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Human affairs, litigation in regard to this wonderful and mysterious power must necessarily increase. It is perhaps not an unsafe prediction that at the end of the next twenty-five years, nearly one-half of the decided cases will involve an application of legal principles to the determination of some vexatious questions relating to this agency. As electricity has revolutionized existing material conditions whenever introduced, so it may require in its workings the application of legal principles other than those which are now applied in similar cases. The importance, therefore, of keeping in touch with the growth and development of the law of electricity can hardly be underestimated. The collection of all important electrical cases and publication in one series of books to be known as American Electrical Cases will greatly facilitate both the lawyer and the electrician in making and keeping themselves up with the decisions relating to this important agency.

The first volume of the proposed series contains one hundred and fifty-five complete reports of decided cases, and, in notes, memoranda of over thirty additional cases decided between the years 1873 and 1885. Each case is followed by a short annotation, varying in length from one line to a page and a half, which contains a list of the cases in the volume in which the particular case is cited, cross references to other cases involving a discussion of similar principles and references to earlier cases with short digests of some of the leading ones. About seven pages of the book are devoted to a "general note" which contains short digests of cases decided during the period covered by the volume, but which for various reasons were not selected for reprinting in full. At the end of the book there is a full index, under each heading of which are collected short digests of all the cases relating to the subject indicated. The index, therefore, consists practically of a collection of short annotations under appropriate headings.

As nearly all of the cases in Volume I relate to telegraph companies, the book can hardly be said to present anything new to the profession, this subject being well covered by the various works on telegraph companies. The succeeding volumes will doubtless contain much that is new, and with the

increase in litigation in this subject should prove useful and convenient aids to the profession.

EDWARD BROOKS, JR.

By

NEW ROADS AND ROAD LAWS IN THE UNITED STATES.
ROY STONE, Vice-President National League for Good
Roads, etc. New York: D. Van Nostrand Co. 1894.

Although this book does not, strictly speaking, belong to the domain of legal literature, it will nevertheless be read with profit by all lawyers interested in the broad and important subject of road improvement. The wretched roads which disgrace so many sections of the country are evils which must be corrected not only by the adoption of scientific methods of construction, but also by radical changes in the antiquated road laws and in the system of public expenditure. Mr. Stone devotes the greater part of his work to a description of the kinds of roads suitable for various localities, etc., and gives us some very encouraging information as to the practical value resulting to the farmer by the laying of smooth, hard surfaces without the accompaniment of increased taxation. The appendix contains the substance of the recently enacted road laws of sixteen states, as well as the schemes for much needed legislation and plans for state aid in several important states. It is to be regretted, however, that the author did not dwell upon the incomplete and unpractical features of the old road laws (still in force, alas, in too many states), and contrast them with the new provisions.

The book is exceedingly well turned out. The illustrations add much to the interest. W. S. E.

TABLES FOR ASCERTAINING PRESENT VALUE OF Vested and CONTINGENT RIGHTS OF DOWER, CURTESY, ANNUITIES AND OF OTHER LIFE ESTATES; DAMAGES FOR DEATH BY WRONGFUL ACT, ETC. Computed and Compiled by FLORIEN GIAUQUE, A. M., and HENRY B. MCCLURE, A. M. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co. 1894.

These tables, based chiefly upon the Carlisle Table of Mortality, appear to have been prepared with anxious care by the compilers, who represent themselves as having taken every precaution to prevent errors, whether in computation or in the printing. The profession will undoubtedly find this volume of great service in the solution of the complicated "present value problems," which so frequently arise in the domain of real property law, and also in the determination of troublesome questions relating to the true measure of damage for the premature termination of life by negligence or wrongful act. The volume contains Life and Annuity Tables, with rules for their use in respect of vested and contingent dower and curtesy rights and damages for injury, a death from another's wrongful act, negligence, etc.; the Bowditch Table, table of expectancy of life as shown by the Carlisle, the Combined Experience, the American Experience, the Thirty Officers' Experience, the Farr No. 3, and the Northampton Tables of Mortality, etc., etc. There is also a table and rule for ascertaining the present value of any sum at 2, 2, 3, 3, 4.4%, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 per cent. for any number of years from one to eighty, inclusive. This latter table is especially valuable. It is computed upon a compound interest basis and the formula used is 1-+= '~".

