Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/245

This page needs to be proofread.
225
HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
225

BOOKS RECEIVED. 225 mately three hundred and fifty cases bearing on the interpretation of the law ; but of these only about one hundred and fifty appear in both volumes. G. b. h. The Principles of the Law of Sedition. By J. Chaudhuri. Calcutta : Weekly Notes Printing Works. 1898. pp. vii, 48, Hv. This controversial pamphlet was directed against the then impending change in section 1244 of the Indian Criminal Code defining the offence of sedition. The thesis of the volume is that the common-law offences, which may be conveniently described as seditions, require both an overt act calculated to produce the unlawful use of force and a specific intent to subvert or overthrow the government. Reg. v. Burns., 16 Cox C C 366. The author is clearly right in his contention that the then proposed change from this requirement of an actual specific intent to a mere general intent inferred from the natural consequences of the act was a distinct departure from common law. However, the author is in error in assuming, as he does throughout, that to establish this thesis is a conclusive argument against the proposed change. He does not seem to consider the ques- tion of policy. Yet it was doubtless the special dangers in India from the vernacular press and from native agitators, secular and religious, that determined the enactment of a severer law of sedition. b. w. Introduction to the Study of Law. By Edwin H. Woodruff. New York: Baker, Voorhis, & Co. 1898. pp.84. The first few weeks of legal study often prove discouraging. This book is designed for a temporary aid during this period. It is a collec- tion of such information as the author has felt " would be of particular assistance to students just entering upon the study of law." It explains in simple language those fundamental principles and truths which the student meets from the first. The relation of law to morality, the dif- ference between authority and dictum., the desirability of following pre- cedent, etc. — all these matters are considered. The writer outHnes the difference between law and equity, and gives a brief historical summary of their development. The different kinds of law books, their uses, and abbreviations, are touched upon. The relations of the different courts to each other are mentioned. The author has succeeded in putting what he has to say into an attractive and concise form, and while the book is hardly one for careful study, it will repay reading. g. b. h. BOOKS RECEIVED. Cases ON American Constitutional Law. Edited by Carl Evans Boyd. Chicago: Callaghan & Co. 1898. Code Municipal dk. la Province de Quebec Annote. Par T- E. Bedard. Montreal : C. Theoret. 1898. General Digest. Quarterly advance Sheets. Rochester, N. Y. : The Lawyer's Cooperative Publishing Co. July, 1898. Indiana Bar Association Annual Report. Indianapolis : Reporter Pub- lishing Co. 1898.