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THE GREEN BAG

court establish is. this: An enemy's ship may be destroyed under exceptional circumstances; if a neutral ship is destroyed under similar circumstances, this confers no right upon the captor. On the contrary, he has committed an offense against international law for which he must make not merely restitution for what he has destroyed, but must also pay a penalty in the shape of damages and costs." The author criticizes as suicidal the attitude of the British government of acquiescing as neutrals in a contrary policy while enforcing greater strictness on her own commanders in time of war. JURISPRUDENCE (Law Merchant, Vitality of) IN the Law Journal of June 17 (V. xl, p. 467) appears the following note of an interesting recent English decision. "The decision of the Divisional Court in Webb, Hall & Co. v. The Alexandria Water Company that the share warrants of the de fendant company are negotiable instruments, illustrates the adaptability of the law merchant to the conditions of modern commerce. The law merchant is that portion of the common law which is founded on the usages of mer chants. It has been developed by judicial de cisions, and has certain disadvantages insepara ble from a system of case law; but, on the other hand, it has the great advantage of being flexible, while codified law is rigid. If the view expressed in Crouch v. Le Credit Foncier, 42 Law J. Rep. Q. B. 183; L. R. 8 Q. B. 374, had continued to prevail, much of this advantage would have been lost; for in that case the Court of Queen's Bench held that the quality of nego tiability could only be annexed to an instru ment by the ancient law merchant. For tunately, in Goodwin v. Robarts, 45 Law J. Rep. Exch. 748; L. R. 10 Exch. 337, the Court of Exchequer Chamber prevented the mis chief threatened by this decision, by affirming the rule that the custom of merchants may make any instrument negotiable — a judgment which has been acted upon in several instances. Moreover, in one of the latest cases, Edelstein v. Schuler, 71 Law J. Rep. K. B. 572; L. R. (1902) 2 K. B. 144, Mr. Justice Bigham showed an appreciation of the fact that the world of commerce moves faster than it was wont to do. 'It is to be remembered,' said the learned

judge, ' that in these days usage is established much more quickly than it was in days gone by; more depends on the number of the trans actions which help to create it than on the time over which the transactions are spread, and it is probably no exaggeration to say that nowa days there are more business transactions in an hour than there were in a week a century ago.'" JURISPRUDENCE (Sociology) A SUGGESTIVE editorial on the process of de velopment of modern law appears in the Lair Journal of June 17 (V. xl, p. 468). "Sociology is a word which meets us often in print now. Is has a society all to itself in England. It has an important journal devoted to it in the United States. It is the crown and consummation of Herbert Spencer's lifelong labors in philosophy, but somehow the lawyer —even the scientific lawyer—pays no attention to it. Perhaps it is that there is something too indefinite about it for the practical intellect of the lawyer, and it must be confessed that a haze does hang round the subject. But it is a great illuminating idea, and sooner or later the jurist will have to reckon with it. Pascal long ago conceived of society as a sort of 'colossal man,' but to that great thinker it was rather a figure of speech, a brilliant guess like some of Aristotle's, than a scientific theory. The sociology of to-day is nothing if not scientific. It grounds itself on the hypothesis that society is a living organism, analogous to plants and animals, grows like them in accordance with fixed laws, has its maturity and its decay. Certainly there are striking analogies between the individual and society, their constitution and their development. Think, to take an illustration of what Spencer calls 'differentia tion,' how the Curia Regis branched out into the King's Bench, the Common Pleas, the House of Lords, the Privy Council, the Court of Chancerj'; how the process of 'integration' again has been bringing together the feudal and petty jurisdictions under one head, the King's justice, and consolidating local customs into the common law of England. To trace the processes here and in other directions would take volumes; but if these principles are really at work determining the evolution of society and of law, are they not worth the lawyer's attention? "