HEW LAW BOOKS.
// is the intention of The Green Bag to have its book reviews written by competent reviewers. The usual custom of magazines is to confine book notices to books sent in for review. At the request of subscribers, however, The Green Bag will be glad to review or notice any recently published law book, whether re ceivedfor review or not.
THE WORKING CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. By Leonard Courtney. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1901. (viii+383 pp.) The day of philosophical discussions of the theory of institutions appears to be gone; and now we have instead descriptions of the actual functions performed by the govern ment and of the machinery by which the va rious parts of the governmental system are chosen. This book, by the Right Hon. .Leo nard Courtney, P. C., M. P., is a favorable specimen of this new class; and to its au thor's career as Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, and in the Colonial Office, and as Chairman of Parliamentary Committees and Deputy Speaker, it owes much of its value as a clear and practical presentation of the English Government as it is. The most interesting chapters deal with The Parties, General Election, and Course of Business in Parliament; and chapters of timely value to Americans are those dealing with Crown Colonies, Sclf-Governing Colo nies, and India. THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF EVIDENCE. Edited by Edgar W. Camp. Vol. I. Los Angeles, California: L. D. Powell Company. 1902. (1020 pp.) It is interesting to note the evolution of legal literature. The natural outgrowth of the text-book, which discussed one genera! subject of the law, was the encyclopaedia in which practically all subjects were treated, although each particular subject was treated, necessarily, more briefly than in the separate text-book. Now comes a further step—the encyclopaedia which aims to cover, not the en tire body of the law, but only one important phase of it. In the present instance the sub
ject chosen is Evidence; the initial volume carries the discussion through Assault and Battery, the expectation of the publishers be ing to complete the series in ten volumes. Such a work as the present stands half way between the digest, with its bald state ment of cases, and the old-fashioned text book, with its more or less satisfactory dis cussion of principles. The citation of cases is full; and the work will prove of value to the practitioner. But it is from such a work on Evidence as Professor Thayer's, rather than from an encyclopaedia, that satisfactory knowledge of the law of Evidence as a whole, and of its essential principles, is to be gained. UNITED STATES vs. MEXICO. Report of Jackson H. Ralston, agent of the United States and of counsel, in the matter of the case of the Pious Fund of California. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1902. (891 pp.) This report, printed as Senate Document No. 28, 57th Congress, Second Session, gives a full and decidedly interesting ac count, including pleadings, briefs and record of the entire proceedings, of the controversy over the Pious Fund heard before a tribunal of the Permanent Court of Arbitration un der The Hague Convention, sitting at The Hague, September 15, 1902, to October 14, 1902. The award of the Court, given on the day last named, was that Mexico should pay to the United States, for the benefit of the Arc'hbishop of California and of the Bishop of Monterey, the sum of $1.420,682.67, sil ver, being the amount of thirty-three unpaid annuities of $43,050.99 from 1869 to 1902, and should in each following year, perpetu ally, pay an annuity of that same amount. This amount had been decided in 1875 and 1876 by Sir Edward Thornton, sitting as umpire, it being six per cent, upon one-half of the capitalized value of the Pious Fund; and the present court held that the claim now presented was governed by the prin ciple of res jmiicata by virtue of the arbitral sentence of Sir Edward Thornton.
