that which made the presentment or indictment. But here again, as in case of appeal, it is not clear that the accused went quit upon acquittal by a jury alone. Thus in case No. 170 the jurors found a man not guilty, and stated certain details. Then, it seems, the King's serjeant who took him said the same,' and so it was considered that he should go quit.

These Pleas of the Crown are full of interesting and valuable matter of the same kind, showing in what way our rude forefathers attempted to ascertain matters of fact. The production of suit, the wager of law, and even the examination of individual witnesses in appeals, are all illustrated in these rolls, for printing which, and for the manner in which he has printed them, Mr. Maitland is heartily to be thanked. To crown all, there is an excellent index of matters as well as an index of persons and another of places. As gratitude is a lively expectation of favours to come, the next instalment of the good work will be anxiously awaited.

Though, however, the Selden Society has been supremely fortunate in securing Mr. Maitland as an editor, it has not been equally happy in the very lengthy statement of its objects which appears at the end of the volume. If this remarkable document were to be accepted literally, it would imply that the Society proposes to take under its management nearly the whole of the records which are in the custody of the Master of the Rolls, and many other things besides, including a Dictionary of Anglo-French.' Everything that has been well done is, it seems, to be better done-from the editing of the Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, down to Sir F. Palgrave's excellent calendar of the Baga de Secretis; and everything that has not yet been done is to be done. The authors of this stupendous announcement would have inspired more confidence had they shown themselves to be a little more familiar with the nature of the early Assize Rolls, with the functions of the Chancery and their origin, and with the matters which appear on the various rolls of the Exchequer. They have, it seems, discovered that the pleadings in actions commenced by writ of Quo minus are to be found on the Remembrance Rolls of the King's Remembrancer and not on the Plea Rolls of the Exchequer of Pleas, and that the Plea Rolls of the Exchequer of Pleas are our chief sources of information with respect to actions relating to real property and tithes.'

and a very free hand is shown in this composition. But it may, perhaps, be asked whether a better motto would not have been :

περὶ παντὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν.

L. O. P.

[Selden's own motto is good enough for us, and therefore we print without alteration or omission what our learned contributor has written. But we claim a little editorial freedom in turn. Why is not Selden's motto good enough for the Society which, however imperfectly, strives to carry on the work to which he pointed the way? Is not our learned contributor righteous overmuch in some other points of his minute criticism? Can he really believe that either Thorpe or Schmid exhausted the study of the Anglo-Saxon laws? Is not the 'tithes' in his quotation an obvious misprint for 'titles'? Anyhow, those who are familiar with the reports of the modern Chancery Division rather than with medieval rolls are not in much danger of thinking that prospectuses of any kind are intended to be 'accepted literally.']

The Montenegrin Code of the Law of Property. Tsetinje. 1888. Paris: Chamerot.

Le nouveau code civil du Montenegro. Par R. DARESTE. Paris: A. Picard. 1888. 8°. 15 pp.

Quelques mots sur les principes et la méthode suivis dans la codification du droit civil au Montenegro. Par V. BOGIŠIĆ. Paris: F. Pichon. 1888. 8°. 19 pp.

WE have received a volume, handsomely printed in the Cyrillic character, which, as we are informed and believe, is the Code prepared for the Principality of Montenegro by Dr. Bogišić. So far from not being finished, as a certain French traveller did vainly talk, it has been the law since the 1st of July. Though the original text is a mystery to us, we are to some extent possessed of its general character and contents through the kindness of the learned draftsman.

First, the Code is not a complete Civil Code: its title, as translated in French, is code général concernant les biens,' and it covers approximately the field of what English lawyers call Real and Personal Property. The arrangement is as follows:

Part I. General and preliminary.

Part II. Of property and real rights.

Herein of acquisition, of rights between adjacent owners (in which trees appear as of singular importance), of servitudes proper, and of hypothec.

Part III. Of sale and the other chief kinds of contracts.

Here we have, in general, the familiar Roman or Roman-Napoleonic treatment; but there is a good local colour in the headings 'De la supona, c'est-à-dire des bétails de différents propriétaires envoyés en commun aux pâturages et dont le fumier est commun,' and ' De la sprega, c.a.d. des bœufs mis ensemble pour le labour.' Who knows but that study of these customs might help us to fill up our picture of the England of Domesday Book ? Part IV. Of contracts and obligations in general.

Part V. Of personal capacity.

