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Authorities for purposes of recreation of the Public. There is a full collection of precedents which are not to be found elsewhere, and the precedents are elucidated by copious notes.

There is a large collection of forms under the head 'Parcels.' The writer has pointed out that in making reference to the Ordnance maps the edition referred to should be indicated owing to the change of the numbers of the plots in the last edition. In practice we have found serious inconvenience arising from this not having been attended to. The forms will be found useful to the practitioner.

There is a printer's error which should be noted on p. 121, where for 'Farm' is given All that messuage or farm house situated &c., known as

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Farm with &c.' The farm house alone is not known as Farm'; the word 'Farm' means the house and all the land belonging to and occupied with it. This is correctly stated on p. 117.

The most important head in the volume is 'Parliamentary Documents,' which deals only with private Bills and a few cognate methods of private legislation, comprising Provisional Orders legislation and Light Railway Orders under the Light Railways Act, 1896, 59 & 60 Vic. c. 48. The preliminary note contains explanations of the nature of Private Bills and of the different classes of them; of the distinction between first-class and second-class Bills; of the Public Departments which can make Provisional Orders, and of the Statutes conferring the authority to make them. The account of the procedure in Private Bill Legislation contains a statement as to the notices which have to be published in the Gazette, and a somewhat detailed account of what ought to be contained in the Bill, including rules for drafting taken from Sir C. P. Ilbert's Legislative Methods and Forms.' The author also states the rules given in the same book for the interpretation of Acts of Parliament.

The procedure with respect to Private Bills is described at some length and with great clearness. The precedents contain (1) Notices, Resolutions, &c. under Borough Funds Acts; (2) Preliminary Notices, Declarations, &c. relating to Bills; (3) Forms of Bills; (4) Forms relating to Wharncliffe Meetings; (5) Petitions against Bills and Objections on locus standi; (6) Forms relating to Provisional Orders made under the Electric Lighting Acts; (7) Forms relating to Provisional Orders under Gas and Water Works Facilities Act, 1870; (8) Forms relating to Provisional Orders dealing with Harbours; (9) Forms relating to Provisional Orders under Light Railways Act, 1896; and (10) Forms relating to Provisional Orders under Tramways Act, 1870, all of which will be found very useful. Under the head 'Parties' will be found-(1) General Descriptions; (2) Descriptions of Particular Persons; (3) Descriptions of Corporations and Associations; and (4) Descriptions of Government offices.

The head Partition,' which is excellent, contains a preliminary note, and Precedents-(1) of Partition by Conveyance, and (2) Partition by Order of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries. The author has wisely framed the Precedents of Partition by conveyance to meet the requirements of ordinary and comparatively simple cases. It would not have been useful to give a form where the interests of the parties are complicated, as the sole difficulty occurs in framing the recitals, and they necessarily vary in each case.

The head 'Partnership' contains a preliminary note, and Precedents of Articles of Partnership, and various deeds relating to Partnerships, a Syndicate deed and notices of different natures. The work, both in the preliminary note and the forms, is good.

We may add that we have used the preceding volumes of the Encyclopaedia in practice, and that our experience entirely bears out the high opinion of them expressed in this Review. All we need say of the present volume is that it is a worthy companion of its predecessors, and that we strongly recommend the profession to use it.

Wolstenholme's Conveyancing and Settled Land Acts, with Notes and Rules of Court. Ninth Edition. By BENJAMIN LENNARD CHERRY and ARTHUR EUSTACE RUSSELL. London: William Clowes & Sons, Lim. 1905. 8vo. xliv and 586 pp. (258.)

THE criticism of a ninth edition may justifiably differ, both in quantity and kind, from criticism of the first edition of the same book. The present work has a recognized place and value among conveyancers, and its scheme and merits are well known. A perusal of the new edition, however, suggests that, without departing from the scheme of the book, its usefulness might have been considerably increased by such additions and revision as readers expect to find in a book which has passed through so many editions. In the first place nearly all textbooks give the date of a case in citing it. Again, most textbooks now give references, in citing a case, to all the reports of it. The omission of dates, and of references to contemporary reports, however excusable in a first edition, should not be ground for criticism in the ninth edition. There are other indications of want of thorough revision. One of these is the omission to cite Acts of Parliament by their short titles-the Short Titles Acts having been passed since the first publication of the present work in separate volumes.

The two books, in fact-the 'Conveyancing Acts' and the 'Settled Land Acts'-have not lost certain characteristics which distinguished them when published separately. For instance, the treatment of the first part of the present volume, dealing with the Conveyancing Acts, is much more compressed than the treatment of the last part-dealing with the Settled Land Acts. Occasionally, decisions are referred to so shortly as to be almost misleading. The cases of Blaiberg v. Abrahams and Westminster Fire Office v. Glasgow Provident Society, referred to on pp. 82, 83, are instances of this. The colonial case of Larkin v. Drysdale, cited on p. 94, one of the few colonial cases which have found their way into English textbooks, is not an authority for the proposition in support of which it is cited.

