EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT to a repudiation of the inveterate plan of mak ing a selection among competing laws, and a virtual return to the Roman system of jus gentium. In the case of a transaction which is exclusively national, of course the professor does not propose to substitute this rarefied spirit of law for the law of the land. Nor does he do so in the case of transactions which are by a decisive element intimately bound up with the local life of a particular country. These, he admits, the droit cominun interna tional deliberately leaves to local regulation, and it seems to us a weak spot in his theory: for the line which divides the transactions of which it can from those of which it cannot be said that they are attached by a preponderant element to the local life of a given country is naturally thin. Professor Jitta devotes the major portion of his work to the elaborate and careful discussion of the place where the line should be drawn in each particular variety of obligation." Mr. Baty's criticism of this theory is that it is too good. It is comparatively easy to pick out one from a heap of definite municipal systems. It is hard legislative labor to elabo rate a jus gentium, which the theory would seem to require. "It is the system of the future. Increasing cosmopolitanism appears to the present writer to demand a return to the jus gentium sooner or later. The present system is a survival of the time of tribal or racial law, when a person's liabilities were estimated according to his membership of a given community. But the system of the future is ipso facto a counsel of perfection for the present." CONFLICT OF LAWS (Source). " Le Droit Commun International comme Source du Droit International Priv6," by D. Josephus Jitta, Revue de Droit International Prive et de Droit Penal International, (V. iv, p. 553). Beginning an exposition of the au thor's conception of private international law, referred to in Mr. Baty's article on " A Modern Jus Gentium " noticed above. To be continued. CONFLICT OF LAWS (Marriage). " Ma nage & I'e'tranger des De'serteurs et des Insoumis," by Camille Jordan, Reiiue de Droit International Prive et de Droit Penal Interna tional (V. iv, p. 571). Discussing the law of
469
Italy in regard to the marriage abroad of deserters and evaders of Italian military ser vice and the marriage in Italy of such people from foreign countries. Former sections have treated of the French and Belgian laws and others are to follow. CONTEMPT OF COURT (Libel by a Stranger) "The King v. Almon. II," by John Charles Fox, Law Quarterly Review (V. xxiv, p. 266). Conclusion of an article the first part of which was noticed in this department in the June GREEN BAG. "The development of the summary juris diction to punish contempts, so far as it can be gathered from the authorities cited above, may be shortly and tentatively stated as follows. Originally the superior courts of common law had jurisdiction to punish dis obedience to the King's writ summarily by fine and imprisonment upon attachment, and probably also a disciplinary jurisdiction over their own officers exercisable summarily. The Court of King's Bench had jurisdiction on indictment or bill, to punish contempts in facie, obstructions to the service of process, other obstructions to the administration of justice, as by libelling the court or a judge, or assaulting a party on his way to the court, and deceit or collusion in connexion with pend ing proceedings. In later times — perhaps in or after the Tudor period — the common law courts gradually established a summary jurisdiction over most of those contempts which had been formerly the subject of indict ment or bill, but this did not extend to libels on the court or judges which were still pun ished by indictment or by proceedings in' the Star Chamber, and upon the abolition of that court, by information or indictment in the King's Bench. The Council or the Star Chamber as representing the Council, had always exercised a concurrent jurisdiction to punish contempts of other Courts, and, as the Star Chamber records show, had exercised it largely. Upon the abolition of that court a large portion of its jurisdiction devolved upon the King's Bench, and libels, including libels upon courts and judges, were punished by information or indictment down to the early part of the eighteenth century. In 1720 is to be found the earliest recorded case of libel or slander on the court or a judge by
