Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 17.pdf/62

 EDITORIAL DEPARTMENT lowed. Having no code of evidence, but hav ing juries both in criminal, and often in civil cases, the same court has said that it will fol low the general rules of evidence prevailing in the other states of our country, so far as not modified by some special statute. It will, therefore, be seen that the system is quite eclectic. So far as general provisions in re gard to persons, property, and obligations are concerned, Louisiana may be called a civil law state. But in other important departments of jurisprudence, as pointed out above, she is largely indebted to English and American law." The rest of the Purchase since hardly ex plored by the French and Spaniards was oc cupied by settlers from common law states, who brought and adopted their own system. The differences between the two systems are, however, less than they seem, and tend to diminish in the process of modern revisions. The law of Louisiana is not our only modern bond of sympathy between the Common and the Civil Law. The Civil Code of Porto Rico is analyzed in the first section of an article by Joseph H. Drake in the Michigan Law Review for December (Vol. iii., p. 108) entitled "The Old Roman Law and a Modern American Code." It is largely occupied with a discus sion of the historical development of the method of classification in the Spanish Code, followed by an examination of the variations from earlier standards that appear in this newest product. It is interesting to note that, owing to the scant consideration received by corporations in the Spanish Civil Code, the New Jersey corporation law has been adopted with a few variations. A summary of the historical work of the month would be incomplete without reference to a learned exposition of "The Medieval Law of Intestacy," contributed by Professor Charles Gross to the November number of the Harvard Law Review (vol. xviii., p. 120), in which he says: "Much obscurity overhangs the English law of intestacy before the thirteenth century Blackstone, adopting the opinion of Coke, says that 'by the old law the king was entitled to seize upon his [the intestate's] goods, as the

parens patriae and general trustee of the king dom.' On the other hand, Selden and Pollock and Maitland deny that this was ever a pre rogative of the crown." "The evidence at our disposal indicates that according to the older law of England the per sonal property of the intestate was forfeited to the feudal lord." This proposition is sup ported by many citations from ancient rolls and charters. "While there are indications of a struggle of the feudal lords to obtain or maintain their right to confiscate the chattels of intestates — a struggle which lasted from the time of Cnut to the time of Edward I., and of which we still find reminiscences in the records of the fourteenth century, — the main object of this paper has been to call attention to the fact that throughout the thirteenth century many boroughs were purchasing from their lords a favor or privilege which, according to Bracton, was the right of every free man. In the very decade when Bracton was asserting that the lord shall not meddle with the in testate's goods, the lords were selling a burghal franchise which implied that they had the right to seize such goods. The importance of personal property in boroughs, which was due to the predominance of mercantile over agri cultural interests, would naturally make both the lords and the burgesses inclined eagerly to assert their claims against the pretensions of the prelates. The old law of intestacy, as set forth by Glanvill, pressed more heavily upon the tradesmen, whose wealth was made up mainly of chattels, than upon rural free holders and villeins. It is not strange, there fore, that the town law since the thirteenth century strove to reject the pretensions of both lords and prelates, and to establish the rule that the chattels of the intestate should go to his kinsmen, who would, however, be expected to devote a portion of his property to pious works for the atonement of his sins and the benefit of his soul." "Is there a Federal Police Power" is the title of an article of more modern interest by Paul Fuller in the December Columbia Law Review (Vol. iv., p. 559). "The police power is," he says, "the power of the people for self-protection, the protec