impossible except as a temporary device. For a time the analogy served well enough. But industrial development has produced a large number of callings that require a broader principle and a more rational treatment. As a result of historical inquiry on the one hand and of analysis of the modern decisions upon the other, Professor Wyman finds this principle in legal regulation of public callings by imposing general affirmative duties upon those engaged therein over and above the negative duties of a general character which the law imposes upon private persons. In other words, the person engaged in such a calling is not dealt with as a normal or standard person. He is put in a class by himself and, if one may take such a liberty with a well-known phrase, what is law for him is not law for the average person. In the law of torts, we find a number of duties toward all men of a negative character, such as to refrain from intentional injury to others, to refrain from negligent injury to others, not to permit injurious operation of certain dangerous agencies made use of at one's peril, and the like. As to other matters, the duties of the ordinary man depend, for the most part, upon his voluntary assumption of them. But one who is engaged in a public calling, in addition to the general negative duties resting upon all men, is subject to general affirmative duties imposed directly by law. The reason for the imposition of these duties, and so the criterion of a public calling, the author finds in monopoly, state-granted, natural, or virtual, of some matter (not necessarily service) of general need under conditions of life and of commercial and industrial activity for the time being. The history of the common law shows that at different periods courts have differed much as to what are public callings, and that the reasons of such differences are to be found in diverse economic conditions. The question is not, therefore, what has been held at some time or other to be a public calling or the reverse, but rather what has been the principle upon which at bottom judicial determinations of the nature of various callings have proceeded. The case of state-granted monopoly, or, as Professor Wyman puts it, monopoly due to legal privilege, is clear enough. The other classes of cases, natural monopoly and virtual monopoly, require more consideration.

Natural monopoly, we are told, may be due to restriction of supply, scarcity of sites, limitations of time within which the needs of patrons must be met, if at all, and difficulty of distribution. Here the nature of the service rendered involves power of extortion or oppression in those who render it, and so demands legal regulation in the public interest. Virtual monopoly, we are told, may exist because of cost of plant, the large scale on which service is performed, the inadequacy of available substitutes, or the dependence of the service rendered upon other activities. In these cases, although obviously the line cannot be drawn sharply, it is not the nature of the undertaking itself but the circumstances in which it is carried on in the time and jurisdiction in question that determine the decision. Hence the question must be largely one of fact. "If," says the author, "monopoly is made out as the permanent condition of affairs in a given business, then the law will consider that calling public in its nature. On the other hand, if effective competition is proved as the regular course of things in a given industry, the law will hold all businesses within it as private in their character."

Probably the second category, natural monopoly, will be accepted by all but a few obstinate adherents to nineteenth-century economic ideas. With respect to the third, virtual monopoly, there are likely to be many who will hesitate. To some the conception that the same business, involving no stategranted privilege and no natural monopoly, may or may not be public, according to the relative permanence of a condition of effective competition, will grate upon a feeling that the law is from eternity and that a legal system must settle that every calling is abstractly the one thing or the other. To others, the conception of virtual monopoly will seem to involve danger of an undue

extension of the class of public callings and hence of state interference. But our law must come more and more in every department to just such flexible conceptions as this. Abstract hard and fast categories seldom have much relation to actual conditions to which law is to be applied. If cases are crammed into them with logical rigor, injustice results. If the severity of logic is relaxed, our hard and fast dogmas achieve nothing; we have one law in the books and another, or sometimes none, in practice. Such subjects as the one in hand, involving economic and social questions at so many points, require a few clear principles rather than a mass of rigorous rules, if the law is to deal with them effectively. As to the other point, perhaps the limitation to cases of necessity will meet reasonable objections. In case of natural monopoly, the author points out that the basis is public need. "This extraordinary activity of the state on behalf of the individual," he says, "is . . . confined to necessary services." It is true this also is a very flexible criterion. But so are many of the most useful doctrines of our law. Such conceptions as reasonable time are worth a multitude of sharply drawn rules. Moreover flexible principles such as those in question appear to stand the test of application to every phase of the subject throughout the book.

Lawyers and students of American legislation will agree, no doubt, in approving the author's insistence upon the sufficiency of the common law for the whole subject of public callings. The affirmative duties which the common law imposes upon those engaged in these callings, if enforced, would clearly meet every reasonable requirement. But the common-law machinery for enforcing these duties has proved cumbrous and ineffective. Assuming mistakenly that the law was inadequate, legislators have multiplied statutes on matters of substance which have achieved little because directed to the wrong point. Indeed, they have added difficulties of interpretation to difficulties of enforcement and application already existing. It is not too much to say, as the author says, that "the common law is adequate to deal with all real industrial wrongs," provided we address ourselves vigorously and intelligently to the difficult problem of enforcement. Until we do this, eulogy of the common law will be lost upon an impatient public.

