REVIEWS. Owing to the early date at which we go to press with this number, we are obliged to defer notices of December issues of the Magazines until January.
BOOK NOTICES. A Selection of Leading Cases in the Com mon Law. With notes. By Walter Shirley Shirley. Fourth Edition by Richard Wat son, LL.B. Stevens & Sons, London, England. Cloth. $4.80. These leading cases, selected by Mr. Shirley, have long been most favorably known to the profession, and have been of the greatest assistance to students. The selections are numerous, and all of them "leading" cases; while the notes, evidently prepared with much care, add greatly to the value of the work. Shortly after the publication of the third edition, the learned author died, and the present edition has been care fully revised by Mr. Watson. Numerous decisions and statutes of recent date have been incorporated, and many new citations of cases are given. In its present form the book is deserving of unqualified praise, and we commend it especially to the consider ation of teachers and students in our law schools. Suspension of the Power of Alienation and Postponement of Vesting, under, the Laws of New York, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wiscon sin, with an Appendix containing the corre sponding statutes concerning suspension in the States of California, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Ken tucky, North Dakota, and South Dakota. By Stewart Chaplin, of the New York Bar. Baker, Voorhis, & Co., New York, 1891. I,aw sheep. $4.50. This treatise will be found of especial value to practitioners in the States to whose statutory pro visions it has particular reference. The subject is one of great importance, and one involving many nice legal points, and has been very fully and ex haustively treated by Mr. Chaplin. Many years ago the State of New York abandoned the common law of perpetuities and kindred subjects, and instituted an entirely new system, which has since been adopted, in nearly all important respects, by the States of Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. The radical
changes thus introduced have rendered inapplicable, to a large degree in these States, the text-books and reports embodying the earlier law; and this treatise of Mr. Chaplin's will supply a long-felt want New Commentaries on Marriage. Divorce, and Separation, as to the Law, Evidence, Plead ing, Practice, Forms, and the Evidence of Marriage in all Issues, on a new System of Legal Exposition. By Joel Prentiss Bishop, LL.D. T. H. Flood & Co., Chicago, 1891. Two vols. Law Sheep. $12.00. The first of Mr. Bishop's legal writings, a treatise on " Marriage and Divorce," published nearly forty years ago, brought the learned author at once into prominence, and his subsequent works have advanced him to the foremost rank of our legal writers. This new work, besides covering the same field as the au thor's former treatise on the subject, whereof it is in a measure a reconstruction, includes also Breaches of the Marriage Promise, Seduction of the Wife, Seduc tion of the Husband, and various minor topics. The entire subject is brought down to the present date, and is treated from the standpoint of to-day. as though the author had never before written upon the subject. These "New Commentaries" are in tended to be an exemplification of Mr. Bishop's "New System of Legal Exposition," by which he hopes to introduce the practitioner to available methods of investigation and labor productive of higher results than have been common heretofore. The system certainly has the charm of novelty; and if it will accomplish all that Mr. Bishop claims, the prac titioner can go into court with an absolute certainty as to just how his case will be decided. The germ from which this great result is to grow is contained in the principle that " Truth, alone and unadorned, with no shadow of contiguous error upon its visage, is usually recognized alike by all men; and the prin cipal reason why differences arise is because it has never thus been distinctly and accurately seen. By the new system of Mr. Bishop's, we are to be enabled to see the plain, simple, and unadorned truth. 'T is a consummation devoutly to be wished. " This sys tem," to quote the author's words, " consists, to state it briefly, of carrying each question into the light of, first, the entire subject; secondly, the entire legal system; thirdly, those laws of our earthly existence which man has no power to change; and lastly, those technical rules which have become established through the judicial doctrine of stare decisis; then, of intro ducing into the problem all the considerations which are relevant, and especially not overlooking any; and thereby determining and writing down what in fact the judicial mind of our own country and age, when
