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 Reviews of Books life imprisonment, but how long will the penal system of Scotland keep him at Peterhead prison? "The Lord-Advocate spoke, as I under stand, without notes, a procedure which may well add to eloquence while sub tracting from accuracy." The evil of inaccurate summings-up of the evidence to juries is obviously one difficult to remedy in any system of criminal procedure, but one rarely hears of its hav ing such disastrous consequences. MAGEE ON BANKS AND BANKING A Treatise on the Law of National and State Banks, including the clearing house and trust com panies. With an appendix containing the National Bank Act as amended, and instructions relative to the organization of national banks. 2d ed., re vised and enlarged. By H. W. Magee, B.L., mem ber of the Los Angeles bar, and formerly one of the Board of Bank Commissioners of the State of Cali fornia. Matthew Bender & Co., Albany. Pp. Ivii., 688 + appendix 278 + index 73. ($7.50 delivered.) WHILE the first edition of Magee on Banks and Banking appeared as recently as 1906, there has been a con siderable development of the law, both state and federal, since then. Banking has more and more come under the con trol of public regulations based on the conception of it as a public employment. While the question whether the legis lature can prohibit private banking has never been presented to the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court has held, in Assaria State Bank v. Dolley (1911, 219 U. S. 121), that incorpora tion may be imposed "as a police regu lation and as a measure of safety." In consequence of this decision many of the states have seen fit to enact safety laws, and the author uniformly maintains that the nature of the business of a bank place it within the class of public utility institutions. This is the proper atti tude, which brings the treatise into harmonious relation with contemporary

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tendencies destined to influence still further The value the legislation of Mr. Magee's of the near work future. was recognized on the appearance of the first edition, and it is a well-grouped text, convenient for reference, exhaus tively treating of the subject in the light of copious judicial decisions. Bank officers and directors will find it useful, defining as it does the extent of their powers, duties, and liabilities, and the bank attorney will find it invaluable. TALMUDIC LAW Mishnah: A Digest of the Basic Principles of the Early Jewish Jurisprudence. Baba Meziah (Middle Gate), Order IV, Treatise II. Translated and anno tated by Hyman E. Goldin, LL.B., of the New York bar. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. Pp. 193 + 5 (appendix) + 7 (index). THE book of Talmudic law chosen by Mr. Goldin for the first of his series of translations deals with the acquisition and transfer of title to per sonal property and is deemed by scholars versed in the Talmud, says the trans lator, "to be the key to the entire Order" of legal treatises. The treatise in question, while not unlike a code of numbered sections, is really a digest of a division of the rabbinical system of law, and this was something besides a mere extension or elaboration of the Mosaic law, so that there is plenty of opportunity for the work of the learned commentator. Mr. Goldin has taken pains with his annotations, which set the law before the reader in terms that he can understand, but one might prefer that the task of the editor had been taken up less from the standpoint of the specialist and with more attention to problems of comparative jurispru dence and universal legal history. We have some doubts of the prudence of the attempt to render the old Jewish law in the terminology of our own common law. Mr. Goldin, however,