Review of Periodicals through various courts, and finally to the Supreme Court of the United States. The most serious of unjustifiable delays which have occurred have occurred in this way. The act provided no possible method by which these appeals could be prevented, although it was apparent to every judge that they were of the most frivolous character. Congress, within the last two years, has remedied this in part, but, through its careless legislation, only in part; so that, by going through another channel, the criminal has the same opportunity as before. "A more striking illustration of this fact is in section 335 of the Congressional codifica tion of penal laws of the United States, ap proved last March, which section provides that all offenses which may be punished for a term exceeding one year shall be deemed felonies. This is a radical change in the law, as the great mass of crimes under the federal statutes were misdemeanors, and the difficul ties in the way of proceeding with the trial of felonies are very much greater than with trying misdemeanors."
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With regard to the general character of our judicial procedure, there are some localities, as the state of Massachusetts, for example, "where judicial justice is advanced as much as in any part of the world." Even Parlia ment has had to grant universal appeals, of late, in criminal trials. He concludes:— "It is not to be forgotten that it is not always wise to make litigation too easy. Somebody who was steamboating as a pas senger down the Mississippi river spoke to the captain of the steamer of the crooks and eddies. The captain replied: 'Stranger, you must thank the Lord for these; otherwise the whole country would have been out in the Gulf of Mexico centuries ago.' Nevertheless, while it is not wise to make litigation too facile, it is certain that there are existing evils as there always are in all human matters which can be remedied; and it is also more certain that there will be new evils springing up in lieu of these now existing unless vigi lance is constantly exercised in all directions."
Review of Periodicals jlrticles on Topics of Legal Science and Related Subjects Aerial Navigation. "The Law of Aerial Navigation." By Lyttleton Fox. North American Review, v. 190, p. 101 (July). "Should the state, by the exercise of the right of domain, take the air above a certain fixed height and devote it to the purposes of a public highway, this would seem to be a par tial solution of the problem of trespass. It would not be a complete solution, because as matters stand at present the aeroplanist, in order to make a landing, must arise and descend on a slanting course, and should this continue to be necessary trespasses would be committed while passing between the earth level and the upper air. The project of condemning the air, while in a sense novel, would be perfectly feasible from a legal stand point." Animals. "The Dog and the Potman: or 'Go it. Bob.' " By Sir Frederick Pollock. 25 Law Quarterly Review 317 (July). A reply to a recent article in 22 Harv. L. Rev. 465 (see 21 Green Bag 284, June). "The somewhat discursive judgments de livered by the five learned judges who took part in deciding Baker v. Snell (1908) 2 K. B.
352, 825, 77 L. J. K. B. 1090, in the Divisional Court and the Court of Appeal, have aroused Mr. Thomas Beven to a drastic utterance in the May number of the Harvard Law Review. Now Mr. Beven, as our readers know, is a specially learned and expert critic on every thing connected with the law of negligence, including the cases of 'extra-hazardous risk,' as Mr. Justice Holmes names them, in which negligence need not be proved. When such a critic attacks the Court of Appeal at large, and publishes his argument in a jurisdiction where English decisions, though constantly quoted with respect, are not binding authori ties, it is a matter not to be neglected." Capital Punishment. "Capital Punish ment." By Cosmo G. Romilly. Westminster Review, v. 172, no. 6, p. 96 (July). "Is it right to put men to death on circum stantial evidence, as the evidence in murder trials is nearly always of necessity? People say that innocent people are never put to death, but most people put too much trust in circumstantial evidence. In the GrantDuff memoirs there is a story told of Lord Denman, of which the following is the gist: He wished to send some wine one day to a friend older than himself, and gave instruc tions accordingly. The wine, however, was put into bottles which had had poison in
