426 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
Bonner was not investigating nor writing a treatise on our law of evidence. Slight inaccuracies as to it may be pardoned.
One or two odd things may be mentioned. It seems that in criminal cases in the Areopagus a witness could not testify to impor- tant facts of which he had knowledge, unless he knew whether the accused was guilty or innocent and would first testify to that (pp. 15, 17). If a witness testified falsely, he was punished for the perjury. But he could make an oath disclaiming knowledge, and though this was wilfully false, he was not punished (p. 43). The evidence of this, however, is remarkably slight. Cross-examination was unknown (p. 20). Omens and dreams were admissible evidence (p. 19). The gratitude of the jury for past good deeds of the defendant was appealed to, as was also their cupidity for further financial benefits to the state which might arise from leniency (p. 13).
Mr. Bonner seems to have exhausted his sources, both original and secondary. He has shown acuteness in his deductions. The only real doubt as to his conclusions arises from the fear that he was overzealous in his search for a body of law on evidence in Athens.
CLARKE B. WHITTIER.
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL.
Modern Methods of Charity. By CHARLES RICHMOND HENDER- SON, assisted by others. New York : The Macmillan Co., 1904. Pp. 715. $3.50 net.
We learn our lessons of charity at vast expenditure of substance and of energy. We waste ourselves in experiments. We attack the bubbles which rise to the surface, and fail to dig deep for the nucleus of decay whence the bubbles come. We harm where we would help. The astronomer can calculate to a second the occurrence of an eclipse a hundred years away. The chemist can reduce a rock to its ele- ments and determine the presence of each in its exact proportion. But no such certainty is possible in the vaguely defined territory which we call the " field of charity." In charity we are dependent on experience. The greater the variety and volume of experience at our back, the nearer we approach to sure-handed performance. Therefore any means by which the experiences and methods of others may be placed at our service, in convenient and usable form, saves us the time and labor necessary to obtain the experience for
