372
The Green Bag
reliable authority, in the other Pacific Coast states as in California. In addition to his Cyclopedic Codes Mr. Kerr has prepared a set of Pocket Codes and the General Laws, which has some novel and valuable features, and the advantage of being easy to handle and selling at a reasonable price. He has also prepared a volume of Nevada Notes of Cases; edited and annotated three volumes of Water and Mineral Cases, published by Callahan & Co., Chicago, treating of the compli cated questions respecting irrigation, drainage, mines and mining, oil, and gas, — all questions of peculiar and vital interest in the western states and territories. He also prepared a new and much improved edition of that standard legal classic, Wharton's Crimi nal Law, in three volumes, adding more than five hundred new sections and 27,000 cases. In this connection it may not be out
The
of place to call attention to the fact that Mr. Kerr was the first legal writer who paid any attention to system in the arrangement of the authorities he cites. Before his innovation the citation of cases in all law books was a mere "jumble" of authorities. Mr. Kerr has ever arranged them by states and in chronological order of decision. The advantage of this method of citation and arrangement is so manifest that it has since been adopted by almost all law writers. By this arrangement a work of national scope, like Mr. Kerr's edition of Wharton's Criminal Law, becomes also local to any practitioner in any part of the country, for the reason that the cases of his own state are all collected in one place, and set out by black-faced type, to aid the searcher in going at once to the state wanted — and Mr. Kerr has gained the reputation of citing all the cases on any point he treats.
Recall in Colorado1
By Judge Jesse G. Northcutt TN gram THEfor announcement this meeting, of there theis prothe timely and pertinent suggestion that "the purpose of the papers to be given is not to oppose such legislation but, conceding its existence, to endeavor to so shape it that it will accomplish the most good and the least harm." The force of this suggestion settles down upon us as, by a reference to our statute books, we find that so many of the subjects which were matters purely ■ Read before the Colorado State Bar Association at Colorado Springs, Colorado, July 11, 1913.
of speculation in the realm of soci ology a few months ago, are now crystalized into law in the document constituting the fundamental principles upon which the frame-work of our statutory law is constructed; and we are made aware — some of us probably for the first time — that law-making has almost become a mania with the people of our land, and the danger lies in mak ing too much law, grown from the inclination to regulate everybody and everything by legislative enactment; and whether we are in favor of or opposed