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In view of the number of decisions in favor of the admissibility of such tables as evidence in suits involving the questions to which they relate, the importance of having this volume at hand cannot readily be over estimated. The tables are printed in type that is admirably clear and the arrangement of the figures is in all respects satisfactory. G. W. P.

A LEGAL DOCUMENT OF BABYLONIA. By MORRIS JASTROW, Jr., Ph.D. From the "Oriental Studies" of the Oriental Club of Philadelphia. 1894.

In this little pamphlet Dr. JASTROW discusses a Legal Document. of Babylonia, dealing with the recission of an invalid contract of sale. The "Document" in question is

a little clay tablet owned by Mayer Sulzberger, Esq., of the Philadelphia Bar, and is said by Dr. JASTROW to be in an excellent state of preservation. Dr. JASTROW classifies the legal documents of Babylonia under four heads, which (if we may reduce them to the terms of modern legal parlance) correspond to (1) due bills and receipt; (2) bills of sale; (3) deeds, settlements and formal executory contracts; and (4) judicial records. He comments upon the value of these documents as containing important incidental evidence of manners and customs in ancient Babylonia; and he then translates the document in question and finds that it belongs to the fourth class. The date is fixed at 642 B. C. One Aplȧ affected to sell to Nurea real property over which he possessed no power of alienation. Nurea paid the considera tion and (it is assumed) entered into possession. A paternal uncle of the vendor's then asserted a title to the property and, upon restoration of the consideration to Nurea, the latter surrendered the deed to the claimant. All the parties being before the court complete justice seems to have been done by combining many of the features of ejectment, the action for money had, and received, and the common law fine. Dr. JASTROW's scholarly and suggestive comments upon the document in question and upon Babylonian documents in general will be read with great interest by those into whose hands this pamphlet comes.

G. W. P.

GREAT DISSENTING OPINIONS OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. A Paper Read at the 17th Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association (1894). By HAMPTON L. CARSON, of the Philadelphia Bar. Reprinted from the Transactions of the Association.

For his address to the Bar Association Mr. CARSON selected a subject as fortunate as it is unusual. Dissenting opinions are too generally looked upon as feeble remonstrances of stubborn members of the court against the decision of the majority, or as something, at all events, which is not the law,

hence does not concern the practitioner. The student, however, should no more overlook the opinion of the minority upon an important question than he should the argument of counsel for the losing side. But the dissenting opinio:s of the United States Supreme Court have, in several notable cases, an importance greater than to the student merely, for they have, as Mr. CARSON points out, become finally the settled law of the land. Only one entirely familiar with the history of our highest tribunal, with the careers of the men · who from time to time have composed it, and with the opinions they have delivered, as well as with the circumstances which influenced those opinions, could have presented in such a scholarly and critical manner the sketch of these great protests. History of a kind that is not elsewhere obtainable (unless it be from the same author's great work on " The History of the Supreme Court ") is contained in this little pamphlet. W. S. E.

AN ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY OF MEDICINE BIOLOGY AND ALLIED SCIENCES. BY GEORge M. Gould, A.M., M.D. Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown & Co.

This work consists of 1633 large octavo pages. From such examination as we have been able to give, it appears to have fulfilled all the promises made by the publishers concerning it. It contains a large number of new words and definitions from all the correlated sciences.

We notice among its editors the names of Dr. CHAS S. DOLLY and Dr. BURT G. WILDER, each of which is a sufficient guarantee of the accuracy of the departments under their charge. The work gives the pronunciation of every word and is profusely illustrated.

It has numerous useful tables, such, for example, as those of Surgical Operations, Tumors, Animal Parasites, Composition of Electrical Batterics, Pigments, etc., besides the usual Bacteriological, Chemical, and Anatomical Tables.

To the medical practitioner, such a book must be indispensable, and to the legal practitioner who, at the present day,

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