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254 254 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. Judge Curtis delivered a course of lectures on the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts at the Harvard Law School in the academic year 1872-73. The lectures, which were wholly oral and extemporaneous, were taken down by a shorthand writer and published in 1880. The present volume is a second edition of that publication. Owing to many changes which have recently been wrought by legislation, a small part of the original edition is omitted and several new paragraphs and chapters are added. The additions, however, are all enclosed in brackets, and the work of Judge Curtis is thus left practically intact and easily distinguishable. Of the high merit of the book there can be no question. The lecturer was qualified to deal with the subject as few could be, and he brought to bear on the work all the resources of a singularly keen and well-stored mind. The result is apparent in his clear and interesting treatment of the most technical branches of his subject. The only fault noticed in the work, if fault it be, is due to the fact that it is, as it were, a spoken and not a written book. The style tends toward the conversational, and there is occasional repetition. r. g. d. A Selection of Cases on the Law of Carriers of Goods and Pas- sengers. By Emiin McClain, LL.D., Chancellor of the Law Depart- ment of the State University of Iowa. Second Edition. Boston : Little, Brown, & Co. 1896. pp. xi, 744. The second edition of Chancellor McClain's Cases on Carriers is a great improvement over the first. Many cases have been added to the collection, but the book has nevertheless been made more compact by the omission of certain unnecessary portions of the cases. (See Orange County Bank v. Brown, 1st ed., p. 26, 2d ed., p. 34.) While it is of undoubted benefit to the student to take the original report and sift out the essence of a case, experience has shown that in a case book the shears must be freely used in order to save the student's time, and so cover as much ground as is consistent with thoroughness. A further im- provement is noticed in the better arrangement of cases under headings, printed in the body of the book. By the addition of new material various subjects have been more fully developed. The printing of Munn v. Illmois, 94 U. S. 113, as the first case in the book, is an excellent idea, as it is absolutely essential that the student at the very outset should be given an idea of a " public calling,'* early a very important conception in the law. It is to be regretted that the famous case of Coggs v. Ber?iardy 2 Ld. Raym. 909, has not been given a place in the new edition. e. s. Elements of the Law of Contracts. By Edward Avery Harriman. Boston : Little, Brown, & Co. 1896. pp. xh, 342. This is a wonderfully comprehensive little book. The author says of it that it is " an attempt to explain the rules of positive contract law which are to-day enforced by the courts of England and the United States, in accordance with the actual historical development of those rules, and to classify and arrange those rules as far as possible in a scientific manner." This task of stating the whole law of contract in a scientific form within a small volume, Mr. Harriman has accomplished with signal success. The arrangement, as can be gathered immediately from the Table of Contents, is perfectly methodical ; and his treatment of some difficult and little understood topics, such as Conditions, and the Right of a " Benefi-