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As a large majority of the decisions of Courts of last resort are affirmances it seems quite apparent that careful application of these four rules would make a very considerable reduction in the number of opinions written.

If it be objected that subdivision four is too vague and indefinite to be of any value, I have to admit that the efficiency of this subdivision will depend entirely on the personal views of the judges administering it. In my own opinion, the principles which should be applied in determining whether the question is "of such exceptional importance as to demand treatment" are substantially as follows: A question demands treatment if it is necessary in deciding it to (a) construe a provision of constitutional or statutory law or modify a previous construction thereof; (b) announce a new or modify an existing principle of law or settle a question on which the authorities in the jurisdiction conflict; (3) deter mine a question of such general importance to the public at large as to make its authoritative settlement as apparent public duty.

In cases of reversal it is clear that there must generally be an opinion written. This is especially true where there must be a new trial or further proceedings taken in the trial Court. In cases of reversal on questions of fact, however, an opinion is only needed for the information of the parties or the trial Court and is absolutely valueless as a precedent. In all such cases it seems that it would be well to prohibit its publication in the reports. I confess that the question of how such an opinion can be kept away from the pernicious activity of private reporting systems is a very difficult one.'

The same issue contains an Article by Mr. Roscoe Pound, professor of law in Harvard University, entitled Regulation of judicial procedure by Rules of Court in which he explains the operation of this method, in places where it has been adopted, and expounds the reasons which lead most students of procedure to prefer it, and discusses the objections urged against it.

The American Law Review. for September-October has a long and really learned Article under the curious titleThe cunning livery, by Mr. Wm. II. Field, in which the development in English law of remedies for loss sustained through fraud of the defendant is traced. There are also Articles on Copyright in Canada, by Mr. Herbert A. Howell,

of Washington, D.C., and on Executive Legislature and Judiciary in pardon by Mr. James D. Barnett, of the University of Oregon, amongst others is this number.

We have also received The Insurance Law Journal (New York) for October, the New Jersey Law Journal for October, Bench and Bar (New York) for September, Case and Comment (Rochester, N.Y.) for October, and our exchanges from British India.

NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.

The Criminal Code of Canada and The Canada Evidence Act, as amended to date, with Commentaries, Annotations, Forms, etc., etc., by James Crankshaw, B.C.I., K.C., of Montreal; 4th ed.: Carswell Co., Ltd., Toronto: 1915. PP. 1531. Net price: Ordinary paper, $15; thin paper, $17.

Mr. James Crankshaw's Criminal Code of Canada scarcely needs any commendation at our hands. It has for long been generally acknowledged by the profession to be the best work on the subject. The present edition, which is beautifully printed on thin Indian paper, contains all the amendments and additions to the Criminal Code, made in and since 1910, including those of the recent Criminal Code Amendment Act, 1915. Mr. Crankshaw has been assisted in its production by his son, Mr. James Crankshaw; junior, barrister-at-law. In the Appendix the following Dominion Statutes are printed with annotations: The Imperial Criminal Evidence Act; the Imperial Criminal Appeal Act, 1907; the Imperial Foreign Enlistment Act; the Canadian Adulteration Act; the Dairy Industry Act; the Meat and Canned Foods Act; the Alien Labour Act; the Lord's Day Act; the Money Lenders Act; the Identification of Criminals Act; the Ticket of Leave Act; the Fugitive Offenders Act; the Extradition Act; the Gold and Silver Marking Act and the Yukon Act, so far as it relates to criminal matters also the Extradition Conventions with the United States, and a list of Great Britain's other Extradition Treaties. We can heartily commend this new edition of Mr. Crankshaw's book to the profession throughout Canada.

The Modern Lawsuit: Some of its Steps: A Message to the Profession, by a Barrister of Osgoode Hall: Carswell Company, Ltd., Toronto; Sweet and Maxwell, Limited, London. 1915: 202 pp. Net price, $1.

