301, referred to Am. Jur. v. 3, p. 351, such an endorsement was filled up with an undertaking that the maker 'was of ability to pay said note, and should continue to be, and should pay said note, according to its tenor." The court decided against this manner of filling up the endorsement. In The New England Insurance Company v. De Wolf, 8 Pick. 56, it is held that an endorsement of a note in this form, 'By authority from J. D. I hereby guarantee the payment of this note,' signed by the agent in his own name, will bind the principal, and not render the agent personally answerable, the contract being not under seal, and the agent having authority to guaranty. But if it had been a sealed instrument, the same form of signature would, according to former decisions, have bound the agent personally. In Yates v. Brown, 8 Pick. 23, it is held that where a vessel, while under the direction and management of a pilot, ran foul of and injured another, the owners were answerable for the damage, in the same manner as if she had been under the management of the captain. These are among the more striking cases contained in this pamphlet. We have omitted to mention some others, because a notice of them would have occupied more space than we wish to give in this place. Proposed Analytical Digest of all the American Reports. Messrs. Hilliard, Gray & Co. propose to publish an Analytical Digest of all the American Reports; to be comprised in four or five volumes, 8vo. of 1000 pages each, in small type, on good paper, at $5 per volume. The work is to be executed by William Hilliard, Jr. Esq. and revised by Benjamin Rand, Esq. A work of this description, well executed, will certainly be very convenient to the profession. We should not say, however, that a work of this kind which should be merely a copy of the abstracts of cases given by the reporters, would be such as the profession ought to expect, for it is very well known that the abstracts made by some of the reporters do not give all the points decided, and give some points as being so, which do not appear, on examination of the cases, to have been decided by the court. We are therefore glad to learn that the compilers of this work intend to examine the cases themselves and revise the abstracts, in all the reports, where those of the reporter are of questionable authority. Mr. Rand is already well known to the profession, and the union of talent, skill, learning, and industry, brought to the work, are a good pledge that it will be well executed. INTELLIGENCE AND MISCELLANY. Punishment for Crimes committed abroad. - Article of the proposed Belgian Penal Code. The projected penal code, says the Themis, of 1829, p. 1, which has been proposed to the States General of the Netherlands for their decision, is divided into two parts, the first consisting of general provisions, the second treating of each particular description of crimes, and the punishment applicable to them respectively. The first title of the first part contains provisions analogous to those which the French legislator thought necessary to place in the introduction to the code of 'Instruction Criminelle; but we meet with many provisions which are not to be found in the French law; for instance that which makes the penal code applicable, 1. To Belgians who have committed, abroad, in other countries, the crime of murder, arson, (incendie) threatening to burn buildings, (menace d'incendie) robbery, and other atrocious crimes, whether such crimes be committed against Belgians or foreigners. 2. To Belgians who, out of the realm, have committed any other crime, upon or in regard to other Belgians, unless they have been punished for the same in the foreign country. These are certainly provisions of very great importance. They carry the principle of concurrent jurisdiction in different nations further than it has been heretofore extended. All nations have a common jurisdiction in respect to piracy on the high seas, but the sovereign of the territory has hitherto been held to have exclusive jurisdiction of crimes committed on land. And yet we do not see but that this provision of the proposed code of the Netherlands, may shelter itself under one doctrine which is of universal adoption, namely, that the subjects or citizens of a country are entitled to the protection of their government, and also continue to owe allegiance to it, while abroad. In the contemplation of the fundamental laws of all countries, they carry with them, all over the world, the national character and a right to national protection; and it is only going a step further in the same doctrine to provide that they shall also carry with them a liability to be punished by the national authority for crimes committed abroad, in case of their returning home. This provision seems to be of some practical importance, where the territory is cut up into small jurisdictions, without any territorial barriers, such as mountains and seas, as is the case in respect to many parts of Germany. The conductors of the Themis justify this provision of the proposed Belgian code, upon the ground that the subject of the realm ought to be protected against those villains, who having gone abroad to enrich themselves by plunder and crimes, return home to enjoy in quiet the fruits of their misdeeds, and who may be very naturally expected next to invade the lives and property of their fellow subjects at home, unless the law interposes for their protection. But this principle, it seems to us, ought to be modified a little in its practical application, for it is a fundamental doctrine that a man's contracts and his conduct shall be regulated by the lex loci of the act. It seems to us to admit of great doubt whether the acts of Belgians, in the United States or the West Indies, for instance, whether in a civil or criminal regard, should be construed according to the Belgian code. It is a departure from an acknowledged and generally received doctrine, to interpret them by any other than the laws of the place where the act is done. And then again, and as a consequence of the former doctrine, as well as from respect to the right of sovereignty, the interpretation and the punishment more properly belong to the jurisdiction of the place of the act. This had been held to be so decidedly and obviously a general and binding doctrine, that judges have applied it and facilitated its execution, without any treaty or statute provision to this effect. In the very able and satisfactory opinion given in Fisher's