Reviews of Books has introduced a great deal of material that is interesting but not indispensable to his treat ise, in connection with his exposition of such subjects as the authority of various law re ports, the principles of legal relevancy, the conclusiveness of court decisions, and various other subjects. He has brought in much that belongs to substantive law rather than to the law of judicial procedure. The mingling of diversified subject-matters de tracts somewhat from logical clearness, and possibly presents the rules of interpretation in a more complicated aspect than was really necessary, but the adventitious material makes the book more encyclopedic as a work of reference. Attractive typography, clearness of arrangement, great wealth of quotation, painstaking research, and a good index, make the virtues of this volume outweigh any fancied shortcomings. The American prac titioner will read with pleasure and profit the sagacious observations here assembled of England's shrewdest judges. HAIGHT'S QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Questions and Answers for Bar Examination Review. By Charles S. Haight of the New York bar and Arthur M. Marsh of the Connecticut bar. 2d ed. Baker, Voorhis & Co., N. Y. Pp. lii, 530+index 55. ($4 tut.) HAIGHT'S review book for bar examina tions is a standard work of great useful ness and has been brought fully up to date by the publication of the second edition, now issued ten years after the work first appeared. The original edition has been carefully revised, and has also been enlarged by the preparation of questions and answers under new titles dealing with bankruptcy, domestic relations, and suretyship, and by the addition of several pages covering suretyship, perpetuities and restraints on alienation to the section on real property. The section on the New York code, one of the book's strong features, has been modified to conform to amendments passed since 1899. The argument of Associate Professor Albert Martin Kales of the Law School of North western University, in the May number of the Illinois Law Review, that law schools should employ the case method for the presentation of the law of their respective states rather than that of the country as a whole, is strongly rebutted, to our mind, by the purpose which underlies and justifies such a book as Haight's Questions and Answers. From it the student
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gets a perspective of the law as it exists in widely different jurisdictions of the United States, and therefore not only acquires knowl edge that may be useful later in active prac tice, but also conceives more clearly the principles that should govern the orderly growth of a scientific system of law. Besides being an admirable text-book, this is also a useful hand-book of legal principles and leading cases. Its lucidity of arrange ment enables any one to ascertain easily the common law principles and the extent to which they have been amended or added to in various parts of the country. Messrs. Haight and Marsh have prepared the new edition with skill and have also had the assistance of able experts. FABIAN ESSAYS Fabian Essays in Socialism. Edited by G. Bernard Shaw. Ball Publishing Co., Boston. Pp. xli, 201 and index. (50 cts. net.) FOR the benefit of those innocent of any dabbling in socialism, it may be ex plained that the "Fabian Essays" were origin ally lectures delivered in London in 1889 by members of the Fabian Society, which was organized in 1884 and first made its purposes and doctrines known in this book, of which over 30,000 copies were sold. The writers who achieved this remarkable vogue for their Utopian and unscientific opinions were G. Bernard Shaw, Sidney Webb, William Clarke, Sydney Olivier, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, and Hubert Bland, most of whom are still living. Mr. Shaw has written a new preface for this edition. He states that these essays 'are reprinted exactly as they appeared in 1889, "nothing being changed but the price." Had the essays been re written for the present work, they might have appealed more to bankers, lawyers and states men, but "they would have had much less charm for the young, and for the ordinary citizen who is in these matters an amateur." In Mr. Shaw's naive implication that the "Fabian Essays" may be juvenile and ama teurish there is possibly something like an apology for the appearance of this new edi tion. They will nevertheless be read with curiosity and amusement by the riper and more hardened of our age. Their publica tion now can hardly prove anything but stimulating to those who long to see social science rehabilitated and firmly established on solid bedrock.
