One of the most marked characteristics of General Benjamin F. Butler was his absolute fearlessness. He was not afraid of anybody and had no reverence for men because of their official station. Upon one occasion he was making an argument before Judge Carter of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, who had an irritating habit of interrupting coun sel in the course of their remarks, for the pur pose of asking a question or making some caus tic comment. On the occasion referred to, Butler was citing an English case when he was interrupted by the Court with the remark, that there was plenty of law on the subject without going abroad for it. Pausing for a moment, and looking the judge full in the face, he re plied that he was reading from a case that had been well considered and the opinion rendered in clear and convincing terms " without any stump speech being interjected into it," and then went on reading as though no interruption had occurred, and no other was attempted. At another point in the same case he expressed his contempt for one of his legal antagonists, who was also a witness in the case, by saying, "You might as well attempt to light up h—1 with a roman candle as to get the truth out of such a witness." LITERARY NOTES. In his recent volume 1 Mr. Clifton Johnson has clone for the Emerald Isles, the same good ser vice which by his earlier books, Along French Bvways and Among English Hedgerows, he had rendered already to rural France and rural Eng land. Like these previous volumes, The Isle of the Shamrock is a particularly readable and en tertaining account of a jaunt through a foreign land. Part of its charm comes from the fresh ness of view of the author, who is here setting down his first impressions; part from his simple style; part from his sympathy with his subject and from his keen observation; and part from the natural picturesqueness of Ireland and its people. The numerous illustrations are excel lent and add to the attractiveness of the book; the credit for them, as well as for the text, be longs to the author. 'The Isle ok the Shamroce. Written and illus trated by Clifton Johnson. New York : The Macmillan Company. . 1901. Cloth, S2.00. (xiv -+-258 pp.)
NEW LAW BOOKS. Select Pleas of the Forest. Edited by G. J. Turner. Publications of the Selden Society, vol 13. London: Bernard Quaritch. 1901. Cloth, 28s. (exxxix, + 192 pp.). "Robyn slewe a full grete harte, His home then 'gan he blow; That all the outlawes of that Forest That home coud they knowe." So sings the old ballad; and this may well serve as an introduction to a review of this serious work entitled " Select Pleas of the Forest," for indeed almost every page revives one's boyish recollections of Robin Hood. In other words, the volume gives a clear, and hence a lasting and valuable impression, of one phase of mediaeval English life. Like the other publications of the Selden Society, this collection of " Select Pleas of the Forest " does not profess to be of direct value to the practicing lawyer. What does he have to do with old forest laws? He knows — or at least in his youth knew — that the crowrt used to exercise the prerogative of declaring vast tracts a royal forest, that within these boundaries even thfc land-owners could not kill game and could not, by cutting down trees or clearing thickets or building houses, impair the fitness of the region to be a home for wild beasts, that these regulations were administered in special courts and under a rather unscientific proce dure, and that the results were so objectionable to the great mass of the people as to call for mention in Magna Char/a and to play a part long afterwards in the ruin of Charles the P'irst. In truth the lawyer cannot be expected to wish to know more than this. Nevertheless, the lawyer cannot afford to ignore this book, for any educated man, and especially any lawyer, can well spend a few hours in gaining a vivid conception of the actual effect of the doctrine that the king's health was of paramount importance to the realm, and that consequently it was proper, at serious sacrifice of private rights, to devote to the king's use great tracts, many miles in circumference, wherein the king and his guests might enjoy the pleasures of the chase. The only way to gain an active view of the results of the forest system is to examine this
