Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/566

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT

539

CURRENT LEGAL ARTICLES This department represents a selection of the most important leading articles in all the English and American ligal periodicals of the preceding month. The space devoted to a summary does not always represent the relativf importance of the article, for essays of the most permanent value are usually so condensed in style that further abbre viation is impracticable.

BIOGRAPHY (James Boswell)

JAMES S. HENDERSON contributes to the June Juridical Review (V. xvii, p. 105) an interesting account of "James Boswell and His Practice at the Bar," whose fame in liter ature has caused us to forget that his early career was that of a practitioner in the Scotch courts, where, he frankly admits, that the fact that he was a son of a judge helped him to a successful start. He could not resist the temptations of London, however, but his at tempt at practice in England proved a failure, and he gradually came to devote his entire time to the writing of books.

EMPLOYER'S LIABILITY (Workmen's Compensa tion Act)

IN the June Juridical Review (V. xvii, p. 117) Alexander Moncrieff presents the second part of his commentaries on "The Report of the Departmental Committee on Workmen's Compensation." It contains an interesting comparison of various foreign methods of in dustrial insurance. It criticizes the English system which is based on the compensation of the employee, and concludes that ulti mately this will be superseded by an absolute insurance under state guarantee. He also believes that the right to compensation should not be limited to cases of injury by accident.

BIOGRAPHY (Pinkney)

AN address delivered before the Maryland Bar Association, by Hon. Wm. P. Whyte, entitled, "William Pinkney," is published in The American Lawyer for July (V. xiii, p. 283). CONTEMPT (Jury Trial)

OF a recent Iowa case, Brady v. District Court, the Central Law Journal (V. Ixi, -p. 21) says that "it is a serious departure from the fundamental principles which, have governed the opinions of courts in contempt proceed ings, " in holding that a statute had abrogated the Common Law rule that a contemner's un equivocal sworn denial of the facts was con clusive. Except where the facts are within the knowledge of the Court the rule has been to give the contemner the benefit of a trial by jury as to the facts, and then on the facts found to determine his status. By giving the Court the right to determine also the facts, he is deprived of his constitutional right to trial by jury. The author also thinks that this is an unconstitutional interference by the legis lature with the inherent right of courts to punish for contempts. CRIMINAL LAW (See Jurisprudence)

HISTORY (Magna Charta)

"Magna charta Re-read" is the title of an interesting article in the Juridical Review for June (V. xvii, p. 128) by George Neilson. It is a review of Mr. McKechnie's commentary on that instrument, which is rather an essay on the subject than a review of the book. While acknowledging that modern investiga tion proves that much of the influence which we have attributed to the charter of John be longs to subsequent instruments founded upon it, he still feels that its fame is well deserved. "British legislation is an art which, after seven hundred years of experience, is pain fully open to improvement, as any table of mortality of our short-lived modern Acts of Parliament would show. In King John's century a statute was a very indefinite thing; it might be a charter; it might be a code; it might be a temporary ordinance; Parliament was prior to 1215, only a word for a talk at a council of magnates. Conscious legislation, in our sense, was only making a start. Are we to reject as a ' myth ' the influence of a charter which at the worst was an experiment in legis lation, itself xmsuccessful, but to be followed, and followed soon, by experiments which were an emphatic success, and which, confirming