By Irving Browne.
CURRENT TOPICS. Judge Dillon's New Book. — A new book by this distinguished gentlemen is an event in legal litera ture which calls for special comment. "The Laws and Jurisprudence of England and America, being a series ofJectures delivered before Yale University," is the title of a work which ought to commend itself to every reader of The Green Bac, because it is "entertaining." The title would not indicate that, and indeed we must take leave to say that the title gives but a very imperfect idea of the contents. The title is indictable for false pretences; it smacks of heaviness and dullness, but there is not a dull line nor a heavy page in the volume. It is a book to keep one from his bed. If the author had consulted this Chair on the subject of a title, he would have suggested what appears in so many words in the text "Our Law in its Old and in its New Home." Judge Dillon begins with a review of the various attempts to define Law, and substantially offers a definition of his own; then he treats of the educa tion and discipline of the English bar and herein of the Inns of Court, and gives a charming chapter on Westminster Hall and the Royal Courts of Justice, and speaks of trial by jury and of judicial precedent; then he skips back across the ocean and speaks of lawin its new home, and herein of our political and judicial systems; then he pays a great deal of attention to the evils of the vast and increasing bulk of case-law, and defines his idea of proper and necessary codi fication, herein dwelling much on Blackstone and Bentham, and concludes with a view of the century's legal progress and development, reviews changes on great and permanent subjects, and sums up the present condition and forecasts the evolution of our law. This is a very dry and hasty analysis of a volume of unique interest, characterized by the author's sound thinking and vigorous reasoning, ex pressed in an almost faultless style, marked always by earnestness and gravity, occasionally by enthu siasm and eloquence, exhibiting vast research in the field of literature as well as of law, and forming an invaluable treasury of wisdom and information fit for constant resort and reference as well as for the enter tainment of a few evenings' recreative reading. One can sincerely say all this without falling in with some
of the author's opinions, as for example, his recom mendation of the life tenure of judges, his preference for the unanimity of verdicts, and his belief that it will necessarily require a long period to construct a code out of the ascertained and settled principles of the common law. On these points we listen with patience and respect, but we are not converted. On two other matters we cannot refrain from expressing an entire adherence to his views, namely, his judg ment that our land laws are still needlessly intricate, and that the paternalism of the Pennsylvania oleo margarine act is abominable. From no other source can one so conveniently get an adequate comprehen sion of the monstrous and indefensible proportions of our case-law. When one considers that the author is one of the busiest lawyers in this country, constantly engaged in litigations of vast magnitude and importance, the book is an amazing monument to his scholastic acquirements and research as well as to his professional learning. Above all and most admirable of all is the elevated and patriotic tone of the work, bearing testimony to the good citizenship of the man whom we all know for a most accomplished lawyer and a most judicious jurist. Typographically the book is a joy to the eyes — one of the hand somest law books ever published in America, and unless we are greatly mistaken there is not a mis print in it. The old house of Little, Brown & Com pany have given the treatise a fitting dress.
Effect of Culture on Vitality. — In a recent striking article under this heading, the "London Spectator " remarked : — "So far from intellectual work diminishing vitality, the chiefs of all intellectual professions are, and in recent times have been, men who have passed the ordinary term of years with undiminished powers. In politics, the principal leaders whom this generation has known, have been Earl Russell, Lord Palmerston, Lord Bcaconstield and Mr. Glad stone, and every one of the three was at seventy in full vigor, while the last, at eighty-three, is coercing a reluctant party to endorse a policy which the people of England determmedly reject. The great statesman of the continent. Prince Hismarck, remains at seventy-eight a force with which his government has to reckon; while the will of
