Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/295

Harvard Law Review. Published monthly, during the Academic Year, by Harvard Law Students. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE, $2.50 PER ANNUM 35 CENTS PER NUMBER. Editorial Board. Jeremiah Smith, Jr., Editor-in-Chief. Charles Walcott, Treasurer. John A. Blanchard, Hugh W. Ogden, Justin D. Bowkrsock, James L. Putnam, Robert Cushman, Herbert A. Rice, David A. Ellis, Alex. D. alinger, Louis A. Frothingham, Charles B. Sears, Albert K. Gerald, John S. Sheppard, Jr., Richard W. Hale, Frank B. Williams. Archibald C. Matteson, An American Reprint. — Sir Frederick Pollock desires the Review to state that a new and fourth edition of his book on Torts is now in press, and that the American reprint called Webb's Pollock on Torts (noticed in the November number of the Review, p, i86), which is taken from the third English edition, has been issued without any kind of authority or consent either from the English publishers or from himself. Comparative Negligence. — On the question of contributory negli- gence, there has always been considerable dissension. Besides the orthodox common-law principle, prevailing in England and most of the States, and the rough and ready rule of the admiralty courts, there were several local idiosyncrasies, the most important of which was the doctrine of comparative negligence. This anomalous theory, first laid down by Breese, J., in Galetia, ofc. R. R. Co. v. Jacobs, 20 111. 478, 496, although founded on a misunderstanding of the law (Thompson on Negligence, 11 69, note), was reiterated in so many cases that it became regarded as the settled law of Illinois (Beach on Contributory Negligence, second edition, 107), and though severely criticised and in some degree explained away (Cooley on Torts, second edition, 815), gained a foothold in Georgia, Kansas, Tennessee, and possibly elsewhere. (Beach, 103.) This doctrine is now, however, on the wane, and, like other attitudes inconsistent with the progress of the common law toward assimilation, is being repudiated in the very jurisdiction in which it first took rise. Such, at least, would appear to be the significance of the statement by Bailey, J., in North Chicago St. R. Co. v. Eldridge., 38 N. E. R. 246, at 247, 150 111. St. In that case, one of contributory negligence, an instruc- tion was asked for, to the effect that if the jury believed from the evidence in the case that the negligence of the plaintiff and defendant was equal or nearly so, then, in such case, their verdict should be for the defendant.