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EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT
much has been accomplished in the study of the laws of Rome, as is pointed out in Mr. Whittaker's arti cle in this number, the field of old Greek law has been but little explored. Mr. Whittaker has de voted most of his life to the study and teaching of the clas sics at Brown Univer sity and at Kenyon College. In his study of Greek institutions he was led, while FREDERIC EAKLE WHITAKFK preparing for his doc tor's degree, to investigate the Greek Law of inheritance. After several years' work in the original Greek sources with incidental com parisons with Roman Law and the modern codes, he has just completed a work on "The Legal Fiction of Adoption in Ancient Greece," which is one of the first attempts at a scien tific treatise on the jurisprudence of a race whose guidance into so many other fields has been the subject of much fruitful investiga tion. WE are fortunate in presenting in this issue an address delivered by the Hon. Hannis Tay lor before the West Virginia Bar Association last December on "International Arbitration." Mr. Taylor is well known to students of history
as the author of one of the ablest works on the English Constitution, a book which is used in the leading universities of Amer ica and Great Britain and has been adopt ed as a text book by the University of Dublin in preference to the English works. He has more recent ly published a treat ise on International Public Law which has been character ized as the best American work since HON. HANNIS TAYLOR Wheaton's, and is about to publish an exhaustive treatise to be entitled "Jurisdiction and Procedure of the Su preme Court of the United States." Mr. Tay lor is a Southerner by birth and training who has rendered eminent service to our country, not only as a scholar but as a man of affairs. He represented the United States before the Alaskan Boundary Commission and is at pres ent special counsel for the Spanish Treaty Claims Commission. From 1893 to ^98 he served as our minister plenipotentiary to Spain. At a special graduation ceremonial of the University of Edinburgh last summer the degree of LL.D. was conferred on him. Mr. Taylor is professor of international law at George Washington University.
The daily press has contained of late dis cussions of the supposed abolishment of the Grand Jury in Minnesota and statements that a bill for that purpose was to be introduced in the Illinois legislature. Besides these indi cations of discontent with our Grand Jury system there have been criticisms of our methods of trial by petty juries, and after the repeated delays in the Patterson trial, the proposition was renewed in New York to abolish the requirement of a unanimous ver dict. It remained, however, for the press of Boston to raise the most startling criticism of a verdict in the comments made upon the conviction of Tucker for the mysterious Page
murder. Those who followed the newspaper reports of the evidence seem to have been greatly surprised at the verdict and editorials have boldly declared that a great injustice has been done. These signs of discontent with our jury system are symptomatic of the im patience with the technicalities of the law which was so well illustrated in Dean Bigelow's article in our last number. The dis cussion of these proposed changes, as well as an account of the Tucker case by an eye wit ness, should be, therefore, of interest to the profession, and we are glad to announce that these articles have been promised for our next number.
