Rditorial Department. A decided improvement in the third edition, which makes for the comfort of the reader and is in itself no slight compliment to the industry and skill of the editor, lies in the fact that the discussion of the various sections appears in large type, as large as that of the Act itself, while, notwithstanding the insertion of very generous extracts from the language of the courts in cases arising under the present law, and the additions mentioned above, this edition contains but one hundred and seventy pages more than are found in the second edition. The reading lawyer can much more readily come at the writer's point of view, if the keenest exercise of his thinking powers is not hampered by the physical straining of his eyes in reading page after page of most solid matter in fine type. In this present edition the editor has been able to profit by the decisions of the courts, which, during the existence of the Act, have judicially construed most of the sections. Thus not only the discussion of the various sections is of greater value, but the liberal quotation of the exact language of the courts is, in many in stances, sufficient to render further study of the reports themselves unnecessary, at least to the lawyer who reads the work in order to famil iarize himself with the Act and its construction as a whole. For instance, in considering the question of the extent of the jurisdiction of the district courts conferred by Section 2, which appears to have " troubled the courts more than any other question arising in the administration of the Act of 1898," the editor has quoted to the extent of five pages from the exhaustive opinion of Mr. Justice Gray in Bardes v. First Nat. Bank of Hawarden, 178 U. S. 524, which has definitely settled the question. Another instance, taken at random, serves further to illustrate the greater reliability of this present edition over the earlier issues, resulting from the judicial constructions of the courts. On the question of objection to a discharge owing to a failure to keep books of account, the author, discussing the section in the earlier edition, states that under the present law the fraudulent intent not to keep books must be proved, and "is not to be inferred (ad ed., p. 136). The judicial construction of this sec tion by the courts has enabled the editor to
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say, in this third edition, that the " intent is to be gathered from all the circumstances." This would seem a fair case of inference. Again, the stringency of proof is still further moderated by the statement that " where a person of intel ligence keeps books in such a condition as to be suspicious on their face, a discharge will be denied" (3d ed., p. 168). The cases are, of course, cited. The exemption laws of the various States are another helpful feature of the work, and the system of cross-referencing and indexing is careful and altogether commendable.
HANDBOOK OF тнк LAW OF BILLS AND NOTES. By Charles P. Norton. Third edition by Francis B. Tiffany. St. Paul, Minn. : West Publishing Co. 1900. Law sheep. $3.75. (x + 553 PP)On opening any one of the volumes of the "Handbook Series," of which the handbook before us was, in its first edition, the earliest volume, one is struck with the fitness of the general make-up of the book to the end in view, namely the providing of an elementary treatise on some one of the principal subjects of the law. The printing in heavy type, of a concise state ment of the leading principles in the subject treated tends chiefly to impress the principles on the student's mind, thus laying a foundation for a more thorough study of particular points later; while the commentary following the short statement of a leading proposition is sufficiently full, in most cases, to make clear the reasons on which the principle rests. In a single volume, avowedly elementary in its nature, anything approaching an exhaustive discussion of the principles of the law of Bills and Notes is impossible, of course; but within the limits imposed both by the scope and by the size of the book, the author has made a clear, concise and intelligent presentation of his subject, admirably suited to the purpose for which the work was undertaken. At the end of the volume is given, in some sixty pages, the Negotiable Instruments Law, enacted in fifteen States within the last four years; the text is that of the New York statute, the modifications and additions of other States beinsr indicated. The notes in the bodv of the
