RAILWAY INJURIES, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THOSE OF THE BACK AND NERVOUS SYSTEM IN THEIR MEDICO·LEGAL AND CLINICAL ASPECTS. BY HERBERT W. PAGE, M.A. (Reprinted from Wood's Medical and Surgical Monographs.) New York: William Wood & Co., 1892.

The above-named work is one well known to both the legal and medical professions and its merits are such as to need no commendation at our hands. To one investigating a case simply of “ railway spine" it is indispensable.

MARSHALL D. EWELL,

The Kent Law School of Chicago.

THE AMERICAN DIGEST (Annual, 1893). Prepared and edited by the Editorial Staff of the National Reporter System. St. Paul, Minnesota: West Publishing Co., 1893.

The Digest of the West Publishing Company is too well known by the profession, and its great usefulness has been too often illustrated to the thousands of lawyers who possess it to need any commendation from us. The volume before us, containing more than three thousand pages, is what it pretends to be, a complete digest of all the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, all the United States Circuit and District Courts, the Courts of Last Resort of all the States and Territories and the Intermediate Courts of New York State, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Colorado, besides the United States Court of Claims and the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The arrangement, the system of cross-reference, etc., is excellent. Nothing seems to have been omitted which could aid the rapid finding of cases. One cannot but admire the organization and system which in the short space of six weeks edited and printed such an enormous tome. There is only one thing which the possessor of a series of these annuals will need as time goes on, and this want will undoubtedly be supplied by the enterprising company which has done so much for the profession. Many of the cases are reported in the National Reporter System long before they appear in the official reports. As a necessity, therefore, the reference to the official reports is frequently omitted, because the case is not yet reported. In a few years, however, one looking over the Digest will need a supplement containing the official citations of those cases reported in previous numbers of the Annual, aud to which no official citation is attached.

To us this Digest is invaluable. It has the great merit-the greatest, perhapa, which any book can have-of doing well what it starts out

to do.

W. D. L.

THE LAW OF WILLS. By JOHN B. CASSODAY, LL.D. Being a series of lectures on the subject of "Wills" delivered before the College of Law in the University of Wisconsin. St. Paul, Minn.: West Publishing Co., 1893.

This book, as the explanation accompanying its title indicates, is an elementary work more particularly for the use of students at law. It is not an ambitious work, and does not rank with the larger text-books upon the same subject, but as a ground-plan for future development in the same line it is admirable.

It is conveniently divided into seven chapters, three of them, or one-third of the volume, being devoted to the execution of wills-certainly an over-goodly portion. Numerous cases to date are cited, and plenty of space given to them, and the paragraphs and annotations are arranged in such a plain and machine-like manner as to make the work an easy reference manual when the reader is utilizing time.

To the student it is a zealous aid in making the way clear, and to the lawyer a compact collection of recent authorities.

A. D. I..

THE PRINCIPLES OF EQUITY.

A TREATISE ON THE SYSTEM OF JUSTICE ADMINISTERED in Courts of ChancERY. BY GEO. TUCKER BISPHAM, Professor of Equity Jurisprudence in the University of Pennsylvania. Fifth edition. Philadelphia: Kay & Brother, 1893.

The changes in equity jurisprudence that are taking place from day to day are strikingly brought to mind by this new edition of Professor BISPHAM'S excellent text-book. The fourth edition is but six years old when a fifth is required, with about fifteen hundred new cases and important revisions in the text. The principal changes, in the author's own words, are made in the chapters that treat of Precatory Trusts, Charities, Gifts Causa Mortis, Mistake of Law, Deceit and Mandatory Injunctions.

That the author intends his work to keep pace with the productive and creative faculty of equity jurisprudence is shown by the fact that he has not hesitated to discard some familiar illustrative cases from the text and to replace them by newer decisions which are better exponents of the changes which have taken place in recent years.

