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they all descended from a common ancestor. This legal fiction has united peoples and nations, and made brothers of strangers and enemies, thereby incalculably promoting the progress of civilization. It may be said without exaggeration that legal fictions which many people affect to despise have done more for the cause of civili

zation than any other legal institution. They made it possible in every period of the world's history for reforms to find their way into society by the retention of old forms modified so as to admit of wider application. They arose out of the necessities of advancing civilization, and are to this very day among its most useful instruments.

LONDON LEGAL LETTER. September, 1902. THE Bar Library, which is under the roof of the Royal Courts, has recently re ceived a very valuable gift of a complete set of statutes and sessions acts of all the States and Territories of the United States. The donor is Mr. C. E. Bretherton, who was for many years a practising lawyer in the United States and for a long time thereafter the rep resentative in London of one of the largest American transcontinental railways. He joined the Middle Temple in 1884, and, though not frequently seen in the English courts, has taken the liveliest interest in all matters connected with English and Ameri can law. The value of his gift may be best appreciated when it is known that it com prises the only complete collection of Ameri can statutory law in England, and probably in Europe. There are no less than seven libraries in connection with the Inns of Court, viz., those of Lincoln's Inn, the Inner Temple, the Middle Temple, Gray's Inn, the Bar Li brary, the Probate Library and the library of the Incorporated Law Society. In addition there is a law library in connection with the British Museum. But in none of these libra ries, nor in all of them combined, is there a complete collection of law reports or Ameri can law text-books. It is more remarkable

still that in none of these libraries nor in all of them combined is there anything like a complete collection of English colonial law. Here in the heart of the Empire the law liter ature of the Empire other than that which is purely English is of the most fragmentary character. It has been stated on reliable authority that there are twenty-five libraries in the United States each of which is more completely stocked with English law books, including the statutory law and the reports of the English colonies and the crown de pendencies than all of the London law libra ries combined, even if in this aggregate is embraced the law books of the British Museum. The busy practicing American lawyer, not merely in New York or Boston, but in the commercial centres of the Western States; has at his hand the entire field of the common and chancery and statutory law of England and her colonies. On the other hand, an English barrister engaged in the Privy Council in an appeal from one of the colonies, or instructed to advise on the law of one of the distant members of the British Em pire, would be at a loss to know where in London to find his authorites, and, in many instances, he would only discover that they were not to be had at all in England, and that the nearest place of access to them was an