124 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. sound. It is not overweighted by reverence for previous commentators, however distinguished. With Judge Phelps, the name of Sir William Blackstone is not a match for the conclusions of common-sense. While, in solid weight of contents, the book may be inferior to some other ele- mentary treatises on the same subject, it has the great merit of " read- ableness." The writer has "the art of putting things" in a form likely to be both read and remembered. Witness his comparison of the Court of Chancery, tempore Eldon, to " a ship built for high speed, with engines of enormous power and corresponding appetite, but so fouled with barnacles and weeds as to be slow beyond endurance." There is room to differ from Judge Phelps upon the question what is the most important distinction between the methods of equity and law. He names the absence of a jury ; while Professor Langdell emphasizes the rule that equity acts in personam. (Compare sections 22, 142, and 221). In a book " designed primarily for the Maryland law student," it is not to be wondered at that many details of procedure should be given, or that some of those details should differ from the practice in other jurisdictions. But the value of the book to students at large is thus somewhat imjDaired ; and there is, to some extent, a failure to give special prominence to the salient points common to equity procedure everywhere. However, after making all reasonable allowance for defects, this work cannot fail to prove a serviceable First Book in Equity. j. s. The Criminal Code of Canada. By James Crankshaw, B. C L. Mon- treal : Whiteford & Theoret. 8vo. pp. Ixxxviii., 976. 1894. This volume is designed to present in a popular manner a full general view of the criminal law and criminal procedure under the Canadian Code. There is very little that is original in the book. In fact, it is not much more than a collection of well-selected extracts from the standard text- books and important decisions, with numerous abstracts of cases to furnish illustrations, so arranged under appropriate sections as to constitute as far as may be a continuous discussion of the Code. Mr. Crankshaw has added nothing new to the learning on the criminal law, and has been content simply to present the views of others. The volume, nevertheless, is of value in furnishing a more ready reference to the authorities with respect to the new system, and must be commended for its skilful and attractive arrangement of the material of others. The most interesting part of the book is the Code itself. It was founded on the English Draft Code of 1880, which was the last of the many efforts, beginning as early as 1833, to codify the criminal law in England. The work of the Canadian Parliament was therefore comparatively easy, and how much the legislators were indebted to the mother country may be gathered from the instructive reports of the House Debates on the Code given at some length in the appendix of Mr. Crankshaw's volume. The Code has made several important changes in the common law. It abolished the distinction between principals and accessories before the fact, discon- tinued the use of those technical words " malice " and " maliciously," substituted the word " theft " as a general term to comprise all acts of fraudulent taking and of fraudulent conversion, misappropriation, and breach of trust, and put an end to the arbitrary distinction between felonies and misdemeanors. In view of the fact that codification of
