To the Michigan Law Rcvietv for January Amasa M. Eaton contributes a valuable arti cle, of some forty pages, on the history and practical operation of the Negotiable Instru ments Law, giving an outline of the growth of this act, and examining in considerable detail the objections raised to certain provis ions of the law by Professor J. B. Ames. The Negotiable Instruments Law—which, as Mr. Eaton says, "is not the product of hasty immature legislation, but is the slow product of an evolutionary process that has been go ing on for the last quarter of a century"—has been adopted in twenty-one States, one dis trict, and one territory. "It is remarkable," says Mr. Eaton, "how few cases have arisen under this law in the many States that have adopted it. I have found only forty-two, and of these, sixteen have arisen in New York, the great financial centre of the country." After a summary of these cases he adds: "It will be noticed not only how few cases have arisen under the Negotiable Instruments Law, but also how few of the cases have arisen in consequence of any defect in that law, and that very few cases have been car ried to the courts of last resort. Indeed, the wonder is that many of these cases were ever brought, for it is difficult to see how the re sult could have been otherwise than as was decided. . . . The conclusion we reach, up on a review of these cases, is that the general result is to increase the negotiability of nego tiable instruments, and this is certainly in the interest of commerce." VAN VECHTEN VEEDER contributes to the Columbia Law Review the second of his scholarly articles on "The History and Theory of the Law of Defamation." He says: The law with respect to written defamation has been from the beginning a comprehen sive doctrine. In theory its most vulnerable principle is the false basis of criminal libel. The criminal action was from the outset pro fessedly based upon the supposed tendency of the offence to create a breach of the peace. To the application of this principle is directly attributable the more extensive application
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of the criminal than of the civil action. . . . Nothing could be more absurd in itself, or more inconsistent with the analogies of the law, than to look beyond the immediate nature of an offence for the grounds of pun ishment. It is absurd in itself; for why not admit at once that the destruction of a man's reputation is a crime? Why deny to reputa tion a protection so largely afforded to every other possession? . . . Surely, then, the sanctity of reputation, not the danger to the peace, forms the real and only rational basis of the criminal action. The other view is a fiction, and is no more the real ground of punishment than many other fictitious principles which have been put for ward as the technical ground of judicial pro ceedings which unquestionably depend up on very different considerations. . . . The danger to the public peace from cer tain forms of defamation is still taken into account in the criminal code of some States, and it may be desirable that it should be so. But the real and fundamental basis for the sanctions of the criminal law is the sanctity of individual reputation. To insure its ade quate protection the criminal law must be at least coextensive with the civil remedy. The bankrupt libeller must not be suffered to en joy immunity; nor, on the other hand, should the opulent defamer, whether an individual or a corporation, be allowed to indulge in . insolence in proportion to his wealth. . . . The law with respect to slander leaves much to be desired. It is obvious that the class of slanders which arc most dreaded, which inflict the greatest amount of pain, which occur most frequently, and which are most likely to lead to breaches of the peace and other evils abhorred by the law, are not those imputations comprised within the four fold rule of actionable slander, but imputa tions of breaches of social code, the code of honor—untruthfulness, cowardice, treach ery, and the like. And yet for such slanders the law provides no redress whatever, for they are not within the list of words action able per se, nor are they likely to lead to such consequences as the law contemplates under