The work of preparing an adequate treatise upon so large a subject under American conditions, which require a canvassing of the huge annual judicial output of some fifty jurisdictions, may well give pause to one who would think about cases as well as collect them. Hence the author need not remind us that he has been hurried in producing his book at this period in the development of the subject. Undoubtedly it is of advantage to have such a work today rather than tomorrow or the day after. And yet one can only regret that so good a book should have to go forth with so many marks of hasty preparation. A style at times very colloquial, naïvetés such as the statements in the preface that the author has "had a policy of a sort" in choosing the cases to be cited and that he is "rather proud" of his analysis, and repetitions of the same matter in the very same words in different connections (e. g. preface, p. vi, repeated in § 35, preface, p. viii, repeated in § 42, the paragraph at the bottom of p. ix, repeated in part on p. 29), are easily accounted for by the exigencies of dictation, but are regrettable blemishes upon a performance which in other respects is admirable.

R. P.

LAW OF REAL PROPERTY: Chiefly in Relation to Conveyancing. By Henry William Challis. Third edition, by Charles Sweet of Lincoln's Inn. London: Butterworth and Company. 1911. pp. xlv, 524.

Of all English writers on the law Mr. Challis most resembles Littleton. In both we find a mathematical exactness and an absence of every unnecessary word, coupled with a limpid, and one may almost say a flowing, style.

Compare the present book with Leake's Land Law, but reading it is like reading a digest.

an admirable book,

No better model of legal style could be studied by American lawyers and judges, for verbosity is a fault to which both bench and bar, taking the country at large, have been addicted, and Mr. Challis will show them how to be concise without being crabbed.

The book covers a very narrow field, and one very uninteresting to the general reader; but even the general reader will feel the attraction there is in seeing the master of any subject doing his best, and putting forth his full power at every point. We have no doubt that Mr. Challis was justified in speaking of the pains it cost him to frame his sentences.

Mr. Challis treats only of the law as it is. Obsolete law he deals with only so far as it is necessary to explain existing law.

His starting point seems to be about the end of the fifteenth century. Since that time the law has been changed by statutes, and with these Mr. Challis of course deals. He is very chary of admitting that the original common law could be modified without statute.

The modern English statutes have profoundly altered the common law, much more than statutes in this country have done, and on different lines. We therefore advise the American reader to examine only cursorily Mr. Challis's remarks on the late English statutes, or to skip them altogether. The rest of the book cannot be too closely studied.

Mr. Challis, as we have said, omits obsolete law; but he delights in legal rarities, which, though they seldom or never occur in practice, may yet be theoretically possible. In Chapter XIX the topic of Qualified Fees Simple he rolls like a sweet morsel under his tongue, and one feels his regret that the "very curious and entertaining" law of remitter is obsolete (p. 90). Mr. Challis's mathematical turn of mind is shown in his working out (p. 372) the formula for determining the series of accruing shares in the case of cross remainders.

If Mr. Challis has taken Littleton for his model, it is fortunate that Mr. Sweet has not taken Lord Coke for his. He has not overlaid and swamped the text of his author with comment, but has wisely confined his judicious annotations to instances where they were really called for. Many of them will be found helpful; see, for instance, the suggestive note (p. 167) on the probable origin of the Rule in Shelley's Case.

Mr. Sweet is, as all editors ought to be, in sympathy with his author's general trend of thought; but his admiration is not servile. He sometimes doubts Mr. Challis's conclusions, for instance on determinable fees (p. 437), and on the right of the donor to the land of a dissolved corporation (p. 467). The principal independent additions that Mr. Sweet has made are: On Corporeal and Incorporeal Hereditaments (p. 48); on Dignities and Titles of Honour (p. 468); and on the Rule against Perpetuities (pp. 205 et seq., 472). Mr. Sweet, as is well known, is a strenuous fautor of the view that contingent remainders are not subject to the Rule against Perpetuities, but to an independent rule which prevailed at common law before the Rule against Perpetuities was invented; namely, that you cannot limit a contingent remainder to the child of an unborn person after a life estate to such person.

There are two arguments for the existence of such an independent rule: First, that it is actually given in the old books; second, that it is a necessary consequence from the un-non-barrableness (if we may invent such a Germanic word) of fees tail. Mr. Sweet has dealt in other writings with the first argument; in this edition of Mr. Challis he confines himself, so far as we have observed, to the second.

This is not the place for a discussion of the question, but whether one agrees with Mr. Sweet or not, he is the ablest living advocate of his side of the case, and his views deserve the most careful consideration.

J. C. G.

TREATISE ON THE LAW OF VENDORS AND PURCHASERS OF REAL ESTATE AND CHATTELS REAL. By T. Cyprian Williams. Second Edition. In two volumes. London: Sweet and Maxwell, Limited. 1910, 1911. pp. xlviii, 1–867, xxxiv, 869–1771.

Mr. Williams has long been known to the profession on both sides of the Atlantic as the accomplished editor of the books of his distinguished father, Mr. Joshua Williams. The Treatise on Vendors and Purchasers, his magnum opus, has added to his reputation. We are glad to see that its merits have been so well recognized that a second edition is already called for.

The law on the sale of land has developed in the United States on very different lines from those on which it has developed in England. Here the registry system is universal. The statutes establishing it are generally simple and short, but a great body of law has grown up around them. The vast amount of land belonging to the nation or to the several states has given rise to a great deal of law which is peculiar to conveyances of such land. The discovery of a great amount of mineral land has created a complicated body of mining law. The rest of the law of vendors and purchasers has been little affected by any statutes except the Statute of Frauds.

