It is very difficult to write on law without making mistakes; a somewhat painful experience has taught us that the best manner of avoiding them is to have both the MSS. and the proofs read by a competent critic, and to alter every passage to which he objects, however unreasonable his objection may appear. But even if this is done some blunders will remain, blunders of which one is horribly ashamed. If it was not an ungracious task one could write an amusing article consisting of the astounding blunders committed by eminent legal writers. We hope therefore that Mr. Hamilton will take our criticisms in good part; his book is full of promise, and we venture to predict that if he will bestow more of the labour of the file on his next book it will be successful. H. W. E.

A Treatise on the Law of Partnership. Fifth Edition. By LORD Justice LINDLEY, assisted by WILLIAM C. GULL and WALTER B. LINDLEY. London: W. Maxwell & Son. 1888. La. 8vo. lx and 844 pp. THE fifth edition of Lindley on Partnership' has taken a new departure. With a view to convenience and expense, the familiar treatise has been divided into two parts, each complete without the other. The first volume is now in our hands, containing the law of partnership proper, and the second, which is promised shortly, will deal with the law of companies so far as it has any connexion with the law of partnership. To our mind this division of subjects is a distinct improvement. It saves the practitioner from the petty annoyance of taking down the volume containing an index, only to find that the point which he seeks is discussed in the other volume. Now he will know at once which volume it is that he needs, the partnership volume or the company volume. Besides the immense development of company law, which will in its relation to partnership be discussed in the forthcoming volume, there have been several important decisions, though no legislative change, in the ten years which have elapsed since the publication of the fourth edition of this work. There have been notably the cases of Kendall v. Hamilton, Scarf v. Jardine, and The Yorkshire Banking Company v. Beatson. The second of these, which is well known for its important bearing on the liability of a retiring partner for the debts of the firm, is referred to no less than eleven times in the volume before us, and twice with particularity of the circumstances. It is an ingenious device and, so far as we are aware, one peculiar to the writer, to give in the list of authorities cited an asterisk to the page on which a case is considered in detail, and not merely quoted in a note. The author and his assistants expressly disclaim any attempt to cope with the authorities since 1866 extraneous to the Law Reports. Those authorities are the bugbear of the busy lawyer. It is by no means easy for him to assure himself that the point upon which he is engaged has not been directly decided in one of the three or four contemporary and equally authoritative reports, and generally he runs the risk of being confronted with such an authority by his opponent. So that it is a great assistance to him to have these foreign cases collected and analysed for him by a text writer such as the Lord Justice. We are disposed, while we are on small things, to complain of the number of additions and corrections, which is for a fifth edition abnormal, and takes a full forty minutes to incorporate in the text. In other small things the industry of Lord Justice Lindley's assistants is not at fault. For the corpus of the work, that has been well tried in the furnace of daily practice, and it has stood the severest test. It is the monograph on the subject which lives in legal libraries as an indispensable assistant. It has lived long, and this latest edition is in no respect unworthy of its predecessors. Even now however there are occasionally

to be found sentences which would bear elucidation, such for instance as that on p. 21: A contract of partnership is determinable at the will of any one of the persons who have entered into it, provided it has not been agreed that the contract shall endure for a specified time.' Is the ordinary contract by which two men engage to be partners so long as they both live a contract for a specified time? The answer to this question should be, we believe, in the affirmative, but it is an answer which it is hard to find in the pages before us. Taken however as a whole, the latest edition of Lindley on Partnership' deserves the same measure of praise and success as the unanimous judgment of the legal community has respectfully awarded to its predecessors.

Chitty's Index to all the Reported Cases decided in the several Courts of Equity in England, etc. The Fourth Edition. By HENRY EDWARD HIRST. Volume VI, containing the titles 'Packer' to 'Smuggling.' London: Stevens & Sons ; H. Sweet & Sons; W. Maxwell & Son. 1888. La. 8vo. x and 5373-6369 pp.

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YET another volume of Chitty's invaluable Equity Index has reached our hands, and it shows no falling off from its five predecessors as concerns the laborious accuracy which Mr. Hirst has bestowed upon it. The sixth volume contains such important titles as Partition, Partnership, Patent, Perpetuity, Petition of Right, Portion, Power, Principal and Agent, Railway, Registration, Revenue, Scotland, Set-off, Settled Estates Acts, Settlement, the Rule in Shelley's Case, and Shipping. By a curious coincidence the first title in the volume is Packer' and the last 'Smuggling,' just as the first title in one volume of Fisher's Digest' is 'Crops' and the last Hunting.' The succession of these volumes is fairly rapid. We noticed in our January number the fifth volume, and now in July we are enabled to notice the sixth. May next January see the invaluable seventh and last in our hands, for its index of cases will enable us to turn to any decision nominatim, instead of hunting for it, as at present, under its subject which may be dubious. But even on the assumption that by January 1889 birth be given to the final volume of Chitty, five years and a half will then have elapsed from the day when the first volume of the series saw the light. True it is that progress has been more rapid since Mr. Hirst has undertaken his task singlehanded, but there is no denying that there will be a formidable gap to be filled up between the end of 1883-the point up to which the Equity Index, save only the first two volumes, exerai eivai complete and unimpeachable-and 1889, the year which will, we anticipate, see its last volume published. This gap means that there are so many volumes of law reports of every race, or so many annual digests, to be scanned by the practitioner before he can be assured that he has surveyed his point under consideration from one pole to the other. And the unpleasant fact must not be lost sight of, that by publishing the first volume before the year 1883 had expired, Mr. Hirst has exposed his editions to the charge of inconsistency, in that one volume contains cases up to a date different from that attained by the others. Nothing, however, is more transitory in its nature than a legal digest or text-book, and the time is very short during which a lawyer can look upon it as 'absolute in every number.' We can but hope that at least for the sake of the community whose hive is Lincoln's Inn, Mr. Hirst may undertake the task of editing the fifth edition of 'Chitty,' when in the fulness of time that edition is demanded.