This part is of special interest. Dr. Bogišić, as we mentioned in our last number, has abstained from codifying the customs which govern the internal order of the South-Slavonic family or rather house-community. But in relation to the outer world this community appears as a corporate person, the difference between its corporate property and the separate estate, peculium, or 'self-acquired' property of its individual members being carefully observed. The question of corporate or individual responsibility for wrongful acts of the members turus on considerations not unlike those which the Common Law has applied to a master's responsibility for the acts and defaults of his servants (si l'intérêt de la maison, la défense de ses biens ou de son honneur a été la cause de l'action qui a porté dommage'). Let us hope that the Montenegrin tribunals will not be entangled in the same or similar refinements of mixed fact and law.' But they have (we believe) no juries; therefore no motions for new trials; therefore none of the blessings thereupon consequent.

We may mention here (though not in the order of the Code) that Montenegrin law has preserved, and the Code confirms, a modified rule de migranti · bus. A foreigner cannot acquire land at all save by grant from the prince; a Montenegrin can acquire a full share in the land of another clan or village, with the appurtenant rights of wood, pasture, and so following, only by purchasing as a whole the holding of a member who quits the community,

and by undertaking all the public burdens which in our own medieval language would be called servitia. It must be idem tenementum per eadem servitia, a succession by privity not merely of estate but of tenement and, one may even say, of person-for the village will not hold both seller and buyer. The seller must quit, as it were, his former self, and be dead to his old community.

Part VI. Interpretation, definitions, miscellaneous and supplemental provisions.

It will be seen that in the matter of arrangement Dr. Bogišić has shown a good deal of independence. In a great measure he has been guided, and rightly so, by the special conditions of his undertaking. But it is not without interest to note that in the position of Part V he gives effect (we think, for the first time in actual legislation) to the theory valiantly maintained by Professor Holland, and that, whatever Continental theorists may think of Part VI, much of it, if not all, is approved by the experience and practice of our own Parliamentary Counsel's Office.

We must add that, so far as we can see, there is nothing about bankruptcy. O blessed state of the men of the Black Mountain, and long may they want a Bankruptcy Act!

F. P.

A Treatise on the Law of Domicil: national, quasi-national, and municipal; based mainly upon the decisions of the British and American Courts. With illustrations from the Roman Law and the modern Continental authorities. By M. W. JACOBS. Boston (Mass.): 1887. La. 8vo. 600 pp.

THIS book is the work of a thoroughly deserving writer, but, if criticism is to be of any value, a critic is bound in duty to point out that Jacobs' Law of Domicil is at best but a favourable specimen of a very poor class of book, whereof far too many are manufactured in the United States.

The new work on the Law of Domicil is a compilation rather than a treatise. The writer has consulted a mass of authorities, he has read and noted every American and English case bearing on his subject; he has certainly read all the current literature of his topic. Whether he has digested his reading is quite another matter. The marks of his study are shown not by the skill with which he has mastered and made his own the views of other writers, but by the industry with which he has cut out from their pages, with, it must be added, ample and fair acknowledgment, whole passages of extracts. If it be the object of a law-book to give us the words and thoughts of every person who has written on the topic, then, undoubtedly, Mr. Jacobs has attained his aim. What Westlake, Story, and others have said about domicil we can learn from his pages. All that can be done by honest, industrious, and sensible use of note-books, paste and scissors, has been achieved by our author, and in this respect he rises far above some of his countrymen who have pursued the same method with far less of energy, of accuracy, or of sagacity. Great is the power of paste, scissors, and note-books, but this power is after all limited. It may, under very favourable circumstances, produce, as in Mr. Jacobs' hands it has produced, a good compilation, but it never can produce a book in the sense in which Savigny, or Story, or Kent, or Westlake, have produced books on the conflict of laws. The plain truth is that Story, of whom no competent critic will ever speak in any language but that of the profoundest respect, set in one respect a bad example. His crude references to the opinions of

his predecessors and to the dicta of judges are the weak point of his admirable work, and conceal the strong common sense and the judicial instinct which will always make Story's Conflict of Laws a work of inestimable value. As generally happens with great men, Story's successors have shown far greater capacity for imitating his faults than his virtues. Circumstances, moreover, such as the immense number of modern English and American reports, have stimulated the vicious habit of compilation to which Story's authority gave countenance. Mr. Jacobs has fallen a victim to the ordinary fault of American text-writers; he has compiled too much, he has thought too little. On no one of the curious speculative questions raised by the law of domicil has he thrown any light whatever, except such light (if light it can be called) as is struck out by bringing into collision the opposed opinions of different authorities. If any one thinks this criticism too severe let him read through Mr. Jacobs' chapter on the definition of domicil, or let him look at the way in which our author treats the nice but by no means insoluble question as to the domicil of invalids. Whoever does this will see what industry and reading can accomplish, and will also come to the conclusion that neither industry nor reading can supply the place of analysis and of reflection. Nothing, be it added, is further from the intention of the present writer than to underrate the merits of Mr. Jacobs. His book is a good book of its kind, but the kind is a bad kind, and just because our author displays considerable merits it is to be hoped that he will reconsider his ways, dismiss paste and scissors, think his subject well out, compress his materials, and when a second edition of his treatise is asked for (as it probably may be in no long time), give us not a compilation from other law-books, but a work of his own on every aspect of the law of domicil. An American lawyer has great advantages in studying the conflict of laws. There is no reason why Mr. Jacobs should not ultimately produce the leading work on the subject of domicil. A. V. D.

