tainly calls for an extensive exchange of bills, drafts, and credits with all coun tries. Here may be found the law to which these instruments must conform. Professor Lorenzen's "Discussions," which follow in each case the collection of each country's rules for the Conflict of Laws, seem to be based upon a positivist philosophy: regarding each question in dispute between the different countries as a case for compromise, without regard to its effect upon the general body of any particular law. This is the principle upon which the Hague Conventions proceed. A Professor of Engineering once drafted a city charter on the principle, as he said, on which he would build a bridge; that is, he compared all existing city charters, and selected the provision which pleased him best for each paragraph of his own charter. A bridge is made; but law, like a city charter, is born, not made, if it is to prove viable. A sentence of Professor Lorenzen's is suggestive on this point: "Although the Convention of the Hague [of 1912] has not yet been ratified by any of the signatory powers, it expresses nevertheless the general point of view obtaining in foreign countries with reference to bills and notes." It may be doubted whether any power short of direct sovereign power can force upon a country outland ideas of law; sometimes not even that, as witness Professor Ehrlich's illuminating studies as to the law of Bukowina. May we not fear that any effort to create mechanical uniformity of law throughout the world is doomed to failure?

An excellent example of Professor Lorenzen's method is his discussion of the law governing the "Obligation" of the bill or note (page 108). He first marshalls his evidence, which is the opinion of a considerable number of continental writers, a few decisions of German courts, and an equal number of English and American decisions, together with references to Story. Long extracts are given from Savigny, Bar, Wächter, Story, Lainé, Hertius, Paul Voet, and Lord Mansfield's decision in Robinson v. Bland. All the arguments are weighed, and a final preference expressed in favor of the prevailing opinion, that the lex loci contractus should govern the obligation.

This method makes of law a series of dead rules. Law is not that; it is a living, growing thing, which may be changed in detail, but cannot be dismembered and live.

The same weighing of evidence, the same conclusion reached on the evidence, the preference for a compromise rule quite independent of any general principle and regardless of the general body of law appears throughout the work. It is the method of the bridge-builder. It may be admitted that this method is necessary if one is to bridge the gap between Anglo-American and Continental law; but such a bridge can never be built. Let us frankly admit that the Common Law is not the Civil Law; let us bewail the fact, if necessary; let us understand the Civil Law, with such sympathetic knowledge as one can acquire of a foreign system to which he was not born; but let us not try to create a legal Esperanto.

Professor Lorenzen's high powers, his scholarship, his industry, his patience, his judgment illumine his book, and he has written a work for which the profession owes him much; but not the least interesting thing about it is its promise of fine work to come, when he gives us more at length the results of his study in the strictly common-law doctrines of the Conflict of Laws.

JOSEPH H. BEALE.

CONSTITUTIONAL POWER AND WORLD AFFAIRS. By George Sutherland, former United States Senator from Utah. New York: Columbia University Press. 1919. pp. 202.

The wars in which this country has been engaged have given rise to great questions of national policy, of political morality, and of constitutional power. With the Spanish War we definitely departed from our traditional policy of

isolation; the present war has shown us how complete that departure has become. In his famous discussion of "Our New Possessions," a legacy of the Spanish War, Professor James Bradley Thayer said: "If you ask what this nation may do in prosecuting the ends for which it was created, the answer is, It may do what other sovereign nations may do." Senator Sutherland, in a series of lectures delivered at Columbia University last winter, vigorously upholds the power of the national government to do in international affairs what other nations may do. In all matters of external sovereignty the powers of the nation are supreme and exclusive. The treaty-making power, he maintains, belongs to the nation as an attribute of sovereignty, and, except as limited by express provisions of the Constitution, extends to all matters which are within the proper scope of treaties. He contends that the nation is not helpless when a state attempts to exclude Japanese from the public schools or to forbid their owning land, or when foreign subjects are maltreated in any state; and that if in such cases a foreign nation has been aggrieved, "it is not from lack of power but from lack of action on the part of the national government." In time of war, he maintains, the nation has all powers necessary for national self-preservation. "The power to declare war includes every subsidiary power necessary to make the declaration effective. It does not mean the power of waging war feebly, with restricted means or limited forces. It means the power to proceed to the last extremity." Hence the various emergency statutes of the present war are within the constitutional power of Congress to enact. In particular Senator Sutherland exerts himself in upholding the Espionage Act, and he contends that not merely is the act constitutional, but that it does not go far enough. The book is an interesting and vigorous exposition of the point of view of an aggressive nationalist.

A. W. S.

CASES ON NEGOTIABLE INSTRUMENTS, SUPPLEMENTARY TO AMES'S Cases on BILLS AND NOTES. By Zechariah Chafee, Jr. Published by the editor. 1919. pp. vi, 106.