Any lengthened criticism of a work so well known, one in fact which has taken its place as a standard text-book in the country, would be idle. It will be sufficient to say that in this edition we recognize the author's well-known reserve and caution in the treatment of the cases which seem to indorse a departure from old standards; and the new matter, of which there is considerable, is stated with that clearness and simplicity which is, indeed, the chief charm of his style. We might add that this work on equity fills a unique position among text-books, for the practicing attor. ney as well as the student can read it with both pleasure and profit.

THE INFRINGEMEnt of PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS, NOT INCLUDING DESIGNS. BY THOS. B. HALL, of the Cleveland Bar. Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1893. 275 pages.

This work is practically a digest of all reported Supreme Court decisions relating to patents for inventions, to the end of October Terin, 1892, of the Supreme Court. There has never been a complete digest of these decisions in a single volume, and the work will therefore commend itself very favorably to the patent practitioner. The sections of the various heads are in effect, if not in fact, a reproduction or reprint of the syllabi of the reported cases, and the reference to the page and volume where reported is contained in a foot note on each page. The foot note references are reproduced at the end of the book as a table of cases in addition to a table of contents and index of the subject matters of the decisions. A valuable feature of the table of cases at the end of the book is the classification of them under the various heads and subdivisions as stated in the table of contents. The matter is divided and classified under four general heads, License, Identity of Invention, Validity of Patent and Damages. The volume presents a digest of the Supreme Court cases in the most convenient form in which they have ever been issued, and will be a valuable addition to the working library of every patent lawyer, lightening his labors by the ease and facility with which, by its aid, he may make citations of authorities on any particular question relating to patents for inventions.

HECTOR T. FENTON.

BANK COLLECTIONS. By ALBERT S. BOLLES. New York: Homans' Publishing Company, 1893.

While the title of the above work fully indicates its character and importance, it may be better to indicate by a few headings of chapters and paragraphs the whole scope of the treatise upon this practical business portion of the mercantile law. The first two chapters treat of the ownership of paper endorsed either specially or in blank and deposited for collection, and it is only just to compliment the author as to this part of his work upon the methodical weeding out of the manifold and embarrassing cases upon these points-cases not so important in themselves, and only valuable to the ordinary hunter after precedents of similar facts and circumstances. In fact, Mr. BOLLES has accomplished the delicate task of clearly stating the principles of the law without clogging the book with useless citations of well-established decisions— the impedimenta of so many so-called legal treatises.

Chapter III, without possessing the fault of being a mere digest, contains a very comprehensive account of the law and mode of making collections and the attendant details; and Chapter VI is especially timely in its discussion of the law upon the reception of deposits by a bank when in an insolvent condition. In Chapter VIII, which treats of mistake and forgery, the author has presented an important list of cases

to date and stated the facts of each in a succinct manner, carefully sifting the valuable decisions from those which are of small importance.

The whole book shows good work upon the subject matter treated of and will be of valuable service to the working lawyer as well as to the thinking banker in the lines laid down therein.

We could wish that Mr. BOLLRS' work had been presented in a more correct and attractive form from the point of view of typography, but there is no doubt but that the treatise will be a handy and serviceable addition to the library of the practitioner in the more active litigation with which it deals.

A. D. L.

THE

AMERICAN LAW REGISTER

AND

REVIEW.

FEBRUARY, 1894.

THE NATURAL USE OF LAND.

BY JOHN Marshall Gest, Esq.

PART II.

We now resume the consideration of Rylands v. Fletcher with which the last paper closed.

In this case the defendant built a reservoir upon his premises in order to obtain a supply of water for his mill. In the course of the construction of the reservoir five old shafts running vertically downward were discovered. Three at least were timbered, and all were filled with soil such as surrounded them. The arbitrator who found the facts, reported that neither the defendants nor any of their employes knew or suspected that these shafts had originally been made for the purpose of mining the coal under the land on which they' built their reservoir. It may be noted in passing, that it seems rather strange that the use once made of these shafts should not have been even suspected in a place like Lancashire, as men do not ordinarily dig deep holes in the ground and timber the sides for no purpose save to fill them up again. However, the case as stated, finds that the defendants, personally, had no knowledge or suspicion of the purpose for which these shafts had been sunk; and further, what is certainly more reasonable,