Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 9.djvu/375

347 NOTES. 347 sciences, to which, attracted by the fame of its teaching, students from all parts of the world may flock, and from which shall go forth men to practise, to teach, and to administer the law with a true and high ideal of the dignity of their mission?" Admirable words ! To many of the lovers of England and English law, it has long been a wonder that this consummation is so long delayed. It is devoutly to be wished that Lord Russell may now press the matter to a conclusion ; nothing would bring more benefit to the law of his country, or more honor to himself and the great office which he holds. Lord Russell's specific proposition is the establishing by royal charter of thirty members, ten named by the Inns, ten by the Crown, one each by the Lord Chancellor, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Master of the Rolls, one each by the four Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Victoria, and three by the Incorporated Law Society. " I should confer on such a body the granting of academic distinctions, and I should commit to it in fullest confidence the settling of a scheme of preliminary examination, of systematic instruction, and of final tests of fitness for the profession of the law. ... To the Inns of Court, I need hardly say, we must mainly look for the funds to carry on the work in worthy fashion. ... In the existing system the annual expenditure amounts to some ;^7,ooo. If the lectures and classes are made attractive, I doubt whether any larger sum, or, at all events, any substantially larger sum, would be required to work the scheme which I advocate." This is suggesting what would be equivalent here to an endowment of say $1,000,000. The existing permanent endowment of the Harvard Law School is a little under ;^25o,ooo. The Selden Society. — The Selden Society has shown commendable energy in overcoming past delays in its publications, and the issue of the selection of Coroner's Rolls, edited by Dr. Gross of Harvard University, will bring them up to date. Advance sheets of this last are now at hand. From these it appears that the volume will be an interesting one, and a great aid to the study of the functions of the Coroner, and of the history of the decay of his office from the time that it was held only by landed knights elected by the shire (furnishing perhaps the machinery for sending later such knights to Parliament) up to the early falling into disrepute of the crowner's quest law and the recent rather ridiculous position of the office. The subjects of inquests afford peculiar scope for dramatic effects, to which the style of the verdicts lends itself For example, one reads that " Margaret went with a certain jug of the value of one penny to draw water from the said well in the said close and by chance slipped and fell into the said well and sank, and ill is thought of no man for the death of the said Margaret." Any one interested in the old crimes and the old modes of trial will find much that is new in these Rolls. The Selden Society deserve all praise and support for their services to the history of the common law. Reform in Law Reporting. — If Coke in his day lamented the exist- ence of so many as fifteen volumes of reported decisions, what is to be said
 * The Inns of Court School of Law." The governing body is to consist of