I02 HARVARD LAW REVIEW.
REVIEWS.
Lis Pendens. A Treatise on the Law of Lis Pendens, or THE Effect of Jurisdiction upon Property involved in Suit. By John L Bennett, LL. D. Chicago: E. B. Myers & Co., 1887. 8vo. pp. Ixii and* 57-5 20.
This subject is one of considerable intricacy and difficulty, and yet one which lies within comparatively narrow limits, and would seem to admit of exhaustive treatment in a volume of 500 pages. This appears to be the first attempt to deal with the law of Lis Pendens by itself, and the subject has received but meagre notice in the more general treatises. Hence, it might reasonably be expected that a good book would be fully appreciated by the profession. This is not a good book, — at least not very good. When a legal author proposes to himself to "keep within the line of the decided cases," and only occasionally yield to his original judgment, and exercise the right of questioning the correctness of decisions, which seem to him vicious and without the support of reason, he is either too modest, or not modest enough. What is wanted in a text-book is not a mere statement of what each case decides^ but an orderly comparison of the cases, with a statement of the conclusions to be drawn from them, and a decided opinion as to the legal standing and theoretical soundness of the decisions. If a man who wants to write a book is capable of this, let him speak out and give his brethren the benefit of his special study; if not, let him make a digest, and call it such. Mr. Bennett, like many makers of text-books, takes a middle course, and produces neither a very good text-book, nor a very good digest An examination of the book gives one the impres- sion that the author laboriously collected a large amount of material, and then could not handle it. The matter is poorly classified. The treatment is desultory and circuitous : it does not lead anywhere. The mystifying sub-title is an illustration of the vagueness that pervades the whole. The meaning of "jurisdiction" as there used may be inferred from a sentence on p. 87 : " On the other hand, text-writers would seem to favor the view that, where courts have jurisdiction, and the lis pendens binds personal property, the binding force of the jurisdiction is efficient everywhere."
In addition to this lack of directness and incisiveness there are nu- merous minor defects in the literary execution. The author makes frequent use of that very annoying misarrangement of words, which brings a modifier between to and the infinitive; e,g,^ "held to otherwise have barred." He makes constant use of manufactured adjectives, like "pendente lite purchaser," "per curiam decision," etc., without even the half-apology of italics, which, at least, disclaim any inten- tion to smuggle in barbarisms by stealth. Little slips like ^*of strictissimi juris" *' cum onore," "obiter dicta . . . was used," and a certain fondness for Latin maxims, suggest the surmise that the author's Latin remains with him only as a reminiscence. Occasional misspelled words and errors of syntax further detract from the general effect.
The book contains a table of cases cited, — two of them, in fact, — and a full index ; but these seem to have been added in a perfunctory way, because they are conventional appendages of law books, rather than from any intention to make them useful. The table of cases. use-