Le droit international théorique et pratique.

Par CHARLES CALVO.

4ème Edition. Tomes II et III. Paris: Pedone-Lauriel. 1888. WE have already noticed the first volume of this valuable work (vol. iv. p. 102). The second volume deals with private international law and international criminal law. Under private international law the author treats of nationality, naturalisation, domicile, the conflict of civil laws (persons, 'moral persons,' marriage, divorce, family, succession), of civil procedure (jurisdiction, foreign judgments, rogatory commissions), and of mercantile laws. Under international criminal law he treats of jurisdiction, extradition, and deserters. The subjects of vol. iii are copyright, patents, trade marks, &c., telegraphs, railways, uniformity of money, frontier regulations, sanitary measures, summed up as 'international regulations concerning the social and economic interests of peoples,' the mutual duties of states, the right of representation (diplomacy, embassies, consulates), extraterritoriality (obligations and rights of governments, diplomatic agents, war vessels and foreign armies, universal exhibitions), international agreements (treaties, negotiations, interpretation of treaties), disagreements between States and their settlement (congresses and conferences, mediation, arbitration and its future, international tribunal, violent solutions, pacific blockades).

M. Calvo has been blamed for the small place he gives to the philosophical aspects of his subject. This is a fault which will not detract from the value of his work in the eyes of his Anglo-Saxon readers. He has brought his

book closely up to date. Among the most recent matter he has dealt with we notice the De Campos marriage (vol. ii. p. 257), the Schnæbele affair (vol. iii. p. 304), the French Consulate affair at Florence (vol. iii. p. 238).

In the portion of his work on Private International Law the treatment of conflicts of law by different national laws has received considerable extension.

À propos of the recent so-called 'violation' of the French Consulate at Florence we may call attention to the following statement of M. Calvo :— 'L'on a vu il y a un certain nombre d'années saisir et vendre les archives du consulat général de France à Londres comme gage de l'impôt mis à la charge du propriétaire de la maison louée pour le service de la chancellerie' (p. 236). (The italics are our own.) M. Calvo gives no date or authority for this statement. It seems highly improbable that such a thing should have happened, and we would recommend M. Calvo to check the accuracy of the information. T. B.

The Science of Jurisprudence. Chiefly intended for Indian Students. By W. H. RATTIGAN. Lahore: 1888. La. 8vo. xvii and 271 pp. THIS book does not profess to be an original contribution to legal science so much as an exposition of the best current doctrine adapted to a special purpose. Mr. Rattigan has furnished Indian readers with a clear and generally sound exposition, and with abundant illustration from the law of British India. The Indian illustrations, moreover, give the book a certain value for European students of comparative jurisprudence, who may be put by it on the track of various interesting matters not otherwise easily accessible.

For example, we have almost forgotten in modern English law the difference between a possessory and a droitural action. In Littleton's time, and, in theory, long afterwards, there might be a state of things enabling A to recover possession of certain land from B by an assize of novel disseisin, while A, after such recovery, would still have no defence against B in a writ of right (Litt. ss. 486, 487). This may puzzle a modern student at first, but he may read in the Indian Specific Relief Act of 1877, s. 9, which re-enacts and supersedes an Act of 1859 to the same effect:

'If any person is dispossessed without his consent of immoveable property otherwise than in due course of law, he or any person claiming through him may by suit instituted within six months from the date of the dispossession recover possession thereof, notwithstanding any other title that may be set up in such suit.

'Nothing in this section shall bar any person from suing to establish his title to such property and to recover possession thereof.'

This is precisely Littleton's distinction between the assize of novel disseisin and the writ of right re-established in modern language and procedure.

The tendency of works on general jurisprudence to slide into comment on a particular system is exemplified by Mr. Rattigan's remarks on the Indian Contract Act; but a concise and at the same time critical commentary on the principal features of the Contract Act is an excellent thing for Indian students to have, under whatever name and in whatever context. On one point in the Contract Act we must differ from Mr. Rattigan. He seems to think its definitions of Fraud and Misrepresentation perfect, or nearly so. They were taken from the draft Civil Code of New York, and are in our