may at any time be called upon to deal with new and important questions involving a knowledge of medical science and its collateral branches, it seems to us almost equally necessary. It is impossible in the brief space of a book notice to give anything like an adequate view of so important a work. In our opinion, it should be found in every law library. It seems almost unnecessary to state that the book is admirably printed and bound. M. D. EWELL.

The Kent Law School of Chicago.

Digest of InsuRANCE CASES. By Jons A. FINCH. Indianapolis: The Rough Notes Co. 1893.

Our readers will perhaps recall the review of an carlier volume of this work which appeared in 31st Am. Law Reg. 545. That review was, on the whole, favorable. We then had before us the Digest for the year ending October 31, 1892. The volume in hand brings the work down to October 31, 1893. It is gratifying to be able to quote with reference to the later work the commendation which was bestowed upon the earlier. "Mr. FINCH has done his work well. The cases are carefully digested, the classification is good and the index is remarkably complete."

G. W. P.

The Editors also wish to acknowledge the receipt of two excellent manuals (1) "Vandegrift's United States Tariff," a handbook containing the completed schedules of the new tariff act, a full explanation of customs requirements and of the laws and regulations regarding drawback, etc., published by F. B. Vandegrift & Co., New York and Philadelphia.

And (2) "Jewett's Manual for Election Officers and Voters in the State of New York, containing the General Election Law and Town Meeting Law complete with Amendments to date. The provisions of the Penal Code, Laws and Constitution of the State are also inserted. The book is invaluable to the New York practitioner, and is calculated to save him

much time and trouble. It is published by Matthew Bender, Albany, N. Y.

The First Annual Report of the Territorial Bar Association of Utah has reached us, and contains an address upon the "Codification of the Law" by Mr. Hiles, and one by Mr. Murphy upon "The Use of the Writ of Injunction to Prevent Strikes."

The review of Part II of Professor Thayer's Cases on Constitutional Law will appear in connection with that of part III, which has just appeared.

RICHARD C. McMURTRIE.

Richard C. McMurtrie was born in Burlington County, New Jersey, on October 24, 1819. He died at Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, on the 2nd of October, 1894.

Mr. McMurtrie was admitted to the Bar at Philadelphia on the 12th of November, 1840.

His character as a man and as a lawyer was most admirable and noteworthy; and it would seem to be useful to recall some of the causes, in which during his long professional life he was engaged, as in this way his characteristics may be best illustrated. Some of these cases were of high public concern, and many of them involved private interests of the greatest personal and pecuniary importance.

It may not be generally known that Mr. McMurtric in his youth was engaged in a fugitive slave case. Quite carly in his career he was retained by a southern gentleman to enforce the return of a fugitive slave. It is believed that this professional engagement did not coincide with Mr. McMurtrie's personal feelings, but he conceived it to be his duty to represent his client in the assertion of his legal rights, and, although the case was one which was opposed to the then prevailing public sentiment in the jurisdiction, where the question was determined, he did not hesitate to lend his fullest powers to the support of the contention, which he felt his duty required him to advocate.

In the prime of his life Mr. McMurtrie was engaged in very many important causes, of which three, perhaps, deserve special mention. The first is that of the City of Philadelphia v. Collins, 68 Pa. 106. It was a case really of great public moment. The particular suit, it is true, was whether a canal boatman, who had been hindered in his navigation of the canal by the city's action in drawing off the water of the Schuylkill for the purpose of securing power to the Fairmount

Water Works, could recover damages for the detention of his boat; but the decision of this particular suit involved a consideration of the right of the city to take water of a navigable stream, not for the purpose simply of domestic use by riparian owners, but, under an agreement with the grantee of the State, in order to furnish power to pump the water into the reservoir of the water works. The contention against any such right on the city's part and for its liability for the wrong done was successfully supported by Mr. McMurtrie in the court below and (on a writ of error taken by the city) in the Supreme Court.

In the Credit Mobilier v. Commonwealth, 67 Pa. 233. Mr. McMurtric twice secured a reversal of the decision of the Dauphin County Court, which had been in favor of the Commonwealth-the second time with an expression of opinion that binding instructions should have been given in favor of his client. The question was whether the Commonwealth was entitled to tax profits earned in building a railroad, and which, under the terms of an assignment of the contract, were to be divided among parties, who were stockholders in the Credit Mobilier. It was held by the Supreme Court that the profits so made were not those of the corporation and not, therefore, taxable as such.

In Lewis, Trustee, v. United States, 92 U. S. 118, the treasury of the general government was saved an enormous sum by the efforts of Mr. McMurtric and his colleague in securing the priority given by the statute to debts due the United States, as against the estates of individual partners in the firm of Jay Cooke, McCullough & Company. To one of the departments of the government the importance of this victory cannot be overestimated; and Mr. McMurtrie's forensic efforts by which this success was mainly secured were such as to display in their clearest light his great knowledge of law and his unsurpassed ability as a close and logical reasoner.

The foregoing have been selected as those causes, which brought Mr. McMurtrie most prominently before the profession and the public at large, and they illustrate better, perhaps, than can be done in any other way certain qualities of

his personal and professional character. In one or the other of these causes he showed himself to be a man absolutely fearless in the discharge of duty, capable of a most accurate construction of apparently conflicting public and private rights, one able to handle with case the gravest questions between the State and its citizens, and, finally, one who had the capacity to determine, and enforce upon the attention of the court, the exact measure and just application of doctrines of the greatest importance both of equity and of commercial law, in a case requiring the most profound knowledge of both. The readers of this magazine may well recall Mr. McMurtric's contributions to its pages, and it is not necessary in this article to dwell upon his characteristics as a public-spirited citizen and a broad-minded and profound lawyer, which were displayed in these writings.

GEO. TUCKER BISPHAM.

The editors of the Americas Law Register and Review cannot refrain from taking this opportunity of expressing their sense of loss in the death of Mr. Richard C. McMurtrie. As Mr. Bispham has said, Mr. McMurtric was a great lawyer. Those of our readers who live far from the city where his life was spent, have only to read the articles which he published in this magazine to realize that fact, but it is of his personal and professional character, as seen from the standpoint of the younger members of the profession, of which we desire to speak. All young lawyers who came in contact with Mr. McMurtrie realized, in spite of a certain indifference in manner and bluntness of address, that he felt a sincere interest in the success of their professional labors, and in their acquisition of correct ideas on legal subjects. To those whom he knew were really interested in law as a science, he never failed to pay that compliment which is the highest of all compliments an old man can pay to a young one-the explaining of his own ideas and combatting the young man's opinion as if that opinion was as weighty as the decision of a learned judge. As a consequence of this characteristic, which was one of the