Histoire du Droit et des Institutions de la France. Par E. GLASSON. Tome II. Paris: F. Pichon. 1888.

IN the first volume M. Glasson dealt with Celtic and Roman Gaul (see LAW QUARTERLY REVIEW, vol. iv. p. 100). The second volume is devoted (as will be the third) to the Franks. The present volume treats of their political and administrative organisation and of the condition of persons among them at a period when the differentiation of the peoples which were to spring from the common German stock had yet made little progress. We find here the beginnings of some of our own institutions, and even of some of our legal expressions, as in the case of trustis, though used in a very different sense (p. 600). (See also 'mansion,' p. 361.) The volume is preceded by an exhaustive methodical bibliography (33 pages) of literature relating to the period.

The Law and Practice on Enfranchisements and Commutations. By ARCHIBALD BROWN. London: Butterworths. 1888. 8vo. xx and 456 pp. THE Copyhold Acts 1841-1887 form a series of seven Acts, creating a sufficient muddle to justify the epitome contained in this book. The epitome is divided into chapters treating separately of enfranchisements and commutations,—an arrangement which involves some lengthy repetitions. To these are prefaced a chapter on enfranchisements and commutations at common law; and the body of the work (consisting of 144 pages) concludes with a chapter of practical directions. There are the inevitable appendices, setting forth the seven Acts already mentioned, nine other Acts incidentally connected with the subject-matter, and a collection of precedents and official forms. The Act of 1887 is accompanied by some apt annotations. There is a full and well-arranged index; and the whole will be a useful handbook for stewards of manors and others who have much to do with these incidents of copyhold tenure.

The Justices' Note-book. By the late W. KNOX WIGRAM, J.P. Fifth Edition, by WALTER S. SHIRLEY, M.P. London: Stevens & Sons. 1888. 8vo. xii and 527 pp.

THE appearance in a fifth edition of (we note with regret) the late Mr. Wigram's excellent Note-book for Justices deserves mention here, although the work in an earlier edition has been reviewed in the LAW QUARTERLY 1. The text of the work is substantially unaltered; but recent decisions and legislation have been worked in. The arrangements, however, for dealing with the legislation of 1887 are not satisfactory. A number of extracts of these Acts are placed in an appendix, without being in any way worked into the text. The lateness of the last year's session may have made it difficult properly to incorporate this matter in a book published in December; but the difficulty ought to have been foreseen and remedied, at the cost (if necessary) of reprinting.

We may here repeat the opinion formerly expressed of the literary merits of Mr. Wigram's book. The style is clear, and the expression always forcible, and sometimes humorous. The book will repay perusal by many, besides those who, as justices, will find it an indispensable companion. A Handbook of Written and Oral Pleading in the Sheriff Court (Scotland). By J. M. LEES, Sheriff Substitute of Lanarkshire. Glasgow William Hodge & Co. 1888. 8vo. xxii and 232 pp. FEW judges have a more varied experience than a Sheriff Substitute-who July, 1885.

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is in fact the acting Sheriff-in Lanarkshire. Besides having important functions, both administrative and judicial, in criminal matters, he is judge ordinary in a populous and actively commercial district, with a jurisdiction, in personal actions, unlimited in amount. From this point of view the author gives hints and directions to the practitioners in his own and similar courts, which, if well digested and attended to, will avoid the risk of miscarriage in a well-founded claim; and prevent many an ill-advised proceeding from being entered on. The directions are thoroughly practical and sound, and well adapted for the use of the class for whom they are written. The language is popular, and sufficiently free from technicalities to make the book interesting to the wider class of those who may wish to know how a system of subordinate local judicature, so successful as that existing in Scotland, is actually conducted.

Redress by Arbitration. A Digest of the Law relating to Arbitration and Awards. By H. FOULKS LYNCH. London: Effingham, Wilson & Co. 1888. vi and 86 pp.

