which should defy the Supreme Court would strike, not at an artificial bond between independent states, but at the essential structure of its own constitution and polity. Briefly, then, the interstate decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States are conclusive of one thing only in this connection, — that a federal union is practicable.

But though these decisions do not go so far toward the international solution as Mr. Scott would press them, they do at least offer much and valuable material for the student of world tribunals. Even here, however, a preliminary distinction must be made. So far interstate decisions have been limited to historically justiciable questions, the most common being questions of boundary, contract, and nuisance. Indeed the court has frequently intimated that it has no jurisdiction unless the question is justiciable in the sense suggested. It is clear, then, that no light can be had here on the difficult international problem of the solution of controversies in which judgment would entail the enforcement of a political act by the sovereign of one of the states. But within the limits thus marked out these cases are clearly of great importance, not only in the fields of constitutional law but also in the new infinities of international experimentation. And the collection now presented should prove convenient for those who have occasion to consult the record of cases between the states. The first volume, with its collection of standard cases on the nature of the jurisdiction of the federal courts, the origin of the Union, the state of the law before the Eleventh Amendment, etc., seems hardly to compensate for the tremendous increase in bulk necessitated by the inclusion. But the second volume would be a convenient addition to the library of any constitutional or international lawyer. ARCHIBALD MACLEISH.

THE STORY OF MY LIFE. By the Right Hon. Sir Edward Clarke, K. C. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company. 1919. pp. 439.

Lawyer-like, Mr. Clarke has used the words of his title in their most exact sense. His autobiography is not a rumination, but a chronicle. To the general reader the book, save for an occasional passage which may change the angle of a sidelight upon a familiar incident, will, for the most part, be uninteresting; the student of politics and government will find more meat in it; to the lawyer it offers a sketch of the setting in which the English barrister moves. But whoever reads the book cannot fail to be impressed by the comprehensiveness and vigor of the activities of which it tells.

A poor boy who slept behind the counter of his father's jewelry shop, a clerk in the East India House, a junior in the London Sessions, counsel for Captain O'Shea and Dr. Jameson, M.P., K.C., Solicitor-General and Privy Councillor certainly a man whose life has covered as much ground as this is entitled to the "full contentment" in which he writes his closing chapter. Mr. Clarke's remarkable energy has taken him into the varied fields of law, journalism, literature, politics, and even shorthand; and in two of these fields he has attained an eminence which enables him to give accounts of famous trials that formal reporters could never offer, and to show prime ministers without their greasepaint. It is in his adventures as a disciple of Disraeli that the story comes nearest dramatic significance. When Mr. Clarke stands against his party in favoring compromise with the United States on the Venezuela question, and when he is forced out of his seat in Parliament because of his manly opposition to the Boer War, the respect which must be accorded to merited achievement turns into warm admiration and sympathy, and his re-election - this time to the long-desired position of a representative of the city of London—is felt as a climax to a tale as well as to a career.

South Dakota v. North Carolina, 192 U. S. 286.

Some of the book makes dry reading. Yet there are compensations. Commenting on the historic divorce suit in which Parnell was co-respondent and in which Mr. Clarke was counsel for the plaintiff, Mr. Clarke said to David Plunket, "I knew I was throwing a bombshell into the Irish camp, but I did not know it would do quite so much mischief." "Ah," said Plunket, "you didn't know that when it burst they would pick up the pieces and cut each other's throats with them." Cynicism speaks for the first time when the author finds an epigram in the remark that certain facts will soon pass into history and so be forgotten. And it is not unpleasant to know that the attainment of the first rung of the ladder of success which Mr. Clarke climbed so steadily may have been due to his belief that Hamlet had seduced Ophelia.

There is a pleasant flavor in the book, remindful of the fact-often forgotten, so vigorous does its author still seem to be that he was born while Lincoln was an obscure Illinois attorney. His story will not rank with the great autobiographies of literature, and his part in the making of history was too unobtrusive, his career too devoid of gestures, for his book to take a place with the memoirs of more prominent men of his time. But it is such men as he, sober, industrious, capable, high-principled, giving themselves freely and yet living richly, such lives as the one of which he writes, that help to give his profession its dignity.

OUTLINE OF A COURSE ON THE HISTORY AND SYSTEM OF THE COMMON LAW. By Roscoe Pound. (Cambridge. 1919.)

In the spring of 1919, Dean Pound delivered ten lectures on the common law to the students of the Trade Union College; and it was a characteristic 'generosity which led him to reprint their outline for the benefit of a wider audience. Their value consists less in any theoretic novelties they unfold than in the clue they afford to the general lines upon which Dean Pound's legal thinking proceeds. Like all he writes, these pages make positions which, in the past, were the object of furious contention seem the most reasonable in the world. The reader's special attention should be drawn to the four "jural postulates" which appear on page 40 of The Outline. They represent a summary of the philosophic bases from which all juristic thinking must start. It is evident that much labor has gone into their making; and they make us all the more eager for that long-expected volume in which Dean Pound is to summarize for us the immense edifice which has earned him the respect of all who care for legal science.

H. J. L.

EXECUTORS' ACCOUNTS. By Charles Howard Widdifield. Toronto: The Carswell Company. 1919. pp. lv, 531.

Judge Widdifield is doing for Ontario what we hope may be done for many of our American jurisdictions, — writing special books on the administration of estates. In 1916 he published his "Executors' Accounts," and the present volume is one of a second edition. In 1917 he wrote "Surrogate Court Practice and Procedure." His new edition of "Executors' Accounts" is nearly double the size of the first, and he has cited cases from all over the commonlaw world. The book covers the important topics on accounts, but seems to us to deal too briefly with the modern subject of succession duties. Furthermore, we should have liked to have more of a discussion of the best practice on the form of entering the items of the account. How should a pew, a cemetery lot, a copyright, a wasting investment, be inventoried or entered on the

account? Such puzzling questions of practice, which are at the fingers' ends of such an expert as Judge Widdifield, might well find place in a book for young practitioners. And we also regret that he has not had space for more of his own views and theories of probate law. In general, however, the work is thorough and well done, and this second edition is a book which an American lawyer will do well to have on his shelves.

BOOKS RECEIVED

ARGUMENTS AND SPEECHES OF WILLIAM MAXWELL EVARTS. By Sherman Evarts. New York: The Macmillan Company.

TITLE TO REAL PROPERTY. By George W. Thompson. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

INTERNATIONAL LAW. By Sir Frederick Smith. Fifth edition, revised and enlarged by Coleman Phillipson. New York: E. P. Dutton Company. BRITISH LABOR CONDITIONS AND LEGISLATION DURING THE WAR. BY M. B. Hammond. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. New York:

Oxford University Press.

LAW AND THE FAMILY. By Robert Grant. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

POLICEMAN AND PUBLIC. By Arthur Woods. New Haven: Yale University Press.

A LAWYER'S STUDY OF THE BIBLE. By Everett P. Wheeler. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co.