Congress. Even now the most celebrated citizen of Boston is a bruiser, who in ten years has made half a million dollars and squandered it in riotous living, and who has whipped his wife and every man who has opposed him save one. Somewhere out West recently John Fiske was introduced as " the second man from Boston. There can be no doubt who was the first in the introducer's mind, nor that he would have had the larger audience. In the city of Buffalo, where we are writing, nearly all the leading news papers have a daily department devoted to matters pertaining to the prize-ring, and the "sports" are raising heaven and earth (and of course the other place) in the endeavor to bring the next great " mill" here, promising to erect for it a $15,000 building, capable of accommodating 30,000 spectators, and to "hang up a purse" of 575,000. It would take a long time to raise that amount of money from admission fees in the same city for any good and decent purpose, such as literature, music, education, or religion, and this is a good and decent city; and yet it would proba bly be a paying adventure to offer two stalwart ruffians, one of whom has just served a term on the treadmill for wantonly nearly killing a weak old man, 875,000 for conducting a contest which it is conceded that no respectable woman should or could witness! Now, what is the attraction? Is it solely the bruising? We think not, although that counts for much in gratifying a passion of mankind which has sought vent in gladiatorial shows, bull-fights, bear-baitings, and student duels. But the attendant gambling has much to do with it. If prize-fighting could be disso ciated from betting, the public interest in it would seriously decline. Gaming, in our opinion, is, next to intemperance, the most dangerous vice that threat ens this country, and the most demoralizing. At a late prize-fight in Buffalo one of the animals knocked out the other in six seconds from the start! Hun dreds of people had paid large sums to see the sport, and how disappointed they were! As for us we "chortled in our joy." So may it ever be! Possibly the brutal sport will decline, like war, the more " sci entific " it becomes. But to return to our initial muttons. There are some newspapers which do not publish accounts of prize-fights, — " The Tribune " ot New York, we believe, for one, — and they deserve praise tor the costly self-denial.
BOOK. REVIEWS. — The most difficult thing a legal editor ever undertakes is the review of a law-book. Of course it is impossible that he should ever read any law-book through for the purpose, and it is not expected that he should do so. Herein his duty is different from that of a reviewer of literature. A German critic recently fell into ridicule for saying that Mr. Aldrich's " ' Queen of Sheba ' is like his other
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poems; " and Mr. Lang shares the ridicule for trying to excuse him, and disclosing in the attempt that he did not know that the work is prose! Almost every law-book has some virtues often peculiar to itself, and rarely is a book so bad as not to deserve some degree of commendation And yet who can doubt that there are more legal text-books published than are fairly necessary? Reviewers are very apt to con ceive that they must find some fault. Of course they ought if the fault is serious. But in the desire to do this without the labor necessary to detect specific fault, they are apt to make a general objection not based on any fault. For example, a reviewer might blame Judge Dillon for treating the subject of Muni cipal Corporations independently, and regret that he had not written a general work on Corporations. This is a very safe kind of criticism, — to reprimand the author for not having written on a different subject. It would be quite in order to blame Mr. Aldrich for not having put the - Queen of Sheba " in rhyme. Another stock criticism is on the omission of some case in some second or third-rate State, and announced while the book was in press. " A little industry would have enabled the author to present the last authority on this much-mooted point " is the formula in that case made and provided. Even if the case was too late, the sting of the reviewer is not diminished by the remark : " Possibly, however, it was too late, which is much to be regretted." The reader carries away a vague impression that the author was slothful because he did not learn of the pending case, and ask the judges how they were going to decide it. Again, if the author professes to state only a common-law rule, it is sagacious to remind him that " this has been changed for many years by statute in Oregon, Wyoming, and Utah, and there is grave doubt whether the rule in question is not very unjust and absurd." The author may safely be blamed for citing too few cases or too many; for putting extracts from opinions into the text or into the foot-notes; for making his index too bare or unnecessarily prolix; etc. If the critic cannot discover any other fault without too much labor, this is a sure ground : •' There are some serious and misleading misprints; for example, Doe v. Roe, ID Cowen, 136. is cited as on page 137, and the parties are reversed. If there are many wrong citations like this, it must seriously detract from the value of the work." Although it is not expected that the reviewer should critically read the book, yet it is well for him to read it with sufficient care to discrimi nate between what is original with the author and what is professedly quoted, and not to censure the author for the opinions of others. A failure to do this brought into deserved ridicule a certain not very prominent or authoritative college law review very recently, but that was the only case of the kind that ever came to our notice. Thçre are certain things