THIS is an attempt to treat a subject popularly and scientifically. The combination is not one which is either desirable or satisfactory. A popular legal hand-book should be written in a purely popular manner. The scientific method when used popularly is apt to become ridiculous. For example, Article 3 begins thus: One arbitrator is better than two, because one is more likely to act judicially.' It is absurd to put a piece of information based on the experience of men of business into the form of a proposition of pure law. While therefore the layman will be able to pick up some information about arbitration in this book, Mr. Lynch would have saved himself trouble and have produced a better book if he had sat down and simply written out in ordinary form some hints about arbitration. A Selection of Leading Cases in the Criminal Law. By WALTER SHIRLEY SHIRLEY. London: Stevens & Sons. 1888. 8vo. xii and 147 pp. THIS little book has a good deal in common with others by the late Mr. Shirley. While it shows no especial degree of learning, and makes no pretence to add to the stock of knowledge common to most barristers practising at sessions, it is reasonably lucid and not particularly inaccurate. Its worst fault is the endeavour to be amusing as well as instructive, which Mr. Shirley was accustomed to achieve by such means as saying 'Mr. Robert' when he had occasion to refer to a policeman, and marginally annotating a case of larceny a butcher-boy's little game.' So far as the book goes, it will not do students any great harm. They will not find in it either historical exposition of the law, or critical appreciation of the nice points of dogmatic speculation involved in such a case as R. v. Ashwell.

A Digest of the Law relating to the Sale of Goods. By WALTER C. KER. London: Reeves & Turner. 1888. 8vo. xvi and 137 pp.

THIS Digest is in the form of what has been in late years more usually styled a Code, following, to a certain extent, the method of the Indian Contract Act 1872, but with a variety of arrangement of matter and type that is rather perplexing.

Notwithstanding this defect of form, the book contains some good work; and will be an excellent guide to the salient and most recent authorities on the law of sale of goods; a subject which is continually growing, and developing new materials to be digested. The work done is sound, and

the results made readily accessible for practical use, both by condensation of the subject-matter, and by a good index.

The Complete Annual Digest of every Reported Case in all the Courts for the year 1887. Edited by ALFRED EMDEN, compiled by HERBERT THOMPSON. London: W. Clowes & Sons, Limited. 1888. La. 8vo. lxxxii and 492 cols.

WE are favoured with the last issue of this useful annual. So long as a variety of reports exist, it is a great satisfaction to have periodically an accessible arrangement of their contents which we are assured is exhaustive. The Table of Cases followed, overruled or commented on, Table of Statutes, and Table of Rules, give a ready clue to finding the latest authority, good or bad, upon any subject to which the primary reference, whether of statute or case law, is already known.

We have also received

Principles of the English Law of Contract, and of Agency in its relation to Contract. By SIR WILLIAM R. ANSON, Bart. Fifth Edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 8vo. xxxi and 384 pp.

The Law relating to Actions for Malicious Prosecution. By HERBERT STEPHEN. London: Stevens & Sons. 1888. 8vo. xii and 131 pp.—Mr. Stephen thinks that the law may be said to have at last become what many judges have said or hinted that it ought to be; i. e. that the question of 'reasonable and probable cause' in cases of malicious prosecution and false imprisonment may, since the latest decisions, be frankly treated as a question of fact.

The Law relating to Dogs. By F. LUPTON. London: Stevens & Sons. 1888. 8vo. xii and 160 pp.-This little book will be found useful by country gentlemen and other owners of dogs; it seems to contain a sufficient account of the law of practical utility on the subject.

The Sources of the Law of England. By H. BRUNNER. Translated from the German by W. HASTIE. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1888. 8vo. x and 63 pp. The United States and the States under the Constitution. By C. S. PATterson. Philadelphia, Pa.: T. & J. W. Johnson & Co. 1888. 8vo. xxxi and 290 pp. The Madras Code, etc. Second Edition. Calcutta: Govt. Press. 1888. La. 8vo. xxix and 779 pp.

Istituzioni di diritto civile italiano. Per G. P. CHIRONI. Vol. I. Torino Fratelli Bocca. La. 8vo. xi and 367 pp.

L'unificazione delle leggi Cambiarie nel Congresso Internazionale di diritto Commerciale in Anversa. By SHERIFF DOVE WILSON. Tr. by Avv. SALVATORE SACERDOTE. Turin. 1888. 17 pp.

The Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1887, etc. By MASKELL W. PEACE. London Reeves & Turner. 1888. 8vo. xiv and 367 pp.

Will-Making made Safe and Easy. By ALMARIC RUMSEY. London : John Hogg. 1888. x and 140 pp.

Accidents de Travail. Par CH. SAINCTELETTE. Brussels: BruylantChristophe & Cie. 1888. 26 pp.

The Nature and Value of Jurisprudence, Roman Law and International Law. By CHAN-TOON. London: W. Clowes & Sons, Limited. 1888. 8vo. 31 pp. A neat little summary showing only traces of the English language not being native to the writer. It looks as if it had been prepared for some special occasion, but there is not anything to show what.