EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT An error in the books which may have orig inated years ago will fail to be detected. The second criticism is of the division for dividend purposes of policies into exist ing deferred dividend policies and all other policies, for any division is sure to embarrass the court in determining an equitable dis tribution. "Third: The statute, after imposing the duty on the company to ascertain and appor tion surplus as soon after the thirty-first day of December as may be practicable, does not require that any information whatever regard ing the dividend principle or principles fol lowed by the company in making the appor tionment or as to the methods of arriving at dividend rates and calculating dividends, shall be given by the company to the super intendent of insurance or to policy holders until after the expiration of fourteen months from the 31st day of December of the year in question. . . . Fourteen months! During those fourteen months what will have happened? The dividends will have been declared and become payable, and many of the policy holders will, severally, have taken theirs in cash, others will have used theirs in reduc tion of premiums, and others still will have allowed theirs to be retained by the company as the purchase price of additional paid-up insurance, to which they severally are en titled. In other words, the company will have lost the legal title to the divisible fund and that fund will have been scattered all over the world, wherever policy holders may be domiciled." No special powers are given to the court to correct any errors then discovered four teen months late, and the ordinary processes of law will afford no remedy at all, except in cases of actual fraud. "Fourth: Each of the standard forms of policies prescribed by Sec. 101, of the statute, . . . after January 1, 1907, contains the follow ing provisions — ' This policy shall each year participate in the surplus of the company, as provided by the laws of the state of New York now in force.' The laws existing either at the date of the statute or at the date of the delivery of policy contracts will thus be come a part of the obligation of the contracts. It follows that the legislature will have ' no
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constitutional authority to change the law of apportionment so as to affect any of the contracts that may be made on the standard forms. Than this, it is not possible to con ceive of a more artistic and efficient method of perpetuating the evils which the Arm strong committee exposed." The company should not be allowed to take any steps in apportioning and distribu ting surplus for sixty days after announcing its amount, and provisions should be made for policy holders to appeal to the courts in case of error and for the courts to have full charge of the surplus and its distribution in such cases. INTERNATIONAL LAW. "The Legal Status of the Panama Canal Zone," by Charles R. Williams, American Lawyer (V. xv, p. 125). INTERNATIONAL LAW. "The Exemp tion of Private Property at Sea from Cap ture in Time of War," by Sit Wm. R. Ken nedy of the Queen's Bench Division, read at the Berlin Conference of the International Law Association, is reprinted in the April Yale Law Journal (V. xvi, p. 381). JURISPRUDENCE (Evidence).." The Philo sophy of Proof, in its Relation to the English Law of Judicial Evidence," by J. R. Gulson, London, Routledge; N. Y.. Dutton, 1905, pp. xv, 496. The author has here attempted a task very praiseworthy, and one unusual and much needed in these days of book-mak ing, for the daily needs of the practitioner, namely, to develop and apply a strictly scien tific theory and system of evidence. The first part of this work is devoted to " a study of natural evidence," and " the general prin ciples of inference in its relation to evidence." The second part purports to " exhibit the bearing of the natural principles of proof upon the positive rules of the English judi cial system," and " to point out how far the practice, on the one hand, and the abstract doctrines and maxims of the law, on the other, are in harmony or at variance with natural science." . The chapter headings of Part I read as fol lows: Evidence in General-; A Fact; An Ex pression of a Fact; the Connection Between the Two; Facts Positive and Negative; Facts Physical and Psychological; Events and States;
