present time; and by a faithful adherence to this idea we consider that the twelve-vol ume scheme should meet most practical re quirements." In response to my inquiries regarding patrons and contributors, the editor's face brightened as he said, " I have been marvelously successful in securing the most influ ential and valuable support. The Lord Chancellor, Lord Halsbury, has most kindly agreed to accept our dedication, while Lord Justice Lindley, Sir Edward Fry, and many other distinguished men, have intimated their sympathetic interest in the progress of the enterprise. Sir Edward Fry, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir Win. Anson, and Sir Howard Elphinstone are giving my pages the cachet of their contributions, and even already I have obtained promises of assistance from a number of the leading specialists. I should perhaps have mentioned that we are resolved so far as possible to have each article done by a man qualified for the task by study or experience. Thus Mr. Crump, Q. C, editor of the ' Law Times ' has agreed to write
Mr. Thomas Snow the principal editor of our ' Annual Practice,' will write on Procedure; Mr. Blake Odgers, Q. C, upon Libel and Slander, and Pleading; Mr. Lewis Edmunds, Q. C, upon Patents; and a host of well known names are in like manner down on my list of contributors." "Will you write much yourself, Mr. Renton? " I queried.
"Not a very great deal," replied the edi tor. " I shall write the article Arbitration, for instance, a subject I have had occasion to know a good deal about, and in any case the article Lunacy. I am now seeing through the press the proof-sheets of a comprehen sive treatise on the Law of Lunacy upon which I have spent the labor of several years, and I should therefore naturally elect to con tribute any article on the subject." As to circulation the editor expressed himself in most sanguine terms. The pub lishers have been, from many indications, encouraged to expect a widely extended professional favor; indeed, as Mr. Wood Renton put it, everything will turn upon the way in which the work is done. The scheme in itself is a splendid one, and if skillfully carried out almost every lawyer in England and numbers elsewhere will desire to have a copy of the new abridgment. Before I bowed myself out I ventured to hint that it was a big piece of work for so young a man to superintend, and faltered out something about experience and so forth. The subject of the portrait which heads this article smiled, and modestly aquicsced in the general drift of my observations. "However," he continued, " when I was edi tor of the ' Law Journal ' I learned a good deal about the characteristics and habits of the legal contributor, and whenever my own judgment falters I can rely on the willing counsel of many a learned friend.
