NEW LAW BOOKS.
It is the intention of The Green Bag to have its book re-views written by competent reviewers. The usual custom of magazines is to confine book notices to books sent in for review. At the request of subscribers, however, The Green Bag will be glad to review or notice any recently published law book, whether re ceivedfor review or not.
•CASES ON CRIMINAL LAW. By William E. Mikcll, Assistant Professor of Law in the University of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: International Printing Company. 1902, 1903. Two parts. Cloth. (983 pp.) Occasional passages from oíd authorities, such as Eracton, P>ritton, the Year Books, and Coke, give this collection a proper con nection with the past; but the collection is well fitted for class-room use as a practical in troduction to current Criminal Law. As in all case books prepared for the use of stud ents, head notes are omitted. Yet through the table of contents, the table of cases re printed, and the index, the book is as well adapted to the use of the practitioner as cir cumstances permit. The arrangement be gins with general considerations, namely: sources of the Criminal Law, the elements of crime, the criminal intent, negligence as sup plying intent, intent as affected by conditions (including ignorance or mistake of law and of fact, infancy, insanity, intoxication, and incorporation), the criminal act, combina tions of persons in crime, assault, battery and mayhem; and then the plan proceeds to the development of the peculiarities of spe cific crimes. The list of topics, it will be noticed, while omitting pleading and proced ure, covers practically the whole of the sub stantive law. As there are other important collections of cases on Criminal Law, it is interesting to notice that this is an indepen dent collection and distinctly an honest piece of work. FIRE INSURANCE. By George A. Clement. Xew York: Baker, Voorhis, and Company. '003. (pp. xcviii+637.) The scope of this book is well indicated by its full title: "Fire Insurance as a valid
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contract in event of fire and as affected by construction and waiver, estoppel and ad justment of claims thereunder." In other words, the book omits insurable interest, non-disclosure, misrepresentation, warranty, and express conditions as to validity, all of which topics have been treated often and ade quately, and devotes itself to the other and equally important half of the subject, loss or damage, statement of proof of loss and other requirements or conditions precedent to loss becoming due and payable, the options of the insurance company, apportionment of the loss, payment of the loss, subrogation, limi tation as to suit or action on policy, waiver and estoppel, and construction and interpre tation of the fire insurance contract. There are also forms and statutory provisions. The book is apparently intended for the use of insurance men, and especially for adjusters, quite as much as for lawyers. Its rules are often taken from the standard policies, and these can hardly be called propositions of law. To the lawyer an especially interesting feature of the book is the practical discussion of the mode of computing and apportioning a loss. CYCLOPEDIA OF LAW AND PROCEDURE. Edited by William Mack and Howard P. Nash. Vols. IX. New York: The American Law Book Company. 1903. (998 pp.) ANNUAL ANNOTATIONS, (i to 9 Cyc.) 1903. The most important articles in Volume IX. are those on Contracts by Professor John Davison Lawson, Dean of the Law De partment of the University of Missouri, and on Copyright, edited by Edmund Wetmore, formerly President of the American Bar Association. This volume also covers the subjects Contempt, Continuances in Civil Cases, Contribution, Conversion, Convicts and Coroners. With this volume also comes Annual An notations, 1903, a a book of nearly five hun dred pages which, as the editors say in the preface, brings the first nine volumes of the Cyclopedia down to the present date.
