BOOK REVIEWS

A History of the American Bar, Colonial and Federal, to 1860. By CHARLES WARREN. (Boston: Little Brown & Co.

1911. Pp. xii, 586.)

This fascinating book is of encyclopaedic character and of varied interest. The author well calls it "an historical sketch for those who wish to know something about the men who have composed the American Bar of the past, and about the influences which produced the great American Lawyers." He has divided his work into two parts; of which the first, discussing the colonial bar, covers about a third part of the book; while the second, treating of the Federal Bar occupies the remaining pages. Although the book is theoretically brought down to the outbreak of the Civil War, on certain topics Mr. Warren continues his narrative for twenty or thirty years longer and it is much to be desired that he prepare an enlarged edition, which shall carry the whole work nearer the present day. In addition to legal text books and law reports, he has studied with great profit legal biographies and has brought forth treasure from the mines of legal periodicals, and the files of the North American Review. His foot-notes, giving brief chronological data as to the lawyers named in the text, are so helpful that we wish there were more of them.

In the first part of the book, Mr. Warren shows the legal conditions in each of the American Colonies separately, describing the status of the common law, stating the methods of appointment and composition of the courts, and giving an account of the leading lawyers. We learn what were the methods of a lawyer's education and what books he had, what colonial bar associations arose, and often we find illuminating comparisons of dates of events in England and America.

In the second part of the book, the rise and development of American lawbooks are well treated in two important chapters. The author thinks that four great factors have been largely responsible for the great development of the numbers and importance of the American bar during the nineteenth century and gives three chapters to them, written from the historical point of view. These factors in the prog

ress of American law are "the rise and growth of corporation and railroad law between 1830 and 1860, the expansion of the common law to meet the new economic and social conditions arising between 1815 and 1860, and the weighty movement for codification between 1820 and 1860." A chapter is devoted to the history of law professorships and law schools from 1784 to 1830 and it is to be hoped that this subject, in later editions, may be brought down to the present time and that an account may be added of examinations for admission to the bar by boards of law examiners and of the efforts of the American Bar Association and of the Association of American Law Schools to advance legal education.

The work is so valuable and a second edition is so likely to be called for that the reviewer wishes to call attention to some corrections which may well be made when the book receives revision, The landowners, (page 2) rather than the merchants, were the ruling class in Maryland and Virginia. The relation between Maryland lawyers and the Governors were not so persistently hostile as indicated on page 8. Peter's History of Connecticut (page 13) is hardly to be cited as authority. The statement as to the first public library (page 16) may well be revised in view of C. K. Bolton's recent chapter on library history. Eisen-a-chia (page 33) should be Eire-narchia. The "first written constitution of a free commonwealth" is usually said to be that of Connecticut, or of New Hampshire, not of Virginia (p. 47). There is no record of any "court of pupowder" having been established in Maryland (p. 50). The reference to Mrs. Margaret Brent (p. 52) may well be compared with the account in "Maryland during the English Civil Wars" in J. H. U. Studies for 1907 (p. 83). For the early period in Maryland, reference may also be made to an article entitled Maryland's First Courts in Report of American Historical Association of 1901 (vol. 1. p. 211), and a monograph upon Maryland under the Commonwealth in J. H. U. Studies for 1911. Concedenda on page 103 should be concedendo. An interesting light upon Andrew Hamilton and John Peter Zenger (p. 108) may be found in an article in Pennsylvania Magazine of History vol. 20. p. 405. The Records of the Jurisdiction of New Haven in 2 volumes may add to the information as to colonial times in Connecticut, as may the sketch of Gov. William Leete in Annual Report of American Historical Association for 1891 (p. 209). Gov. Leete had been registrar of the Bishop of Ely's court and was head of the Plantation Court in Guilford, Conn. whose proceedings are discussed in the reviewer's history of the town,

chapter VIII. Bacon's Laws (p. 161) was far from the first compilation in Maryland and a list of the earlier ones may be found in Maryland Manual for 1907-1908 at page 111. In this connection, an important article on Bacon's work may be cited, which appeared in 2 Maryland Law Review, 82. The Maryland Provincial Bar comprised a remarkable body of men and the noteworthy way in which Gov. Francis Nicholson and his council leaned on them about 1695 may be learned from two articles in Maryland Law Review (vol. 2. pp. 70 & 106).

