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184 1 84 HAR VARD LAW RE VIE W. stricted in scope, are, nevertheless, important ones, and add much to the vahie of the book to all careful students of the law. As practically the same law of contracts prevails on either side of the ocean, this volume will probably be used here as well as in England, superseding the " American " as well as other earlier editions, and rank- ing even higher than previously in the legal world. d. a. e. A Selection of Cases and other Authorities upon Criminal Law. By Joseph Henry Beale, Jr., Assistant Professor of Law in Harvard University. Cambridge : Harvard Law Review Publishing Associ- ation. 1894. 8vo. pp. 983. These cases are selected and edited after the manner of other collec- tions of the kind in use in the Harvar i Law School. That is, they con- sist not merely of leading cases and authorities for what is law, but also of many decisions whose authority may be questioned, or rejected alto- gether. The object is not simply to furnish a systematic outline of the law itself, but to train the student to do sound legal reasoning for him- self. They are accordingly used to best advantage with the aid of a teacher. That does not mean, hovever, that the teacher is confined to one method of instruction. The case-method is not a method of instruc- tion, but of study. Most of the objections to it would vanish if this fact were more cleaily appreciated. A few of these cases, decided during the first ten years of James L, are now printed for the first time, being taken from an old manuscript presented to the Harvard Law School in 1835, by J. J. Wilkinson, Esq., of the Temple, London. As these cases are primarily designed for use in schools, the head notes are omitted. But a full index will make the book useful to prac- tising lawyers. f. b. w. Commentaries on American Law. By James Kent, LL. D., Chancellor of the State of New York. Edited by Wm. Hardcastle Brown, Author of an Edition ( sic?) of Blackstone's Commentaries, etc. St. Paul, Minn: West Publishing Co. 1894. 8vo. pp. xv. 926. Every lawyer knows the present bulk of Kent's Commentaries and the way in which the text is overlaid, even smothered, with notes. Feel- ing that the student is somewhat overtaxed thereby Mr. Browne has dis- carded the notes ; and feeling that the well rounded periods of the great American Chancellor are too diffuse for some students of to-day who want before all things brevity, Mr. Browne has gone over the text itself with an unsparing hand, making almost every statement shorter, changing bits of the phrasing in almost every sentence, and putting in prefatory catch-words in black type, but nowhere attempting anything but condensa- tion. Now less than nine hundred pages in this volume represent the text of all Kent's Commentaries. The student who can get from this what students have hitherto sought in the unabridged edition will save much valuable time and the purchase money of three octavo volumes. To many this will over-balance the loss of notes, though they be by Mr. Justice Holmes, and of Mr. Chancellor Kent's own graceful style. R. w. H.