EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT of a carrier or the rate schedule as a whole is called in question." But on account of the conflict of jurisdiction between state and federal governments it is useless when applied to an interstate road on account of the impossibility of making a fair division for jurisdictional purposes be tween the federal authority and the various states. If the jurisdiction could be lodged in the federal government the question of the reasonableness of a schedule as an entirety would, however, become at least as simple as the corresponding questions involving the rates of gas, water and traction companies. Constitutional amendment or the sort of "constitutional construction " recently ad vocated by the secretary of state are the only two ways this can be brought about. Mr. Reynolds thinks that the more probable of these two is that the Supreme Court would countenance the assertion by the Interstate Commerce Commission of a jurisdiction over all the rates of railroads engaged in interstate commerce, whether the rates are imposed upon an intra-state or an interstate movement. He finds in the commission, in Congress and in the courts' a tendency toward this result, which if finally reached will be of undoubted value in simplifying the rate question. RES JUDICATA. " Erroneous Decision on a Point of Law," by C. S. Bhashyam, Allaha bad Law Journal (V. v, p. 71). TAXATION. The "Taxation of Inheri tances," by Joseph F. McCloy in the Business World for March (V. xxviii, p. 113) is a con sideration of the legislation suggested by President Roosevelt. TORTS. (Conversion). " The Test of Con version," by George Luther Clark, Harvard Law Review (V. xxi, p. 408). Arguing that upon principle " in order to constitute a con version there ought to be coupled with the act of intermeddling the intent to deprive the plaintiff permanently of all his rights in the chattel — an element which was present in the early history of the action." If the de fendant claims the chattel claiming only a limited interest as a right to use it for a month or a lien on it, .the plaintiff would be protected by his action on the bailment of replevin or of case. By giving a count in case and one in trover, if he failed to prove the intent per manently to deprive required under this test
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he could still recover in case and not be thrown out of court. TORTS (see Property). UNIFORMITY OF LAW. (United States). "Uniformity of Law in the Several States as an American Ideal. I. Case Law," by William Schofield, Harvard Law Review (V. xxi, p. 416). "The accumulation of case law and statutes in the United States has reached such pro portions that it demands serious attention from all who are engaged in the serious study or the administration of the law. ... In this paper it is proposed to consider the best method of avoiding the dangers arising from the accumulation of case law." The attempt to reduce the volume of reports by omitting reports of cases has failed because "the bar seems to feel instinctively that the strength of the case law comes largely from the fact that judges have given their reasons publicly for their decisions. . . . Without weakening this main pillar of the judicial system and of the common law much may be done by the highest courts, in the exercise of their discretion, to shorten reports by filing mere resolutions or conclusions in cases requir ing no extended reasoning." Something has been done by publishers to reduce the case law to manageable bulk, but " it remains for lawyers and judges to devise and adopt some rational method of dealing with the precedents which will prevent their increasing volume from causing danger to the law. "One practical problem in dealing with the precedents is to evolve some principle of selection by which the cases that are useful as precedents may be separated from those which are useless to all but the parties. This ought not to be done or attempted by an exercise of legislative power such as the periodi cal revision and consolidation of the statutes . . . but should be brought about by a process of natural development, by common consent, through the competition of different methods of dealing with the subject. . . . Just as Littleton's Tenures and Blackstone's Commentaries . . . acquired almost unques tioned authority in the historical develop ment of the law. Under the new method of study by cases it seems not impossible that some collections of cases may attain similar rank." But the great question is the manner in