In England the registry laws have had but a limited application. Only one chapter of Mr. Williams's treatise is devoted to the sale of registered land. It is seldom that there is any conveyance of Crown land. There has been no recent great discovery of mineral land. But there has been a great deal of legislation, especially in the second half of the last century, as to other matters concerning the sale of land.

Of course, Mr. Williams has much to say about these statutes, which has little direct relevancy to any questions likely to arise in the United States, but it by no means follows that Mr. Williams's book is not of value to an American lawyer; on the contrary, the book abounds in thorough and interesting discussions on many matters entirely independent of these recent statutes, which throw light on the law of vendors and purchasers, and indeed on the law of contracts generally.

We have noticed among the fundamental matters with which Mr. Williams deals: Sales by auction; restrictive covenants, or, as they are sometimes called, equitable easements; the fourth section of the Statute of Frauds; the discharge of contracts, and remedies for the breach of contracts, including suits for specific performance. We wish to call attention especially to what Mr. Williams has to say on mistakes and fraudulent misrepresentations. He has made a noteworthy contribution to this difficult part of the law.

There is only one criticism we have to make, and that is one we should make to many law books. We wish Mr. Williams had distinguished the paragraphs by section numbers. These, it is true, somewhat mar the appearance of the page, and sometimes interrupt the continuity of the thought; but when a book is to become a classic, and be often reprinted, a division into sections furnishes a means of reference which is the same in successive editions, and is often a great convenience. J. C. G.

THE COLLECTED PAPERS OF FREDERIC WILLIAM MAITLAND. Edited by
H. A. L. Fisher. In three volumes. Cambridge: The University Press.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1911. pp. ix, 497; 496; vi, 528.
Fifth Edition. London:

THE LAW OF EVIDENCE. By Sidney L. Phipson.
Stevens and Haynes. 1911. pp. lxxix, 743.

THE PRINCIPLES OF MUHAMMADAN JURISPRUDENCE. By Abdur Rahim. London: Luzac and Company. 1911. pp. xvi, 443.

THE MAHOMMEDAN LAW OF INHERITANCE. By S. N. Subbarama Sastri. Madras: Higginbotham and Company. 1911. pp. xvii, 343.

INTERNATIONAL LAW. By F. E. Smith. Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged by J. Wylie. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Limited. 1911. pp. xxxii, 391.

MEDICO-LEGAL ASPECTS OF MORAL OFFENSES. By L. Thoinot. Translated by Arthur W. Weysse. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis Company. 1911. pp. xv, 487.

CAPTURE IN WAR ON LAND AND SEA. By Hans Wehburg. London: P. S. King and Son. 1911. pp. XXXV, 210.

THE LAW OF MOTOR VEHICLES. By Berkeley Davids. Northport, N. Y.: Edward Thompson Company. 1911. pp. xl, 774.

AN ANALYSIS OF SALMOND'S JURISPRUDENCE. By Reginald E. DeBeer. London: Stevens and Haynes. 1911. pp. x, 134.

A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS. By John F. Dillon. Fifth Edition, Revised and Enlarged. In five volumes. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1911. pp. lxi, 778; xiii, 779-1552; xii, 15532308; xiii, 2309-3064; 738.

HANDBOOK ON THE LAW OF PARTNERSHIP. By Eugene Allen Gilmore. St. Paul: West Publishing Company. 1911. pp. xiii, 721.

LAW FOR THE AMERICAN FARMER. By John B. Green. New York: The MacMillan Company. 1911. pp. xvi, 438.

CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. By James Parker Hall. Chicago: La Salle Extension University. 1911. pp. xiv, 457.

THE LAWS OF ENGLAND. By the Right Honourable the Earl of Halsbury and Other Lawyers. Volume XVII. London: Butterworth and Company. Philadelphia: Cromarty Law Book Company. 1911. pp. cxcii, 644, 61. THE MODERN LAW OF EVIDENCE. By Charles Frederic Chamberlayne. Albany, N. Y.: Matthew Bender and Company. London: Sweet and Maxwell, Limited. 1911. Vol. I. pp. cxxiii, 1089. Vol. II. pp. xxviii, 1091-2192.

THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. By Hannis Taylor. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin Company. 1911. pp. xlii, 676.

A PHILADELPHIA LAWYER IN THE LONDON COURTS. By Thomas Leaming. New York: Henry Holt and Company. 1911. pp. xiii, 199.

THE PANAMA CANAL: A STUDY IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND DIPLOMACY. By Harmodio Arias. London: P. S. King and Son. 1911. pp. xiv, 188. THE LAW OF DOMICILE IN ITS RELATION TO SUCCESSION. By Norman Bent-` wick. London: Sweet and Maxwell, Limited. 1911. pp. xii, 204.

HANDBOOK ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND INTERPRETATION OF THE LAWS. By Henry Campbell Black. Second Edition. St. Paul: West Publishing Company. 1911. pp. xii, 710.