case, by Chief Justice Reid, at Montreal, 1827, published in this journal, vol. 1, p. 297, and in Washburn's case, 4 Johns. Ch. Rep. 106, cited ibid. p. 305, n., it has been held that one country owes to another, in virtue of the unwritten universal law, the delivery up of fugitives from justice, in order that they may be tried and punished under the jurisdiction of the place of the act. This salutary principle of the general law, ought, it seems to us, to be respected in a provision of any code similar to the one above referred to, and the criminal should not be tried and punished under the jurisdiction of his own country, to which he should have returned, until it should appear that the sovereign of the place of the act, did not reclaim him for punishment. Dr. Thibaut, Professor of Jurisprudence at Heidelberg, was recently offered a professorship at Leipsic, with a salary equivalent to about four thousand dollars. He was also invited to the university of Munich. But he chooses to remain at Heidelberg, where he has been professor now twenty-three years. Question of the Removal of Judge Harrison. The question before the legislature of Maryland, respecting the removal from office of Judge Harrison, of the 6th Judicial District, on the ground of alleged insanity, is postponed to the next session. The following publications on subjects of jurisprudence were made in the Southern Provinces of the Netherlands in 1828. They are not all of interest in the United States, but we enumerate the whole as illustrating the course of juridical learning and speculation in the Netherlands: On the Punishment of Death, considered in respect to equity, morality, and expediency. By Adolphus Levae. Brussells. The Concordat, the Code Penal, and the Turks. By the Nephew of a Bishop. Brussells. 8vo. An occasional pamphlet. Critical Observations on the Penal Code. By P. A Savart. Prussells. (Pamphlet.) (The Penal Code referred to in this and the other publications in the Netherlands, is the code recently proposed in the States General.] A Short Dissertation on certain questions relating to the nullity of Marriages. By Sanfourche Laport. Brussells. (Pamphlet.) On the Study of the Statute Laws of the Netherlands; a discourse introductory to the juridical conferences. By F. Plaisant. Brussells. (Pamphlet.) On Corrections essential to be made, by way of revision, in many of the provisions of the Civil Code of the Netherlands, before its adoption. By P. L. Spinael. Brussells. 8vo. pp. 80. A Collection of different parts of the Text and an Indication of corrections indispensable to be made, by way of revision, in many of the provisions of the Code respecting the proceedings in Civil Actions, before its adoption. By. P. L. Spinael. Brussells. 8vo. pp. 50. Pothier on Obligations, revised, abridged, and adapted to the present Civil Code. By A. M. S. Molitor. Louvain. 2 vols. pp. 370. [The foreign editions of this Treatise are matter of some curiosity in the United States. Since the adoption of the new French Code, an edition of Pothier has been published in France by Bernardi, purporting to present the changes made by the Civil Code, of which the editors of the Themis say that it would be grateful to them to speak favorably, but impartiality requires of them to state that the edition does not answer to its title, as it does not point out many of the material modifications of Pothier's doctrines introduced by the Code. They speak more favorably of this Louvain edition by M. Molitor, and say it will be a useful work, though this, they add, is not without marks of negligence and oversight. Vide Themis, v. ix. p. 529.] The above, together with a continuation of the 'Annals of Jurisprudence, Civil and Commercial, &c. by M. Sanfourche Laport, and part I. of vol. 2d of M. L. A. Warnkœnig's Commentarii Juris Romani Privati, with three Orations, and one Essay in Latin, constitute the law publications in the Southern Provinces of the Netherlands, for 1828. Catalogue of Law Manuscripts. Professor Hachel, of Leipsic, one of the contributors to the Paris Themis, has visited various parts of Europe, for the purpose of obtaining information concerning manuscripts on the subject of jurisprudence; the results of his labors are about to appear at Leipsic, in four successive numbers, under the title, Catalogi Librorum Manuscriptorum, qui in bibliothecis Galliæ, Helvetiæ, Italiæ, Hispanicæ Lusitaniæ, Belgii, Britania Magnæ, etc. asservantur. Opinion of German Jurisconsults respecting Punishment by Whipping. The distinguished German Jurisconsult, Zeilleo, in 1825, published in the Journal of Austrian Jurisprudence, Lib. 3, No. 2, a dissertation, in which, says the Paris Themis, he proved in the most satisfactory manner, the expediency of abolishing punishment by whipping, and all the German Jurisconsults approved of his opinion; and this punishment was in consequence expunged from the recently proposed code of Bavaria; though it had been retained in a project of a code in 1825, for the same kingdom. The French editors think it singular that this penalty is retained in the British statute of 7 and 8 Geo. IV. c. 29, s. 8, (June 27, 1827) 'an act for consolidating the laws of England relative to larceny.' Schrader's new edition of Corpus Juris Romani. M. Schrader, professor in the university of Tubingen, who superintends the proposed new edition of the Corpus Juris Romani, for which diligent researches and many journeys have been made, to collect manuscripts and materials, was about to commence the publication in 1829. One hundred and sixty-three different manuscripts of the first part of the Pandects, had been collated in settling the text. Patents in France. In 1828 eleven commissioners were appointed to revise the French laws on the subject of patents for new inventions. M. de Saint Cricy, then minister of commerce and manufactures, addressed to a large number of such persons as were most likely to understand the subject, certain questions, which they were requested to answer. What further proceedings have been had under the commission we are unable to say. We subjoin a translation of the questions and a list of books annexed to it. The law of patents in this country demands a thorough revision, and these questions may perhaps suggest some beneficial changes. Questions relating to the revision of the laws on the subject of patents for new inventions. Preliminary question. Ought inventions for abridging labor [inventions industrielles] to continue to be protected by patents, |