and not upon obligations. Michigan Cent. R. Co. v. Collector, 100 U. S. 595; U. S. v. Erie R. Co., 106 U. S. 327. As to the dictum in Bridges v. Griffin, 33 Ga. 113, see Collins v. Miller, 43 Ga. 336.

SELECT PLEAS, STARRS, AND OTHER Records from the Rolls of the EXCHEQUER of the Jews, A. D. 1220-1284. Edited for the Selden Society by J. M. Rigg. London: Bernard Quaritch. 1901. pp. lxi, 152. 4to. This work is produced under the coöperation of the Selden Society and the Anglo-Jewish Historical Society - an economical arrangement which might well be repeated by these societies and imitated by others. The archives of the Exchequer of the Jews at the Public Record Office comprise two general classes: fiscal documents (account rolls, etc.) and plea rolls. The selections edited by Mr. Rigg, which are taken exclusively from the latter, throw light on the relations of the Jews to the king, the nobility, and the clergy, on the fiscal and judicial machinery of the Jewish Exchequer, and the law or custom of the Jewry. The Jews were regarded as royal property, and, like the forests, were under the jurisdiction of special royal justices. "The Exchequer of the Jews, though it had its own seal and separate staff of officers, was not so much a separate Court as a branch of the Great Exchequer, invested with a jurisdiction never very precisely defined, and which never became, though it tended graduually to become, exclusive of that of the King's Court. Its procedure did not differ materially from that of the Great Exchequer, except so far as it was modified by the Assisa Judaismi, of which the most important feature was the right of a Jew to trial by a panel de medietate when impleaded by a Christian upon a cause of action arising within the Jewry."

Mr. Rigg's volume is a valuable addition to the publications of the Selden Society. His Introduction gives a good account of the history of the Jews of England during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and his editorial work is scholarly. It is difficult, however, to ascertain what he has added to the sum of our knowledge; as he rarely refers in his footnotes to the investigations of other writers on this subject, many readers will carry away the erroneous impression that most of his conclusions are novel. On pp. xl-xli he prints a document which he says was first edited in 1896, but in fact it was published in 1888 in the Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers (Exchequer of the Jews, Appendix); the appendix of that essay also contains the articles touching the Jewry, printed by Mr. Rigg on pp. lv-lxi.

C. G.

A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF ATTACHMENts, Garnishments, Judgments, AND EXECUTIONS. By John R. Rood. Ann Arbor: George Wahr. 1901. pp. 183, 549. 8vo.

The law of remedies is the author's general subject in two previous books; one, a somewhat compendious text-book on garnishment solely for the practitioner, the other, a series of selected cases solely for the student. This latest, most comprehensive work is one fourth text, and the rest, a collection of cases, annotated, and an index. Much of the raw material used for the first two books must necessarily have entered as well into the present production, which, indeed, will probably supplant the earlier class-room manual. A more original mode of treatment has been adopted. The former plan was apparently to state the law in an available form; the declared purpose of the present work is to go further, to correlate propositions formerly treated as independent, to treat them all as far as possible as parts of a rational, consistent whole, and to discuss the relation of this subject, so unified, to other parts of the law that it touches. The

form which the author gives the book is fitted to this scheme. The footnotes contain, instead of exhaustive lists of citations, merely references to recognized secondary authorities or to the leading cases reprinted in the volume itself; to the end that attention is not diverted from the argument.

The author's analytical process has the gratifying result of ridding his subject of many inaccuracies. He trenchantly disposes of this or that current, over-general statement, and substitutes freely his own opinions. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that he prunes at times too close. In § 22, for example, he distinguishes between objections to a judgment which are taken in the case in which the judgment is rendered and objections taken collaterally, showing that in the former case a judgment may not stand if it is improper, whereas in the latter it stands against any objection but that of validity, that is, the objection that the court that rendered it had no jurisdiction. He concludes that it is only in the cases of collateral attack that questions of jurisdiction are really decided and that all judicial expressions elsewhere must be dicta. His conclusion seems illogical. Suppose, for example, that a defendant appears specially to object to the jurisdiction of the court, or appeals on jurisdictional grounds alone. The only criterion of the propriety of the judgment in question is almost by hypothesis its validity. At some stage in the reasoning the question of validity must be decided; it is therefore necessarily involved.

