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The Green Bag

tions being particularly clear and informing. The present work of the son must stand or fall by the value of that of the father. Of its historical merits we are not prepared to offer any critical estimate, but as a state ment of one of the most difficult branches of the law the present book is to be compared in lucidity and attractiveness of presentation with Blackstone and Kent, and the reputa tion of the author is such as to lead one to expect of him more than ordinary accuracy and learning. The first volume covers the general topics and subdivisions of tenures and estates, and the second volume treats of the modes of acquiring title, both by descent and by pur chase. The division of the text into short sections with headings in prominent type makes the work convenient for reference. The citations are sufficiently full to indicate the extensive adoption by various states of the common law principles elucidated. The typography of the volumes is excellent. HANDBOOK OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC UTILITIES LAW The Control of Public Utilities. In the form of an Annotation of the Public Service Commissions Law of the State of New York, and Covering all Important American Cases, together with the text of the Federal Interstate Commerce Act and the Rapid Transit Act of New York. By William M. Ivins and Herbert Delavan Mason. Baker, Voorhis & Co., New York. Pp. lxvii-(-669-)-appendices and index 481. ($7.) THIS work is a handbook of the New York public utilities law in the form of compendious yet concise annotations appended to the text of the several sections of the statute. The wording of the law is printed in black type, each one of forty-one headings being followed by a collection of extracts from leading decisions. The extracts fre quently occupy a number of pages before the next section of the law is reached. The cases on unjust preference, for example, fill sixty pages. As the authors say in their preface, the book gives "an elaborate digest of the entire jurisprudence of the subject." A remark able quantity of material has been brought together to show just what rules have been laid down, not only in the United States, but in widely diverging state jurisdictions, for the purpose of bringing public service activities under government regulation. Hence the volume, though intended for a special pur pose, is of more than local utility. It can

serve as a valuable aid in the preparation of legislation in other states along similar lines. It also assembles a profusion of citations such as must surely prove serviceable in settling questions of the interpretation of similar statutes now in force in any part of the country. The object having been confined to a pres entation of the New York law, the authors have pursued a course resulting in the pro duction of an extended brief in support of the constitutionality of that law, rather than a scientific discussion. Had the New York law been poorly drafted, their work would be of doubtful value, but under the circum stances it has all the merit of the statute and more besides. The negative faults of the New York law, if faults they may be called—its failure to define with care some of the leading rules referring to government regulation and its mingling of substantive and adjective pro visions side by side—do not impair the value of the work of the annotators, and if an effort is ever made by any state legislature to draft a model statute providing for the regulation of public utilities, the materials collected by Messrs. Ivins and Mason will be ready at hand for carrying out that undertaking. This is a practical working volume, well arranged and well indexed. The preface to the book makes a bold onslaught upon the laissezfaire theory, though federal regulation of public franchises is more readily reconcilable with that theory than Mr. Ivins supposes, and indulges in rather extravagant views regarding the already ac complished amendment of the Constitution by judicial decision and the catastrophe sure to come upon the country if the political state in America is not made to conform to the economic state—Mr. Ivins' theory being that a conflict between the two is always precipi tated when the political constitution is not to be reconciled with the economic constitu tion. This preface is to be deemed, with due respect to its author, a somewhat overzealous piece of advocacy. The notion that the economic state molds the political state is confusing, as the economic state in large measure is the political state, the economic institutions associated with the production and distribution of wealth sharing, with legal institutions, the character common to both impressed upon them by the instincts and habits of a given society. Mr. Ivins' funda