Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/579

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HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
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REVIEWS, 551 similarity of the two cases, and criticises the decisions allowing mutual actions to prize-fighters. Torts — Malicious Prosecution of a Civil Action. — ^e-A/, an action will lie for malicious prosecution of a civil suit without arrest of the person or attachment of property. Lipscomb v. Shofiier, 33 S. W. Rep. 818 (Tenn.), See Notes. Voluntary Associations— Resignation. — The defendants were the governing committee of an association formed to provide for the legal assistance of the members when necessary, and the plaintiff sought an injunction to prevent them from depriving him of membership. The plaintiff had offered his resignation, but had withdrawn it before any action was taken. No club rule on resignation existed. Held, (by Court of Appeal), assuming there was jurisdiction, the notification by the plaintiff when received by the committee was an election to resign, from which he could not retreat. Finch v. Oake, 12 The limes Law Reports, 156. The English courts do not recognize voluntary associations as such. Hector v. Flemyns^, 2 M. & W. 172. But they recognize that a relationship of some kind exists among the members by uniformly entertaining suits to prevent expulsions contrary to the club rules or the laws of the land. Laboiichere v. Earl of Wharncliffe, 13 Ch. D. 346; Bairdv. Wells, 44 Ch. U. 661, 670; and compare Rigby v. Connol, 14 Ch. D. 482, No authority on the precise point has been found, and the court mentions none. The decision, however, is probably correct, making the relation of a member to the organization like that of a party to a contract terminable on notice, or perhaps that of a continuing guarantor. Offordv. Davies, 12 C. B. N. s. 748. If a provision is made by the rules that a resignation must be accepted to be complete, that of course settles the matter, and possibly, in an organization distinctly social, that provision might be considered to be impliedly assented to by the members. REVIEWS. The Works of James Wilson. Edited by James DeWitt Andrews. Chicago : Callaghan & Co. 1896. 2 vols. pp. xlvi, v, 577, 623. The present edition in two large volumes, in clear type, with copious notes and index, is in striking contrast to the three modest little octavo volumes, containing merely the unembellished text of Mr. Justice Wilson's writings, which formed the original edition of 1804. The lectures which are collected in these volumes are those which the author prepared, and in great part delivered, at the University of Pennsylvania in the years 1790-91 and 1791-92. He had contemplated a three years' course; but his third series of lectures was never even prepared, so that his published work fails to cover the whole framework of the law. In addition to the lectures, there are included in this edition, as in the former one, his speech in defence of the Constitution before the Pennsylvania Convention (1787), his masterly argument on the power of Congress under the Articles of Confederation to incorporate the Bank of North America, together with one or two other speeches, and fragments of essays. Several speeches published in the original edition are justly deemed of insufficient impor- tance to justify reprinting. The value of his work is chiefly historical. The fact that his scheme of lectures was never completed, and the additional fact that his arrange- ment and treatment is colored by his training in the civil law, militate of course against its use as a text-book. Its historical value lies chiefly in the author's attitude on certain constitutional questions. He anticipated by many years the conclusions reached by the United States Supreme Court as to the nature of a grant of land and of a corporate charter, and, what is most to his credit, he had already taken the position, more than