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nicalities of procedure, that modern commer cial sentiment outside of England is in favor of effectuating the intention of the contract ing parties who have attempted to confer rights on a third party in respect of their contract." This article is to be continued. CONTRACTS (Discharge by Alteration)
PROFESSOR SAMUEL WILLISTON concludes his very important treatise on the "Discharge of Contracts by Alteration" in the January number of the Harvard Law Review, (Vol. xviii, p. 165). It is impossible to adequately sum marize it here. EQUITY (Judicial Discretion)
AN address of interest in connection with Dean Bigelow's article in our January number delivered by Roscoe Pound before the Ne braska State Bar Association, entitled "The Decadence of Equity," is printed in the Jan uary Columbia Law Review (Vol. v, p. 20.) He says that the origin of equity jurisdiction was in the demand for greater flexibility and wider discretion than could be attained in the courts bound by precedents. That the pen dulum has since swung back and "the work of liberalization being accomplished, the system whereby it was brought about remains merely as an accident of judicial administration." Commercial and industrial development make for certainty, for the commercial world demands rules. Hence the author finds that several causes, chiefly the introduction of the common law theory of binding precedents and resulting case law equity have brought about the development and the decadence of equity, as a system. "Are we, then, to condemn the reform which has given us one procedure instead of two, which allows litigants to adjust their dis putes in one cause instead of two, which has relieved us of circuitous methods and put direct ones in their place? Surely not. To declaim against the fusion of law and equity to-day is no less futile than were the ponder ous arguments of the sixteenth century sergeant-at-law who inveighed against chancery in his 'replication' to Doctor and Student. The moral, I take it, is simply that we must
be vigilant. Ihering has told us that we must fight for our law. No less must we fight for equity. Law must be tempered with equity, even as justice with mercy. And if, as some assert, mercy is part of justice, we may sayequally that equity is part of law, in the sense that it is necessary to the working of any legal system. We who have the shaping of the law in our hands in this era of the de cadence of equity have no less responsibilities than those who pleaded and judged in its founding, its development, and its crystal lization." HISTORY
(Development of Law.
Jurisprudence)
THE article on the "Historical Development of the Law," by George H. Smith, in the American Law Review of November-December (Vol. xxxviii, p. 801), is closely in line with Professor Munroe Smith's article on " Roman Legal History, " reviewed in our last number. His statement that "the genealogy of our law is to be studied not in the old common law of England of which nothing remains to us but the rational part, but through the English and Roman law, and that of the Greeks" and his statement that "with the Greeks, owing to the popular character of their Courts, there was no systematized body of law such as was afterwards developed in detail by the Roman lawyers, but except as modified by statute the common notions of justice received by the people constituted the law and the only law of the land " are interesting in connection with Mr. Whitaker's article on the study of Greek law in this issue. HISTORY (Source of Law. Year Books)
IN the December Number of the AmericanLaw Register (Vol. lii, p. 755) under the title of "A Rhapsody of Antiquated Law," Mar garet C. Klingelsmith pays a just tribute to the work of Mr. Maitland in his new transla tion of the year books, the first volumes of which have been recently published. The author shows that the old prejudice against this rich source of authority arose from their apparent incoherence due to unsatisfactory translations. Valuable as these volumes are as a picture of the life of their times, they are infinitely more valuable when correctly under
