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TJie Green Bag.

selection is not so large as and is more eclectic than that of the American series, and the annotation is rather more specific. The editorial work is admirably done, both in selection and in annotation. The last half dozen numbers that have reached us contain an amazing amount of annotation — nearly every case is annotated — and the convenience and accuracy of it cannot be over-rated. So if one is forced to be a caselawyer, and that seems to be inevitable now-a-days, there is no excuse for his not having " the last case" at his fingers' ends, and for not being intimately ac quainted with all its ancestors and brethren. In preparing two law treatises recently the writer desires to express his personal obligation to these sources, especially to the last two, which have saved him much research and vexation, although they have at the same time added to his labor.

How many States. — The editor of the American Law Review has brought his microscope to bear upon some recent writings of David Dudley Field and the editor of the " Easy Chair," in which he discovers an appalling and discreditable degree of ignorance on the part of those persons concerning the correct number of the States of the Union. Mr. Field called it forty-two, and the other writer forty. The microscopist says it is forty-four. Probably Mr. Field was genuinely in error, but we can state on the best au thority that the other person was not endeavoring to state the number with mathematical precision, but spoke of them with an unexpressed " more or less," just as he might have spoken of the sixty thousand lawyers in those States, although there are probably nearer seventy thousand. Even if those writers were unpardonably wrong, something must be conceded to their distances from the field of State-making, and the reviewer's superior knowledge must be attributed to his western position, which enables him to get the news of such proceedings earlier than the unwise men of the East.

American and English Lawyers. — Mr. A. Oakey Hall's recent comparison of these persons in the pages of this magazine has naturally aroused some criticism among the English, who seem for once to care something for American opinion of them. Mr. Hall is perfectly able to take care of himself, if he deem it worth while to reply to their criticisms, and we shall not volunteer to defend him. At the same time. Mr. Hall, as well as ourself, can appreciate a good joke at one's own expense, and the "Western Law Times" of Manitoba, which is famous for its mild manners, seems to have made

a palpable hit at Mr. Hall"s expense, by quoting an account of a recent fracas, in court, at Lynchburgh, Virginia, between two prominent lawyers, in which one borrowed a knife and stabbed the other and "slit his face from his mouth to his ear," and the other afterward borrowed a gun and tried to force the knife-wielder's door to shoot him, and both were arrested and put under bonds to keep the peace. Hereupon the Manitoba editor says : — "Mr. Hall will thank us for endeavoring to give a prac tical illustration of the 'elasticity and general grace of movement ' of these 1 most prominent lawyers ' of courtly Virginia, as one chopped the other with a knife and pro ceeded to enlarge the scope of his ' facial gesture ' by slitting his mouth from ear to ear, and the other, scorning that silly ' monotony and artificiality ' of the English Bar, and ' fettered only by the innate dignity of a gentleman,' tried to blow holes through his adversary with a gun. Yes, Mr. Hall, you have proved your point; we quite agree with you that your system ' tends toward freedom and naturalness in thought and speech/ and, permit us to add, action. We appreciate the good qualities of the Bar of our neighbors across the line, but Mr. Hall makes a very poor trumpeter; he blows too loud." We really wish those fiery legal lights of the Old Dominion would conduct themselves in a more courtly fashion, and not "give us away" in such a humiliating manner. The author of "The English and American Bar in Contrast," in our November issue, was more temperate than the hyperborean gentlemen, but he betrays the lack of an intimate acquaintance with the Bar of this country when he speaksof"the personal acrimony, the intense jealousy, the mortal enmity, which a short acquaintance with American lwyers is sure to bring to light." Nothing but a "short acquaintance" could make such a discovery. The writer, " Barrister," has pointed out traits from which the American Bar is singularly and absolutely free. Instead of these ex pressions, one should read, " the personal good nature, the intense admiration, the kindly friend ship," as much more fitly describing the feeling of American lawyers towards one another. A more magnanimous and friendly set of men does not exist, nor one more noticeably devoid of jealousy and averse to personal disputes. Another point at which the last named writer is equally in error is that which he makes in regard to the "injustice" done in our courts "by the law of * variance ' as it now stands, and which no longer disgraces our rules of procedure"! Possibly this remark is directed towards the procedure of Massachusetts — the context would seem to imply it — and we are ignorant of the law of Massachusetts in this regard; but certainly the old penalty of variance was abolished in New York almost half a century ago, and as we understand