Maxwell on the Interpretation of Statutes. Fourth Edition. By

J. ANWYL THEOBALD. London Sweet & Maxwell, Lim.; Toronto: The Carswell Co., Lim. 1895. 8vo. clxii and 670 pp. (258.)

SIR PETER MAXWELL'S book was the earliest of recent English works on the general interpretation of statute law, and still holds its ground along with Hardcastle's book on the same subject. It is not easy to sum up the comparative merits of the two works, as each surpasses the other in different departments of the law with which they deal. As an instance, however, in which Maxwell is vastly superior, we may take the treatment of imperative and directory statutes, to which he devotes twenty-two excellent pages, whereas the same matter is dealt with in Hardcastle in a much less thorough way in two or three different parts of his book. On the other hand, the interpretation of statutes as applied to the Crown has

always seemed to us to be more usefully treated by Hardcastle than by Maxwell.

In the present edition the editor has had the assistance of Mr. A. B. Kempe, who was responsible for the third edition, and the combination has been fairly successful. He apologizes for the increased size of the book, which he attributes to the development of municipal legislation and the great increase in the number and scope of by-laws made by local authorities under statutory powers.' We could wish that the book contained a compact treatment of the conditions of validity of by-laws and the power to make them. At least, if it does contain such a treatment, we have been unable to find it in the index. On p. 446 we do find a statement that by-laws must not be unreasonable, nor in excess of the statutory power, nor repugnant, and this statement is illustrated by a note containing no less than twenty-five cases of every sort and description without any comment. Of what use is such a note as this to the busy practitioner ? And even this amorphous list is not complete. We could give the editor at least five cases on tramway by-laws, of which the book makes no mention. And where is the Scottish ice-cream case?

We have noticed a misprint or two: 'Gereundeuse' (p. 226, note (a)) should be 'Gerundeuse.' Note (d) on p. 204 ought to be amended in view of observations made in Hornsey U. D. C. v. Hennell, which is duly noted on the following page. In note (e) on p. 206 the proper effect of Rustomjee v. R. is not stated. Something should be said about the law that codes of procedure, e. g. as to discovery, do not bind the Crown without express mention; and Thomas v. R., L. R. 10 Q. B. 44 and Tomline v. R., 4 Ex. D. 252, should be cited.

Bullen and Leake's Precedents of Pleading. CYRIL DODD, K.C., and T. WILLES CHITTY. & Sons, Lim., and Sweet & Maxwell, Lim. and 1066 pp. (£1 188.)

Sixth Edition. By
London: Stevens
1905. 8vo.
8vo. lxxii

My lord, I 'old in my 'and the latest edition of Bollen and Leake,' an eminent Q.C. is said to have protested in answer to the objurgations of the Bench, and we have always felt that, whatever criticisms might be passed on his English, his legal contention, supported by such eminent authority, must have been unassailable. There has been a good deal of change in 'Bollen and Leake' since those days, and for many purposes the practitioner prefers to turn to the book as it stood under the old practice. But it has been fortunate in a succession of excellent editors, of whom the present editors are not the least eminent.

Eight years have elapsed since the last edition, and the book now reappears, with a smaller number of pages indeed, but in reality of considerably greater magnitude owing to an enlargement of the format. Parts of the work have been recast, e. g. the remarks on pleading in general are now embodied in the Introductory observations,' and the treatment of replies and subsequent pleadings is separated from that of defences. The dissertations on venue and change of venue disappear, since the venue is now fixed by a subsequent order. We find forms of defence based upon the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897 and the Money-lenders Act, 1900, and the editors draw our attention to new and valuable headings, which deal with trade disputes, and claims arising out of Stock Exchange transactions. We are glad to observe that they have restored many references to cases under the old system of pleading, which may obviate to a large

extent the necessity of occasional resort to the older editions of the work to which we have already referred. It is easy to appreciate the difficulty, which they mention, arising from the modern practice of pleading material facts, instead of the legal result of such facts. The only way to deal with it, so as to enable such a work as this to retain its usefulness, is that which they have adopted, namely, to increase the number of forms given and to draw these as far as possible from pleadings which have actually been used in practice. It may well be that it will be ultimately found desirable to make the book even more of a formulary than it is at present, by adding an even greater number of forms and omitting some of the elaborate notes, which, after all, are not always strictly concerned with matters of pleading, but are apt to stray into ground covered by such books as Roscoe on Nisi Prius Evidence. May we add, too, that from our own experience we should welcome the addition of a table of statutes, and perhaps also of rules, referred to in the book? It is perhaps due to the absence of such an index that we have been unable to find any reference to the Shipowners' Negligence (Penalties) Act, 1905. The book in other respects seems to have been brought right up to date; see, to take an instance, the note on the Public Authorities Protection Act, 1893. If we may criticize a couple of small details (there is little else to criticize), we fancy the official method of citing the Irish Law Reports is [1905] 2 I. R., and not Ir. R., and that the Scottish Court of Session reports should not be referred to as 5th Ser. Sess. Cas. vol. vi, but as 6 F.