Dean Ames's case-book on Bills and Notes is the most exhaustive case-book that has ever been prepared for the use of students. At the time of its appearance it presented in its cases and notes a complete picture of the law of the subject with which it dealt. An index and summary at the end of the second volume stated the law with a combination of brevity, completeness, and exactness which has seldom, if ever, been equaled.

More than twenty-five years have elapsed since the publication of this book, and during that time the Negotiable Instruments Law has been enacted in most states of the Union, and many decisions have construed the act, as well as the common law. This has made it desirable, ultimately, to prepare a new case-book on the subject, and, in the meantime, to present in the pamphlet under review the most important recent decisions. The cases are well selected, and the annotations, though not attempting a full list of authorities, indicate the most significant articles and decisions.

S. W.

YEAR BOOKS OF EDWARD II. Volume XV; 6 & 7 EDWARD II. Being Volume 36 of the Publications of the Selden Society, for the year 1918. By William Craddock Bolland. London: Quaritch. 1918. pp. lx, 294.

After a sad interval these records of the lives of men six centuries ago are issued again; in the old form, they take up the translation of the Year Books of Edward II, giving us in this volume the cases of a half-year. As has been true in the other books of the series, there is little to interest a modern legal

scholar; for the volume is mostly taken up with the niceties of the ancient land law, now quite obsolete. But for the historian of life the volume is full of interest. He shall see the Prior building a wall across the churchyard; the parishioners nursing their wrath for seven years and then throwing it down. He shall see a Prior and a Prioress contending for tithes of wheat cut on the Prioress' land. He shall hear oath for oath pass between bench and bar: "BEREFORD, C. J. Nom de dieu you will find it in the law of England. If . . . Margery had entered would Alan's sister . . . have recovered? No. SCROPE. Nom de dieu, sir, no more could Margery." And he shall see case after weary case where one party or the other, claiming an inheritance, was alleged to have been born before marriage.

The Introduction touches on several interesting matters, but chiefly on the origin of attorneys, and the difference between them and responders, bailiffs, and essoiners. The meaning of "demi seal" or "pes sigilli,” and the reasons for using the foot of the seal only, are considered, and the word "godhynch" is left unexplained. The entire Introduction shows Mr. Bolland's usual industry and acumen.

JOSEPH H. BEale.

SPIRIT OF THE COURTS. By Thomas W. Shelton. Baltimore: John Murphy Company. 1918. pp. xxxvii, 264.

To interest the general public in specific questions of procedural law reform is no easy task. It is not that the public is not interested in the general situation. When the stage hero is convicted of a crime on perjured testimony or because his witnesses were kidnaped by the villain, and he exclaims, "It may be law but it isn't justice," he receives a rapturous response from the audience to whom the playwright has already shown the hero's innocence. But these people in the audience have a grievance, a real grievance, although they do not know exactly what it is. There are miscarriages of justice, not only miscarriages which are inevitable in any legal system, but also miscarriages which can be and ought to be avoided. These people have a right to demand of the legal profession that it find the proper remedies. It may happen, however, that although the lawyers offer a remedy, they have not the power to effect it. Statutes may have to be enacted, and for their enactment the interest and aid of the general public may be necessary. This aid will not be forthcoming unless the public is instructed, not merely in the need for a remedy (that they know all too well) but also in the nature of the remedy offered. Mr. Shelton, as Chairman of the Committee of the American Bar Association on Uniform Judicial Procedure has for years done excellent work in the cause of procedural reform. His book is the result of a series of lectures in which he has attempted to convince the public that a path out of our present difficulties lies in the enactment of a federal statute conferring upon the Supreme Court of the United States power to regulate by rule of court procedure in the federal courts, and of state statutes conferring similar powers upon the state courts which presumably would adopt rules based upon the federal model. That he is right seems clear to a majority of lawyers interested in the cause of procedural reform. Whether he has succeeded in so presenting his case as to interest and instruct the public is more doubtful. The presentation of his ideas is not clean cut. The ideas are often buried beneath a mass of discursive rhetoric which doubtless sounded better than it reads. But he brings great enthusiasm to a great cause, and all those who have at heart the just and effective administration of the law should join in giving him aid and comfort.

A. W. S.

INCOME AND OTHER FEDERAL TAXES. By Henry Campbell Black, LL.D. Fourth edition. Kansas City: Vernon Law Book Company. 1919. pp. xxi, 704.