This little book takes us for a pleasant ramble through the past and present fields of legal procedure. As the title indicates, it is intended not so much as a practical guide to the practitioner, as it is as a message to the profession. As the author says in his preface:

"As is well known the Victorian era opened upon the old system with its absurd technicalities and fictions and forms, and closing left the law and its procedure under the new system whose methods, though some degrees below perfect, are founded on common sense and better fitted to promote justice and a popular sense of fair play among litigants. The philosophy of The Modern Lawsuit is that a stagnant system of jurisprudence, like any other stagnant system, is a failure. Its moral is to teach the need of still further law reform to the end that law procedure shall be simplified and levelled to the average intelligence, that whatever unwarranted cost and delay and fiction and technicality survive in the law suit of to-day shall be still further pruned and cut down to the limit of good sense and equal rights to all.”

Again the author says (p. 21):

"The plan of this treatise is not, of course, to invite the profession's attention to each and every step of either a criminal case or a civil cause; but rather to consider certain of the most striking features finding their place under the old practice as distinct from the incidents of the modern trial."

Most lawyers we think will find pleasure and profit in turning over the pages of this little book. We cannot, however, accede to all the author's theories. For example we don't think the last word of modern research connects our jury with wager of law, and the compurgators, as seems to be done at p. 22; but derives it from the Frankish inquest, through the jurata: nor do we think that the object of the peine forte et dure was to extract a confession, as is suggested at p. 29, but simply to compel the accused to put himself on the country. The jurata as distinguished from trial under one of the regular assizes of inquest, having originated in the consent of the parties, the idea prevailed that no one could be tried by a jury without his consent. But trial by battle

never lay against the Crown, and after the abolition of the ordeals, there was no way of trying a man accused of a crime, on the presentment of a grand jury, except by a petty jury. Hence the peine forte et dure.

Latin for Lawyers, containing (I.) A course in Latin, with legal maxims and phrases as a basis of instruction; (II.) A collec tion of over one thousand Latin maxims, with English translations, explanatory notes, and cross-references; and (III.) a Vocabulary of the Latin words: Sweet and Maxwell, Limited, London, Eng.; The Carswell Co., Ltd., Toronto: 1915: Pp. 300. Net price, $2.

The old complaint used to be that schools and Universities turned out scholars, after many years and much expense, with little Latin and no Greek? Now that so many institutions of so-called higher learning turn out men with no real knowledge even of Latin, this book is likely to find a ready welcome among the legal fraternity. Law is almost, if not quite, the only field of practical work, in which Latin still finds a habitat, and no action of ejectment will ever succeed in quite evicting it.

Crustula Juris, being a collection of leading cases on contract done into verse by Mary E. Fletcher and Bernard Wallace Russell, with a preface by Humphrey Mellish, K.C., and introduction by Mr. Justice Russell: The Carswell Co., Ltd., Toronto. Net price, $1.

We can most heartily recommend this little book, not only to all students-at-law, and to all students of law, but also to the public at large on account of its object. It appears that the whole of the author's and publishers' profits are to be given in aid of the children rescued from the ruins of Ypres, and other Flemish towns. No charity could be more appealing, but in truth there will be no charity on the part of those who buy it, for they will get their full money's worth. The authors are following in the footsteps of no less a legal luminary than Sir Frederick Pollock in thus combining rhyme with reason. The legal accuracy throughout is as remarkable as the cleverness of the versification. A real knowledge of many important points of case law can be obtained. from the careful study of it. We set out on its perusal in the hope that we could pick out the best thing in the book, but find it impossible where all are so good. We therefore

select the following for quotation merely because it is one of the shortest:

Matthews v. Baxter, L. R. 8 Ex. 132.

John Barleycorn deserves attention,
That monster of the Deil's invention,
So unremittingly bombarded;

In contracts how he is regarded?

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Got "stewed" far worse than he intended,

Bill's spirits feeling all sublime,

His bank account seemed some distended.

Now, all his life one vain ambition,

Held Bill, that grew with every "skate on,"
And itched and chafed like all perdition,
To take a piece of real estate on.

And on this last most merry spree

Bill's brains got into such a ruction,

They took him off in merry glee

To bid some in at Matthew's auction.

He sobered, still with his desire,

And found the booze had gratified it,

And since the fat was in the fire,

Went right down town and ratified it.

We need not say what came to pass,
When Bill had not a cent for spending,

Suffice, they sued the silly ass,

And he, poor fool, began defending.

Bill pleaded that as he was drunk

When buying, he had bought insanely,

And as of liquor he had stunk,

That Matthews must have known it plainly.

About as good as most defences,

If that described the whole transaction,

For when one acts without his senses

The contract's open to retraction.

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