In some respects the author does not come up to his self-imposed standard. He frequently neglects opportunities to examine and compare. His further treatment of the subject of jurisdiction may be taken by way of illustration. It is prima facie an axiom that a court, when it has no jurisdiction, can do no valid act. Various statements, however, are made in the text which in theory at least seem opposed to this view and the inconsistency is overlooked. For example, the statement is approved in § 26 that "If any jurisdictional question is debatable or colorable, the tribunal must decide it; and an erroneous conclusion can only be corrected by some proceeding provided by law for so doing, commonly called a direct attack." The principle is not explained by which a court, wherever the question of its jurisdiction is debatable can validate its acts simply by deciding that it has jurisdiction. There seems also in this an inconsistency, in language at least, with the rule laid down in § 58, that "In actions on foreign judgments the defendant may show that the judgment is void because some jurisdictional fact alleged in the record did not exist." See Van Fossen v. The State, 37 Oh. St. 317. This last passage, moreover, is hard to reconcile satisfactorily with those immediately following, to the effect that statements in the record of a domestic judgment may not be disproved by way of collateral attack even by a stranger to that record. Here, again, acts done by a court without jurisdiction are apparently treated as valid. Considered in this light, cases of this sort would seem to be offered the principle of the rule in § 13, that the correctness of an entry of judgment on the record may be disproved collaterally by showing that no judgment was in fact pronounced. Again, in $152, the statement that an officer is absolutely protected, even against a stranger, in obeying a writ, fair on its face, commanding him to seize a certain specified thing, seems an unexplained exception to the rule to which such officers are in general subject, that the command of the court excuses only against parties within the court's jurisdiction to bind by the particular command. In short, the author has in these places done no more than made the need for classification more apparent.

Of coördinate importance with the text is the collection of cases, chosen with discretion and edited with clearness.

BRITTON, AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION AND NOTES. By Francis Morgan Nichols, with an introduction by Simeon E. Baldwin. Washington, D. C.: John Byrne & Co. 1901. pp. xxvii, 649. 8vo.

The original, of which this is apparently an excellent translation, is a NormanFrench manual of the time of Edward Í., founded mostly on Bracton's great

work of the preceding reign. It is in the form of commands put in the mouth of the King, and was perhaps compiled by his direction. The utterly inconclusive evidence as to the identity of the author is discussed in the introduction. However, it seems clear that the book was written after the Statutes De Donis (1285) and Quia Emptores (1290), but, as the editor remarks, before the effect of these statutes was known. Throughout the work the substantive law is expounded solely by describing the remedies - the natural method until a somewhat advanced stage of legal development is reached. The relative importance of various branches of the law at the end of the thirteenth century is roughly indicated by the fact that all the writer has to say directly about the organization of the courts, the duties of royal officers, and the law of crimes, appeals, torts, contracts, and persons is thrown into the first book. The next five consider the possessory actions concerning land, and the sixth deals with the writ of right. The work as we have it is obviously incomplete. From the general scheme we may, perhaps, judge that the sixth book was the last, but, owing to the unscientific arrangement, it seems impossible to guess how much of it is lost. The whole work will be interesting to all who have a slight acquaintance with legal history and value it either for its own sake or for the important light it throws on modern law. The translator has added many helpful notes and there is a good index. The introduction gives a short synopsis of the work and an estimate of Britton's position in the history of the law.

A STUDY OF the United STATES STEel CorporaTION IN ITS INDUSTRIAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS. By Horace L. Wilgus, Professor of Law in the University of Michigan. Chicago: Callaghan and Company. 1901. pp. xiii, 222.

