advantage of weaker persons with little fear of having to suffer for their wrongs. When some notion of orderly government began to emerge from these primitive conditions, and the first courts were established, their original function was merely to check private warfare by providing a substitute for personal vengeance sufficiently attractive and satisfying to be accepted by the injured party. Hence, in measuring the amount of relief to be given, the primitive law sought to determine what payment by the aggressor would be sufficient to satisfy the injured party's desire for revenge. The court did not attempt to say how much the plaintiff was out of pocket, but treated the whole matter under the head of insult and ordered the defendant to buy off the plaintiff's thirst for vengeance. Such was the case in the early Roman law. A curious example of this principle is furnished by the early law of the Franks, known as the Salic law, which allowed twice as much to a Frank for a given injury as was awarded to a Roman for the same injury. The Frank had been accustomed to right his own wrongs, while the Roman had been trained for centuries to settle his controversies in courts, and hence it took twice as much to appease the Frank's desire for vengeance. In the earliest Anglo-Saxon law we find that double payment was required for a wound which was not covered by the clothing, since this would subject the party to the ridicule of all who saw him and thus increase his thirst for revenge. Of course the Greeks and the Romans quickly outgrew so crude a notion of justice, and developed a new one in its stead. With the development of their civilizations, law had become an important institution and something more than merely a means of suppressing private warfare. Society had grown more complex and the social relations of men made heavier demands on the law. Law must not only provide redress for wrongs; it must define the relations and duties of individuals in the social scheme. The philosophy of both Plato and Aristotle argued for a social order in which every man moved in an appointed groove. In the Republic Plato says: "And the shoemaker was not allowed to be a husbandman, or a weaver, or a builder-in order that we might have our shoes well made; but to him and to every other worker one work was assigned by us for which he was fitted by nature, and he was to continue working all his life long at that and at no other." "And this is the reason why in this State, and in this State only, we shall find a shoemaker to be a shoemaker and not a pilot also, and a husbandman to be a husbandman and not a dicast also, and a soldier a soldier and not a trader also, and the same of all the other citizens." Thus it seems that Plato would have the whole force of the state used to compel a man to keep in the groove to which he was appointed. Aristotle further developed this idea. To him it was possible for rights to exist only between those who were free and equal. He says in his Nicomachean Ethics: "Justice will involve an equality between the persons concerned therein identical with the equality between the things; for, as is the ratio of the things to one another, so too must be the ratio of the persons. If the persons be in the ratio of inequality, then their shares must be in the same ratio." It is interesting to note in this connection the numerous Biblical passages which express the same ideas. Saint Paul in his letters, but particularly in the one to the Ephesians, exhorts men to do their duty in the class in which they find themselves placed. Cicero was responsible for the injection of the ideas of these Greek philosophers into the Roman law. In his writings he made accessible to his generation the traditional philosophy of Greece and adapted it to the conditions of the Roman law. Cicero declared that justice consisted in the making of certain sacrifices by the individual for the communal interests, such as offending no one, living honestly, and rendering unto each his own. Later we find these enumerated as precepts in the Institutes of Justinian. But how was a person to know what was another's own? The Roman Law answered this question by regarding each individual as "subject" to a variety of legal duties which flowed from his status. Each person was born into a statusnoble, citizen, freeman, slave-and all his relations with other men were determined by his status. The law sought to keep 1Jowett, Dialogues of Plato, Vol. II, 196. |