Review of Institutes of Common and Statute Law, 4 May 1877

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THE CENTRAL LAW JOURNAL. 427

BOOK NOTICES. ----

BOOKS RECEIVED.- Markby's Elements of Law. Mac million & Co., New York; Supplement to same. Macmillan & Co., New York.-- Burrill on Assignments, Baker, Voorhis & Co., New York.-- Wharton on Evidence, 2 vols., Kay & Bro., Philadelphia.-- Wisconsin Reports. Vol. 40. Callag han & Co., Chicago.-- Leading Cases on Mines, Minerals and Mining Water Rights. Summer, Whitney & Co., San Francisco.-- Sawyer's Reports. Vol. 3. A. L. Bancroft & Co., San Francisco.

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INSTITUTES OF COMMON AND STATUTE LAW- BY JNO. B. MINOR, L.L. D., Professor of Common Law in the University of Virginia. Richmond, 1876. Vol umes I and II.

The second volume has been printed during the present year. The first volume treats of the rights which concern or relate to the person; the second, of rights which relate to things real. Volume III will treat of the rights which relate to things personal, and volume IV of the remedies for wrongs. The two re maining volumes are to be published, as the author tell us, at an early day. The general division of the law, it will be seen, corresponds with that of Black stone, which, by long use, has become familiar and nat ural to the profession; but in the treatment of his topics the author is by no means slavish.

With rather unusual and commendable candor Prof. Minor tells us in the preface to the present edition that "the appearance of a second edition of the first two volumes of this work, after so brief an interval, might seem to indicate a degree of favor which the perform ance has not attained, nor indeed has had an opportu nity to achieve; for though not denied to those who sought it, no attempt has been made to invite purchasers, nor has it yet been offered to the general pub lic at all." He adds: "A reprint, however, having been made requisite by circumstances which need not be detailed, advantage has been taken of the occasion to revise the text, to make many corrections and some additions, and especially to put the whole in a more compact form, thereby lessening the bulk, and in a still greater ratio, the price." We greatly fear that there are many writers who, being less explicit, would have abused the situation by permitting the reader to sup pose that the first edition had been suddenly snapped up by an eager and keenly appreciative public; also that there are not a few who would have laid greater stress on the additions than on the corrections.

The work is that of the life of a man eminent for learning and labor in the walks of jurisprudence. How difficult it is to write a really good and accurate law book may be inferred from the fact that in revising a work which the author has, in the course of profess sional teaching, been in the daily habit of reviewing for many years, he finds many errors that need correc tion. Whether these errors were of any magnitude, or might properly be compared with the rather few and feeble, though sinful, sallies of wit that filled with re morse the spirit of the retrospective and conscientious Quaker of Charles Lamb- a spirit that aggravated and multiplied every past departure from rigid sobriety- is a thing of which we have not had an opportunity to in quire. There is something, however, in the wary and chastised style of the author that shows that he is quite capable of applying the file to his own productions with the unsparing resolution that Horace commends, however grating and harsh the sound produced by such a process may be. It is quite a relief to find, as a result of this course, a law book which is absolutely free from redundancy.

The training in the law department of Universi ty of Virginia has always been marked by its thorough ness, while other law schools have not unfrequently graduated students who could not, as a matter of life and death, tell the difference between a common of piscary and a free fishery, having only a vague notion of the running contents of a few later works, fortified by a stern resolve to read Walker's American Law and Ram on Facts at an early day. The foundation of Jeffer son adheres to the somewhat antiquated rubrics that demand a laborious acquaintance with the fundament al principles which underlie the vast edifice of the law.

It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that the present work will be found useful to students only. It is apprehended that Prof. Minor does not make the common discrimination of books that are good for stu dents and books that are good for lawyers. He evident ly regards his students as being of that robust kind from whom there is no need to preserve the approaches to animal food, and who could hardly grow in intel lectual stature and strength, if they should be restricted to a diet of milk alone. He rather supposed them to have undergone a literary training and discipline which will make them ready to take hold of something hard and enduring, as the world goes. Hence the present work is not one of well rounded generalities, making the student exclaim that he had no idea that the law was such a light and agreeable study. It might rather be likened to a skillfully arranged armory in which the student will find most of the bright, strong weapons which he will habitually need in his coming warfare, the use and right knowing of which involves the work of a lifetime. The fact that the author de scends into the minor details of his subject, with a most pertinacious spirit of inquiry, will, we apprehend, cause the present treatise to be as often referred to by the bench and bar as any that has lately seen the light. The chapters on "Title by Alienation," cover four hundred and fifteen pages of the second volume. If it had been published as a separate treatise, it would probably have commanded an extensive sale. There is nothing anywhere extant on the subject that is half so through; and it seems indeed to be everything that is needed. It is to be remembered that all of these pages are pages of law, from which every useless word has been expelled as if by some patent winnowing proc ess; pages in which principles claiming to be scien tific are attempted to be presented with scientific pre cision. In other parts of the work the author is equally painstaking and conscientiously minute.

This is the day of monographs. Science and learn ing are cut into sections and fragments, and distributed to a hungry multitude according to the appetites and digestion of different applicants. Tired of allopathic doses, the present generation is willing to take its mental fertilizers in homoeopathic pellets, and so to be thankful to Heaven and Dr. Hahnemann. The old abridgments are too ponderous for a race of men that never donned a coat of mail nor swung a forty-pound battle-axe. There must be a reason for the change of taste, if taste it be, that has cause men to prefer the separate and smaller treatises on special questions of law. Certainly the smaller works are handier. and yet there is room for books like the present; provided that they show an ability and learning equal to the in creased magnitude of the tasks with which they deal. U.M.R ----

In San Francisco recently, a Chinaman, who was indicted for murder, was instructed by his counsel to attempt to prove an alibi, as being the best line of evidence he could adopt under the circumstances. Accordingly, at the trial, a couple of Celestials appeared, and swore that at the time of the murder he was at work in a wash-house; two more swore that he was at home in bed, and several others were prepared to prove that he was in several other places, when the lawyer interfered and stopped further testimony.

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