8vo.

This book is made up of lectures delivered by Professor Wilgus to his class in Corporations, and makes very interesting reading at this time when the United States Steel Corporation is so prominently before the public. The author has collected many facts concerning the organization and the industrial position of this corporation, and although the telling necessarily involves many figures, yet it is done so simply and briefly that the reader's interest is sustained throughout. For those who desire more elaborate and technical details, there is a full collection of appendices. Throughout the account one is more and more impressed by the magnitude and extent of the enterprise, by its far-reaching influence and effect, and by the responsibility and power of those who direct its management.

To the sixty-five pages that are devoted to the story of the company, Professor Wilgus adds, in some forty pages, his views on the legality of corporate combinations. The treatment of this subject seems superficial and unsatisfactory and the results seem based on insufficient reasoning. The lack of careful analytical treatment leads the author to pass over easily the difference between the trust, which has often been declared illegal and which has so largely been discarded, and the modern corporation forming its combinations under state authority. So shortly does he dismiss this distinction that he fails to notice many important considerations that make the difference in form very important, although the objects may be the same. As examples of the extremely important results of the corporation form, the greater publicity of its affairs and of its condition and the more direct state control suggest themselves. Certainly the fact that this corporation has been held to be legal by the highest courts of the state under whose laws it was formed would alone seem to call for a more thorough treatment. See Trenton, etc., Co. v. Oliphant, 58 N. J. Eq. 507. On pages 76-81, the author points out the similarity of the United States Steel Corporation to the Standard Oil Trust by means of prolix parallel columns. This method is far from satisfactory, however, as by cleverness in wording and an enumeration of unimportant details, the important actual distinctions are skilfully passed over or hidden. Certainly it would be much more convincing to point out and deal directly and thoroughly with important essential features.

Again such extreme statements, as the one on pages 85-86, that a state cannot in any way confer upon any corporation any power to do what the laws of that state forbid, are so sweeping as to be misleading.

COMMERCIAL TRUSTS: THE GROWTH and Rights of Aggregated Capital. By John R. Dos Passos. New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1901. pp. viii, 137. 12mo.

This book, which is one of the "Questions of the Day" Series, gives us the argument delivered by Mr. Dos Passos, of the New York bar, before the Industrial Commission at Washington. The author's purpose at that time was primarily to protest against any hasty and ill considered legislation, and to urge in particular that there be no legislation to hamper the natural development of the laws of trade, or at least that any such legislation be postponed until the real dangers of industrial combinations are more apparent. He argues that these enormous business combinations are produced by inevitable economic tendencies, and that natural economic laws can so well deal with them that the alleged dangers are more imaginary than real. In concluding he urges that the effect of demagogism upon the development of trade is much more dangerous practically than is the corporate combination.

The only regret that the reader feels in laying aside the book is that the author did not devote himself to a longer, more thorough, and more detailed treatment. Whether one agrees with Mr. Dos Passos in his conclusions or not, he cannot but appreciate the value of so careful, moderate, and analytical a discussion. Several of the distinctions which the author draws are extremely valuable, as for example between the "trust," so often held illegal, and the modern corporate combination. Again, the difference in kind between a monopoly depending upon a state franchise and a monopoly that results from possessing the sources of supply of an article of commerce and the corre sponding difference in the treatment demanded are well pointed out.

Amid so much discussion that is political and extravagant, the book is a grateful relief and will doubtless produce substantial results.

CROMWELL ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, together with Four Essays on International Matters. By F. W. Payn. London: C. J. Clay & Sons. 1901. pp. vii, 167. 8vo.

