plainant to restrain the defendant lessee of the house next door from carrying on the business of an undertaker upon the premises. "The parties," said the court, "had in mind ordinary normal people and meant to prohibit trades and business which would be offensive to people generally and would thus render the neighborhood to such people undesirable as a place of residence." It could not be doubted that the business of undertaking was within this definition. "Judges," said the court, "must be supposed to be acquainted with the ordinary sentiments, feelings and sensibilities of the people among whom they live," and hence, after the character of the business had been proved, the court "could have found as a matter of law that it was in violation of the restriction agreement." The contention, therefore, that the general clause in the covenant extended only to trades and kinds of business which are nuisances per se, could not be sustained. In view of the decision the decree is also interesting. It was ordered that the premises should not be used for holding autopsics, receiving, storing bodies, or holding funerals, but could be used to solicit orders and sell coffins by sample and the room called a "chapel" for a place of worship.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

(All legal works received before the first of the month will be reviewed in the issue of the month following. Books should be sent to William Draper Lewis, Esq., 738 Drexel Building, Philadelphia, Pa.)

THE BANKING QUESTION IN THE United States, Report of the meeting held on January 12, 1893, under the auspices of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Addresses by HORACE WHITE, MICHAEL D. Harter, A. B. HEPBURN, J. H. WALKER, HENRY BACON and W. L. TRENHOLM. Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1894.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL Conference for GooD CITY Gov. ERNMENT, held at Philadelphia, January 25 and 26, 1894, together with a Bibliography of Municipal Government and Reform and a Brief Statement Concerning the Objects and Methods of Municipal Reform Organizations in the United States. Philadelphia: Muni

cipal League, 1894.

THE ANNUAL ON THE Law of REAL PROPERTY. Edited by T. E. and F. E BALLARD. Vol. II, 1893. Crawfordsville, Ind.: The Ballard Publishing Co., 1893.

A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF PARTNERSHIP. BY THEOPHILUS ParSONS, LL.D. Fourth Edition. Revised and enlarged. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1893.

A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF Building and Buildings, especially referring to Building Contracts, Leases, Easements and Liens, containing also Various Forms Useful in Building Operations, a Glossary of Words and Terms commonly used by Builders and Artisans, and a Digest of the Leading Decisions on Building Contracts and Leases in the United States. By A. PARLETT LLOYD. Second Edition. Revised and cularged. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894.

A TREATISE ON The Law of MoRTGAGES ON PERSONAL PROPERTY. By LEONARD A. JONES. Fourth Edition. Revised and enlarged. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1894.

THE LAWS AND JURISPRUDENCE OF England and AMERICA, being a series of lectures delivered before Yale University. By JOHN F. DILLON, LL.D. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1894.

REMEDIES AND Remedial RighTS BY THE CIVIL ACTION, ACCORDING TO THE REFORMED AMERICAN PROCEDURE. A treatise adapted to use in all the States and Territories where that system prevails. By JOHN NORTON POMEROY, LL.D. Third Edition. Edited by JOHN NORTON POMEROY, JR., A. M. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1894.

AMERICAN RAILroad and Corporation REPORTS, being a Collection of the Current Decisions of the Courts of Last Resort in the United States pertaining to the Law of Railroads, Private and Municipal Corporations, including the Law of Insurance, Banking, Carriers, Telegraph and Telephone Companies, Building and Loan Associations, etc. Edited and annotated by JOHN LEWIS. Vol. VII. Chicago: E. B. Myers & Co., 1893.

CASES ON CONSTITUTIONAL LAW with Notes. Part I by JAMES BRADLEY THAYER, LL.D., Weld Professor of Law at Harvard University. Cambridge: Charles W. Sever, 1894. (Reviewed in this number.)

BOOK REVIEWS.

A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF QUASI CONTRACTS. By W. A. KEENER, Dean of the Law Faculty of Columbia College. New York: Baker, Voorhis & Co. 1893.

Professor KEENER has made a very valuable addition to the list of really scientific text books. The subject of which he treats is obscure, not so much from its inherent difficulties, but from the manner in which the subject has been treated from the earliest times by every court which administers the English system of law. Professor KEENER has endeavored to bring order out of chaos and has been most successful.

His first chapter dealing with the nature and scope of the obligation cannot but impress the reader at the outset with this idea. In all the cases he fails to find more than two opinions one in Pennsylvania by LOWRIE, C. J., the other an English opinion by Mr. Lord Justice LINDLEY, in which the obligation of Quasi Contract is regarded as deriving its original from anything like the same source to which he himself attributes it. The accepted legal name for such obligations, contracts implied by law, he rejects, and not only rejects but proves to be utterly erroneous. All such so-called implied contracts and many which scarcely fall under that head he groups together within that class of obligation now recognized as those of Quasi Contracts, which, as he shows, differ from contracts in that the obligation is imposed by the law entirely regardless of that consent of the parties, which is the very vital principle and essence of the true contract and from torts, in that the obligation is positive, not negative; to do justice and right, not merely to refrain from wrong.

To bring the myriad of cases, all decided upon the fiction of a contract implied by law, often in the very teeth of the true state of affairs, within the broad and scientific principles which govern the true Quasi Contract is no light task, but Professor KEENER accomplishes it in a clear and convincing manner.

There is often, of course, the difficulty arising from the mode of thought pursued by the courts, often Professor KEENER'S principles are fully borne out by the decision of the cases but not by the reasoning upon which the decision is based.

It will excite surprise that the result of the cases decided upon so different a principle, a mere legal fiction, should coincide so nearly with the author's conclusions based upon a rational following out of the Quasi Contractual relation.

Naturally, in some of the cases difficulitics arise, but in the main the book is not only an admirable treatise of what the law should be but also a clear exposition of what the law is, however bad the author may sometimes consider the foundation.

The book is an admirable specimen and product of modern legal thought, the tendency of which is to systematize and reconcile the conflicting and often fanciful theories of the ancient law upon a broad, scientific and rational basis, and it is impossible to doubt that it will have a great influence upon the mind of all those who may read it, and will serve to clarify the obscurities of a hitherto difficult subject.

The remaining chapters treat of the various separate divisions of the subject, as follows:

Chapter II. Recovery of money paid under mistake. III. Waiver of tort, which chapter is perhaps the best illustration of the author's methods. Nothing could be more logical, clear and convincing than the manner in which the law is stated, the cases in the main bear out his position, and yet but very few show any recognition of the underlying principles which he so clearly states. IV. Rights of a plaintiff in default under a contract. V. Obligations of a defendant in default under a contract. VI and VII. Recovery for benefits conferred. (VI.) By request in absence of contract. (VII.) Without request. VIII. Recovery for improvements made upon land without request. IX. Money paid to use of defendant. X. Money paid under compulsion of law. XI. Money paid to defendant under duress.

The form of the book is capital, the marginal headings are