Reference might be made to Valette's Deputy Commissary's Guide and Caine's Lex Mercatoria Americana in connection with early American law books (29 American Law Review 149 & 467) Much more may be said of Virginia law libraries in Colonial times (p. 162) and an article in 9 Green Bag 351 may well be consulted. The "six corporations" of colonial times (p. 285) referred to do not include such educational institutions as Yale and Harvard Colleges. Harris and McHenry's Reports (p. 284) no longer contain the "earliest American cases," for the two volumes of Provincial Court Proceedings in the Maryland Archives ante-date them, to say nothing of what has been published as to the other colonies. Reference should be made also to the Virginia Provincial Reports, recently printed by the Boston Book Company. On page 354, 1826 should be 1806. References to Ames's Proposed Amendments to the Constitution (Report of American Historical Association 1896 vol. II. pp. 143-164) may well elucidate page 385. A word such as "government" has probably dropped out of the first line of Jefferson's letter of January 19, 1821 as printed on page 385. Harpers Weekly was established in 1856 not 1836 (p. 461). In connection with the labor cases (p. 469) it will be well to refer to J. R. Commons Trade Unionism and Labor Problems, vol. II, Substraction (p. 480) should be substratum.

While it may be well to devote special attention to Massachusetts railroad cases, reference should be made to the legal ability of J. V. L. McMahon, who drew up the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad charter, and to the case between that corporation and the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, decided in 1832, in which opinions were given by those notable jurists, Chancellor Theodoric Bland and Chief Judge John Buchanan (4 Gill and Johnson pp. 1-273). The stigma of repudiation of debts (p. 486) should be removed from Maryland, which paid them all, thanks to Gov. Thomas G. Pratt and George Peabody. Trojan (p. 493) should be Trajan. The "emancipation of the slaves" (p.547)

did not completely take place until the adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.

BERNARD C. STEINER.

Die zweite Haager Friedenskonferenz, II Teil, Das Kriegsrecht, unter Mitberücksichtigung der Londoner Seerechtskonferenz By OTFRIED NIPPOLD. (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot 1911. Pp. 267).

This book constitutes the second part of a work upon the Second Hague Peace Conference, and deals particularly with the law of war as formulated in the Conventions of the Conference. Reference is also made to the work of the International Naval Conference of 19081909 as formulated in the Declaration of London of February 26, 1909. The purpose of the book is to present clearly for the general reader the results of these recent Conferences. The method is therefore explanatory rather than critical. The author aims to show both what the Hague Conference accomplished and what it did not accomplish. Brief consideration is given to the special Conventions such as those relating to the Opening of Hostilities, the Discharge of Projectiles from Balloons, while the general Conventions relating to the Laws and Customs of War on Land, and to the Rights and Duties of Neutral Powers and Persons in Case of War on Land receive fuller attention. Almost two hundred of the two hundred and sixty-seven pages are devoted to the law of war on the sea. In such matters as the transformation of merchant ships into war ships in time of war, the author properly points out that not merely are the domestic and international rights of the belligerents involved but also the similar rights of neutrals. This is emphasized in the failure of both The Hague and the London Conference to agree upon a rule which should forbid such transformation on the high seas. The prohibition of the bombardment of undefended places and the regulation of the laying of automatic contact submarine mines is given as an evidence of the prevalence of law in matters of growing importance in the conduct of maritime warfare. The American proposition at the Second Hague Conference to exempt private property from capture on the sea is discussed and the slight concessions to this principle as shown in the Convention relative to the Restriction on the Right of Capture in Maritime War are explained.

The respects in which the provisions of the Declaration of London of 1909 supplement The Hague Conventions are set forth at length. That in the provisions of some of the Conventions there may be what seem like backward rather than forward steps is acknowledged by the author, particularly in the rules which sanction the extension of warlike measures to neutral property, the use of submarine mines, the elaboration of the category of conditional contraband and the provision for the destruction of neutral vessels. Admitting that the question of policy must for the present enter into the settlement of these rules because the supposed interests of the parties are not identical, the author also raises the point as to whether these supposed interests are not more nearly identical than generally believed. Advocating the freeing of neutrals from the burdens of war as a self-evident principle, he sees progress for the law of war on the sea along the lines which shall limit the interference with neutral rights in maritime warfare as the interference with such rights is limited in land warfare. The author sees in the regulation of the use of the air space one of the great problems for the Third Hague Peace Conference and maintains that even after the work of the International Naval Conference much remains to be done in the task of formulating the rules for war on the sea. He would be inclined to relegate the problem of disarmament and other problems of a political nature to special conferences and to leave to The Hague Conferences the further development of the law of nations.

The book is a convenient summary of the recent conventional agreements showing the progress of international law through the work of conferences. The bibliography as shown in the foot-notes indicates the great attention that has been given to the work of the recent international conferences. An appendix contains the Declaration of London and a list of the States which have ratified the several Hague Conventions up to August 1, 1911.

G. G. WILSON.

The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909. By EDWARD G. BRowne. (Cambridge: University Press, 1910. Pp. xxvi, 470).

As is natural in one who has devoted many years to the study of the Persian language and literature, Professor Browne is distinctly a Persophile. The reader of his well-constructed book reaps many