Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 10.djvu/279

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HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
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REVIEWS. 253 arose upon the date of this judgment and not before. Robinson v. Harkin, [1896] 2 Ch. 415. The court simply applies to a suit between co-trustees the principle which is recog- nized in suits between co-sureties. Wolmershausen v. Gullich, [1893] 2 Ch. 514. But the decision is important, for there is little or no authority on the point in this country. There appears to be no reason to doubt the soundness of the decision. REVIEWS. Studies in the Civil Law and its Relations to the Law of Eng- land AND America. By William Wirt Howe, of the Bar of New Orleans : Sometime a Justice of the Supreme Court of Louisiana, and W. L. Storrs, Professor of Municipal Law in Yale University for the Year 1894. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1896. pp. xv, 340. This book is the outcome of a Course of Lectures delivered before the Law School of Yale University by one of the most eminent of Louisiana lawyers. The plan of the work is excellent. What has been written in English of late years on the Roman Law is largely of that Law as a dead thing ; it has been studied as the Latin grammar is studied ; indeed, it seems as if it were the archaic forms revealed to us by Gaius, which have espe- cially attracted writers and students. To have the Roman Law as the vivifying principle of great legal systems of to-day discussed in the Eng- lish language by a practising civilian, is to have made an important addition to our legal literature. But the gain is doubled by the fact that Judge Howe is not only a civilian, but a common law lawyer, and has thus been able to give us many interesting and fruitful comparisons between the Roman and Civil Law, and, what is of even more moment, has known how to approach the problems of the latter Law through the medium of actual decisions in the way that is entitled to gain them the most attention and respect from those of us who have been bred in the methods of the Common Law. The book shows the marks of its original form of lectures. It is very clear and pleasant reading, with something of the liveliness of a spoken discourse ; on the other hand, if it had been conceived originally as a printed book, the order of thought would probably have been closer, and the general prospective better preserved. Doubtless no one knows this better than Judge Howe, and we trust the success of these Studies, as he modestly names them, may justify a new edition, in which there shall be some omissions in the beginning and ending chapters, and some additions in the body of the work. J. c. g. Jurisdiction, Practice, and Peculiar Jurisprudence of the Courts OF THE United States. By Benjamin Robbins Curtis, LL. D. Second Edition, Revised and Enlarged by Henry Childs Merwin. Boston : Little, Brown, & Co. 1896. pp. xxvi, 341. If this little volume had nothing else to recommend it, its convenient size and neat binding would bring it readers. It is a pleasure to find a law book in so convenient a form.