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 Rh BOOK NOTICES. LAW. A Treatise on the Law of the Domestic Re lations; embracing Husband and Wife, Parent and Child, Guardian and Ward, Infancy, and Master and Servant. By James Schouler, LL.D. Fifth Edition. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1895. Law Sheep, S6.00. It is now twenty-five years since the first edition of this work of Mr. Schouler made its appearance. The treatise was at once recognized as the standard authority upon the law of Domestic Relations and later editions have only served to strengthen its claim upon the profession as the leading work upon the subject. The present edition brings this law down to the present year. It is discouraging to learn from the author that the law of Husband and Wife is even more chaotic than it was twentyfive years ago, but Mr Schouler, so far as possible, brings order out of this chaos, and furnishes a clear and comprehensive analysis of the law as ad ministered in England and the United States at the present day. A Treatise on the Construction of the Statute of Frauds as in force in England and the United States. By Causten Brown. Fifth Edition. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1895. S6.00 net. This is another work which has long been es teemed by Bench and Bar as authoritative upon the subject of which it treats. There is no treatise better known to the legal profession, and this new edition will be heartily welcomed. Some nineteen hundred cases have been added and the text has been care fully revised. A Trkatise on the Law relating to Electricity. By Simon G. Croswell. Little, Brown & Co., Boston, 1895. Law Sheep, $6.00 net. A connection for some years with the Law Depart ment of the Thomson-Houston and General Elec tric Companies, suggested to Mr. Croswell the idea of writing this treatise, there being no work upon the subject fully adapted to the needs of cor porations and the profession. The varied uses of electricity have given rise to much litigation, and our courts have been called upon to decide many important and novel questions arising therefrom, and numerous statutes have been passed regulating their introduction and operation. In this work Mr. Croswell has collected in an orderly arrange ment, all the laws relating to electricity, except the Patent Law Cases, and gives to the practicing law

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yer a thoroughly reliable and comprehensive text book, which will fully meet his needs. Prominent among the subjects included in the treatise are the nature and qualities of the various franchises necesessary for electric lines and the mode of acquiring them, including the important federal franchise of telegraph companies : the liability of electrical com panies for negligence in the construction and main tenance of their lines and machinery; the municipal ownership of electric light plants; the placing of wires underground; the conflicting rights of electric railways and telephones in the same highways, etc.; there are also important chapters on the taxation of electric companies and on electric railway accidents. Law of Naturalization in the United States of America and of other Countries. By Pren tiss Webster. Little, Brown & Co., 1895. $4.00 net. Mr. Webster gives us in this volume a clear and con cise exposition of the laws governing the naturaliza tion of aliens in the United States and in other countries. | It is a subject of legal as well as poli cial importance, and one which, so far at least as the United States are concerned, calls for sober reflection on the part of our citizens. Mr. Webster leaves his readers, by comparisons, to draw their own conclusions concerning the present condition of things, and suggest the remedies, if any, which should be applied. miscellaneous. A Singular Life. By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston and New York, 1895. Cloth, Si. 25. Mrs. Phelps (Ward) has never written anything better than this story of " A Singular Life." It is a work which appeals to the best in one's nature and one which strikes a telling blow at dogma and bigotry. Emanuel Bayard, a young divinity student, is refused ordination by a Congrega tional Council on account of his so-called heretical views, and finds his life work as a self-constituted preacher and teacher among the lowest classes in a seaport town. Patiently and lovingly he labors among them, and so endears himself to the rough fishermen that they come to reverence and almost worship him. Just as his work is crowned with more success than he had ever dared to hope for, comes his death, a violent one, at the hands of the liquor interest, to which he had given offense by de stroying the traffic. " One of the summer people, a stranger in the town, strolling on the beach that day . . asked what that extraordinary display of the