The Annual Practice, 1906. By THOMAS SNOW, CHARLES BURNEY, and
FRANCIS A. STRINGER. London: Sweet & Maxwell, Lim.;
Stevens & Sons, Lim. 8vo. Two vols. (or two vols. in one).
ccxcvi and 2088 pp. (258. net.)

The A B C Guide to Practice, 1906. By F. A. STRINGER.
Edition (same publishers). xvi and 187 pp. (58. net.)

Fourth

The Yearly Supreme Court Practice, 1906. By M. MUIR MACKENZIE, T. WILLIS CHITTY, S. G. LUSHINGTON, and JOHN CHARLES Fox, assisted by P. M. FRANCKE, E. CHURCH BLISS, and WILLIAM W. LUCAS. London: Butterworth & Co. 8vo. clxiii and 1375 pp. (208. net.)

THESE three well-known practice books again appear. 'The Annual Practice' contains the Rules of the Supreme Court of July, 1905, and the Supreme Court Funds Rules, 1905. The Directions to Agents and the Standing Orders of the House of Lords have been re-read, and recent amendments therein have been introduced. The sizes of the two volumes have been slightly altered by removing certain matter from Vol. I to Vol. II. This, however, will not affect the many persons who now buy the two volumes bound together. The notes to the Admiralty rules have been revised by Mr. Burleigh D. Kilburn, and the notes to the Pleading Orders by Dr. Blake Odgers, while Master King has sent in more notes on taxation, and Mr. Manson has increased the scope of the Index. Mr. William Stone is responsible for the Tables of Cases and Statutes, and many other friends have afforded valuable suggestions. The authors are to be congratulated on the skill shown in keeping the size of the work down, without omitting what ought to be retained.

The A B C Guide has been enriched by the addition of several new

titles, and the amplification of the matter of some of the old ones, without much increasing the size of this still 'handy guide to procedure.'

'The Yearly Practice' also contains the new rules and orders. The kindred subjects of attachment and committal are more fully dealt with, and many fresh notes have been added to those referring to other subjects. The authors acknowledge the valuable assistance rendered by the three assistant-editors, two of whom are new, by Mr. W. H. Rowe, the Assistant Paymaster-General, and by Mr. G. A. Hyem, of the Chancery Division Chambers.

Encyclopaedia of Local Government Law (exclusive of the Metropolis). Edited by JOSHUA SCHOLEFIELD. Vol. I. London: Butterworth & Co.; Shaw & Sons. 1905. La. 8vo. lxxxviii and 602 pp. (258.)

MESSRS. BUTTERWORTH & Co., encouraged by the success of their Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents, have undertaken the publication of a cyclopaedic work on Local Government to be completed in five or six volumes. It is intended to treat of the whole law of Local Government, except so much as relates to the Metropolis and to the Poor Law. In view of the large range of subjects included, it is a pity that space has not been found for the Poor Law-a branch of the law which in practice as well as historically is intimately related to other branches of Local Government. The Poor Relief Act of Elizabeth is the foundation upon which a very large part of the elaborate structure of Local Government has been erected.

The published list of contributors gives promise of good work, among them being the authors and editors of many of the best known textbooks. And if the later volumes come up to the high standard of the first, the encyclopaedia will be invaluable.

One of the best of the articles in this volume is that entitled' Actions by and against Local Authorities,' for which Mr. Macmorran and Mr. Scholefield are jointly responsible. It is full of information on points of pleading and practice peculiar to actions of this kind, and contains useful notes on such topics as the rights of individuals to enforce general statutory duties, mandamus, indictment, and the necessity for making the AttorneyGeneral a party. A collection of the authorities upon these matters is of great value. We have often experienced difficulty in finding them, and rejoice that we now have them at hand.

Mr. J. W. Baines contributes a luminous article on Areas of Local Government, containing a general sketch of the administrative areas and authorities for local government purposes. The present state of the law seems to be stated with as much accuracy and completeness as can be looked for in such an article, but his history seems to be at fault when he says that in some districts . . . the ancient parishes were often very extensive and were divided for civil purposes into townships, which acquired the right to appoint their own overseers or to be separately rated.' Surely parishes were never divided into townships, though several townships were often grouped in one parish. The township is a far more ancient 'local government area' than the parish, and it was constituted a separate poor law area, appointing its own overseers, by the Poor Relief Act, 1662. Besides those already mentioned there are notable articles on Account and Audit' by Mr. A. O. Hobbs, on the 'Acquisition, Sale and Letting of Land' by Sir Ralph Littler and Mr. G. R. Hill, on 'Adulteration' by

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