Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 21.pdf/267

 246

The Green Bag

of national Senators, the state legislatures merely registering the decision of state con ventions. Bagehot could not find where the sov ereignty was placed in the government of the United States, and that is because the gov ernment under the Constitution controls but a part of the activities of the sovereign people. "This explains why so much of the highest and best trained and most represen tative talent and ability of America are found outside of the government. . . . Only occasionally ... do men of the highest intel lectual and moral type enter the government service and remain in it." The development of the American spirit of independence has not resulted in a hypertrophied individualism, for the sense of responsibility for the admin istration of great wealth as a public trust is widespread. The book, while not at all profound or weighty, abounds in keen observation. Presi dent Butler has given us his views as to the typical American, who is to be found not in Boston nor in New York, which are compara tively near to Europe, but in northern Illi nois and in the adjacent parts of Iowa, Wis consin, and Minnesota. Here the soil is rich, the population well-to-do and intelligent, manners and morals of a high grade, and vice and crime little known. In Indiana, Mis souri, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, California, and elsewhere, similar conditions abound. New York is the intellectual and the social capital as well as the financial centre of the United States. "The opportunities which New York offers to men of capacity are liter ally boundless." The differences between the East and the West are more largely in modes of expression than in modes of thought. "The typical American is he who, whether rich or poor, whether dwelling in the North, South, East or West, whether scholar, professional man, merchant, manufacturer, farmer, or skilled worker for wages, lives the life of a good citizen and a good neighbor; who be lieves loyally and with all his heart in his country's institutions, and in the under lying principles on which these institutions are built; who directs both his private and his public life by sound principles; who cherishes high ideals; and who aims to train his children for a useful life and for their country's service."

THE LAW OF APARTMENTS The Law of Apartments, Flats, and TenementsBy William George. Fallon Law Book Company' N. Y. Pp. 213 + indexes and appendices 275 ($4.) THE author of "George on Partnership" has here presented the law governing the rights, liabilities, and remedies of owners, proprietors, and tenants of apartment and tenement houses, with notes of cases decided in all jurisdictions. The text-book is in three parts, dealing with the owner, proprietor, and tenant respectively, and each part is in three chapters which severally deal with each of these three, in his relations with the two others and also with third persons. This arrangement enables one to turn quickly to the rule of law one wishes to find. It is perhaps to be regretted that the author does not venture upon a concise terminology, instead of using for dissimilar ideas words of such similar meaning as owner and proprietor. In a Pennsylvania decision cited by the author, Shott v. Harvey, 105 Pa. St. 222, an owner was defined in construing a statute as the person "in possession and occupancy of the premises who has the immediate dominion and control over it," but the authority of this and similar decisions would not have obliged the author to use the term owner in a sense which may include a tenant for years or even a mere tenant at will. The plan of the book, however, is logically laid out, and it will serve a useful purpose to those who desire a convenient manual of apartment house law. The appendices contain the Tenement House Act of New York State and the Building Code of New York City. BOOKS RECEIVED Receipt of the following books, which will be reviewed later, is acknowledged :— A Treatise on the Law Relating to Injunctions. By Howard C. Joyce, of New York City. Matthew Bender & Co., Albany. 3 v., pp. xlvii, 2075 + table of cases and index 308. ($16.50 net.) The Law Governing Sales of Goods, at Common Law and under the Uniform Sales Act. By Samuel Williston, Weld Professor of Law in Harvard Uni versity. Baker, Voorhis & Co., N. Y. Pp. cix, 1155 + appendix and index 148. ($7.50.) Questions and Answers for Bar Examination Re view. By Charles S. Haight of the New York bar and Arthur M. Marsh of the Connecticut bar. 2d edition. Baker, Voorhis & Co., N. Y. Pp. Hi, 530 + index 55. ($4 net.)