In the four essays on international matters, the author discusses Neutral Trade in Arms and Ships, Intervention among States, The Burning of Boer Farms and The Bombardment of Coast Towns, and The Extent of Territorial Waters. On all four topics the author dissents from the views expressed by the late Mr. W. E. Hall, whose book on International Law is the modern English authority. In the course of his essays Mr. Payn curiously enough shifts his point of view. In his first essay, he asks for a total prohibition of trade in arms and ships by the citizens or subjects of a neutral, on the ground that such trade is a violation of moral duty, on which he says international law is based. On the other hand, in discussing the burning of Boer farms, forgetful of this supposed moral basis of international law, he condemns "the insane leniency of the military staff" in sparing any farms on the field of war, and advocates a systematic destruction of private property regardless of the use to which it is put. Continuing, he states his conviction that the bombardment of coast towns is a perfectly lawful incident of war, and that the right to bombard should be exercised.

There is much that is excellent in the essays, and some of the author's suggestions give food for thought; but the book is unfortunately marred by the cavalier and almost contemptuous treatment accorded by the author to views opposed to his own. Undoubtedly there is possibility for modification and improvement in some of the views he combats, but it is suggested that the

weakness of those views could be made apparent more surely by adducing evidence against them than by merely denying their tenableness.

CASES ON THE LAW OF DAMAGES. Selected by Floyd R. Mechem. Third Edition. St. Paul: West Publishing Co. 1902. pp. xvi, 758. 4to. This selection, comprising some two hundred and fifty cases, illustrates the application of the leading general principles of the law of Damages. The book is intended primarily for use in connection with the instruction of students. With this purpose in view, it would seem that the author might have made a more judicious selection of shorter cases to illustrate many points. So, too, the usefulness of the book in the hands of students would have been greatly enhanced had portions of the opinions not dealing with the subject of Damages been omitted. An ideal case-book for use in a law school requires more effort on the part of the author and less by the publisher. The absence of an index and head-notes to the cases renders the work of doubtful value to the practitioner.

A MANUAL OF THE PRINCIPLES OF EQUITY. By John Indemaur. Fifth Edition. London: Geo. Barber. 1902. pp. xxxii, 574. 8vo.

ESSAYS IN LEGAL ETHICS. By George W. Warvelle. Chicago: Callaghan & Co. 1902. pp. xiii, 234.

I 2mo.

INDEX TO CURRENT LEGAL ARTICLES.

Accomplices, Law of. Anon. 4 Bombay L. R. 7–16.

Antiquated Courts and Miscarriage of Justice. Chas. H. Hartshorne. 25 N. J. L. J.

37-41.

Appeal, Conference respecting Final Court of. Anon. I Can. L. Rev. 242-247.
Assignments vs. Winding-up of Limited Companies.

229-231.

Gideon Grant. I Can. L. Rev.

Bankers, Frauds on. Anon. 73 Bankers' Mag. (London) 1-6.
Bankruptcy-Effect on Judgments for Torts. Anon. 1 Md. L. Rev. 27-29.
Bankrupt, Rights of a. Anon. 112 Law T. (London) 364-365.
Bible in a Lawyer's Library, The. Joseph H. Merrill.

10 L. Stud. Help. 37-38.

Cairns, Lord. Three Great Judges of Our Own Times. Anon. 37 Law J. (London)

III-112.

Cape Treason Trials. Anon. 18 So. Afr. L. J. 164–177.

Chitty, Lord Justice. Anon. 112 Law T. (London) 383-385.

Claim Agent, Railway, Releases obtained by. Anon. I Can. L. Rev. 241.

Cockburn, Sir Alexander. Three Great Judges of Our Own Times. Anon. 37 Law J. (London) 111-112.

Code, Civil Procedure, Possession under. Anon. 4 Bombay L. R. 4-7.

Common Law Cases in 1901. Anon. I Can. L. Rev. 238-240.

Companies, Limited, Assignments vs. Winding-up of. Gideon Grant. I Can. L. Rev.

229-231.

Conditio Si Sine Liberis Decesserit, The. Anon. 18 So. Afr. L. J 177-180.

Constructive Notice in regard to Negotiable Instruments. Anon. 18 So. Afr. L. J 49-52.

Consular Courts. Anon. 10 L. Stud. Help. 39-40.