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THE GREEN BAG

acceptably undertakes to supply it. As a past master in that art, Mr. Moore presents to us all the advantages of the encyclopaedic style of writing, —- well exemplified in the publications of the Edward Thompson Company, — without the crudities which occa sionally disfigure it in less expert hands. Mr. Moore's classification is both logical and minute. It enables the practitioner who has a definite proposition of fact committed to his handling to find with the minimum of effort precisely what he needs. A single instance must suffice. A large and increasing proportion of litigation concerning accidents to passengers relates to vehicles operated by electricity. A paragraph each is given to "Noise of Electric Cars in General," " Noise of Electric Car on Up Grade," Noise of Electric Cars on Down Grade," " Noise of Electric Car Running Slowly," "Noise of Electric Cars at Night," " Noise of Vehicles Preventing Hearing Electric Car," " Noise of One Electric Car Preventing Hearing Another," "Wind and Rain Preventing Hearing Electric Car," and " Sound of Gong of Electric Car." Other subjects are treated in like detail; Distance, Speed, and Weather each have a chapter. Among the elements which assist to consti tute the unique value to which reference has been made, space permits the mention of but two: (i) segregation of fact from law; (2) steady insistence upon the forensic impor tance of psychology. (i) The segregation of fact is, in one sense, impossible; in another, imperative. Facts broadly defined are mere existences. Prop ositions of substantive law, rules of procedure, customs of practice, canons of administration— all are facts. The practical exigencies of a mixed tribunal of judge and jury demand that some separation of fact from law be attempted; and on the completeness of this separation the social success, of the divided form of tribunal (as much of the present and probably all of the future would count success), appears largely to depend. The more complete the separation, the greater the probability that trial by jury will continue. This same separation of law and fact condi tions the scientific growth of the law itself. Present efforts to reduce American juris

prudence to a workable system, to introduce into " the gigantic bulk and bewildering difficulties of our own labyrinthine system "— as Salmond (Jurist, p. n) rather tartly puts it — something in the nature of order, have assumed the form of digest paragraphs and their tabulation into encyclopaedias. Clear sighted, scientific treatment in terms of law of legal principles, by jurists of mature judgment and comprehensive range of vision who can use the facts which, in any case, are to be measured by the rule of law as exter nalized and objective illustrations, has fallen into abeyance. In place of this, the effort is made to state the mass of facts in digests prepared from head-notes or in encyclopaedias, and all by the aid of purely clerical assistants acting under a mechanical system. A weary desert of scientifically inert fact is provided, through which the traveler may wander. — at best, with but scant success. Thus the facts of litigation are tabulated under rules of substan tive or procedural law where they but serve to increase enormously the difficulty of digest ing and even of understanding the law. It is not denied that classifying the law according to fads or stating facts in terms of law is far preferable to no classification whatever. As compared with more rational methods, the plan is, however, enormously wasteful of effort and unproductive of result. It cannot indefinitely continue. Where, on the contrary, litigated facts are segregated from the law as in Mr. Moore's treatise, they speak in terms not of law but of experience. Here the long travail of litigation brings forth a most precious offspring. The thought of the past is at the service of the present. Analogies gleaned from centuries of forensic contest are ready to the hand of all component members of the Court, — not with binding force of precedent but with helpful and stimulating suggestions in the search for truth. The judge, in commenting to the jury upon the evidence, or in shaping his own course, may find help in the careful thinking of other judges. Counsel seeking arguments to use with the Court or jury may find his range of selection broadened to cover England, Canada. and the United States. For example, a traveler's horse while crossing a bridge in Vermont becomes frightened and jumps into