The passage of the Revenue Act of 1918 [1919] required a new edition of Judge Black's standard treatise on the Income Tax. The new law, together with the decisions of two years and the rulings of the Department, has called for a twenty-per-cent increase in the size of the book. The work appears to be done with care, and the statements of the text are sound. If a case that might be discussed is occasionally omitted, it may be laid to the newness of the subject, and to the extreme pressure of time on an author who has to get out two new editions of a book within two years. In short, Black's "Income Taxes" is an excellent book on a puzzling subject of universal interest; and each successive edition makes it more valuable.

BARNES' FEDERAL CODE: containing all federal statutes of general and public nature now in force. Edited by Uriah Barnes. Charleston, West Virginia: Virginian Law Book Company. 1919. pp. civ, 2831.

In the one hundred and thirty years during which Congress has been busily enacting statutes a vast mass of legislation has accumulated, contained in some forty bulky volumes, entitled the "Statutes at Large." So formidable grew the proportions of these books of statutes and so intricate and confused a body of law resulted, part of the statutes being obsolete and half forgotten and other parts being mutually conflicting, that as early as 1874 Congress authorized a revision of existing laws, and the publication in a single volume of the Revised Statutes, containing all the unrepealed laws in force up to December 1, 1873, to and including volume seventeen of the Statutes at Large. In 1878 a second edition of the Revised Statutes was published. This was followed in 1891 by a Supplement to the Revised Statutes, covering the period from 1874 to 1891, and comprising the statutes contained in volumes eighteen to twenty-six of the Statutes at Large. In 1901 a second volume of the Supplement was published; but since that time no further Revisions or Supplements have appeared.

With a view, however, of simplifying the arrangement and avoiding the perplexities and confusion of the law as set forth in the Statutes at Large, various collections of federal statutes, conveniently arranged and classified under leading topics, have been published from time to time under the name of United States Compiled Statutes.1 "Barnes' Federal Code," published in 1919, is the most recent contribution in this field. It comprises a collection of all the United States Statutes of general and public nature in force at the present time, and follows in the main the order and arrangement of previous editions of Compiled Statutes. The marked and admirable quality of the book is its extreme compactness, the great mass of existing statutes being contained in full within the limits of a single volume, attractive in appearance, and easily handled and carried. Through the means of thin paper and excellent typography the size of the book has been reduced to proportions never before attained in any previous edition of United States Statutes.

Parallel Reference Tables show the corresponding section numbers in the

1 These collections include the five-volume edition of Compiled Statutes of 1913 published by the West Publishing Company, the twelve volume edition of Compiled Statutes, 1916, Annotated, published by the same company, the five volume edition of Annotated Statutes published the same year by T. H. Flood and Company, and the recent single volume edition of Compiled Statutes, 1918, published by the West Publishing Company, a compact, though somewhat large and bulky volume.

chronological list of laws, in the United States Revised Statutes, in the Federal Statutes Annotated (Second Edition, 1916), and in the United States Compiled Statutes (1916). A general index at the end adds to the value of the book. Some will be inclined to regret, however, the omission throughout the body of the book of lists of section headings following each title or chapter heading, an omission doubtless due to the effort for extreme compactness.

FRANCIS BOWES SAYRE.

THE RESULTS OF MUNICIPAL LIGHTING IN MASSACHUSETTS. By Edmond Earle Lincoln, M.A., Ph.D. Being No. XXVII of the Hart, Schaffner, and Marx Prize Essays. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. 1918. pp. xx, 484.

A municipal plant is not expected to earn a profit, therefore it does not; that appears to be the result of this thorough comparative study of Massachusetts municipal electric-lighting plants, and of the same number of private plants comparable in size and general conditions and in extent of territory served. After a scholarly and impartial examination, the author concludes that both partisans and opponents of municipal commercial activities have been extravagant in their claims. Municipal plants are conservative; they do not reach out for new business, or seek to develop their own territory to the fullest extent. They are not very expertly managed; but they serve communities which might not be covered by private enterprise. They suffer waste by lack of enterprise, and by mistakes of management - seldom by actual dishonesty; but on the other hand they do not undertake to exploit their patrons for private gain.

The work is decidedly interesting to lawyers, since it concerns a controversy about city government in settling which lawyers take an active part. Its only strictly legal chapter is an excellent one on the history of Massachusetts legislation on the subject.

A full bibliography, a statistical appendix, and many tables and charts make this a work of scholarly value to anyone interested in the thorough and impartial study of the problem.

LEGAL AND POLITICAL STATUS OF WOMEN IN IOWA. By Ruth A. Gallaher. Iowa State Historical Society.

BROKEN HOMES. By Joanna C. Colcord. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

AMERICAN MARRIAGE LAWS. By Fred S. Hall and Elisabeth W. Brooke. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.