514 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. eyes and temper, but which has collected most of the cases on the various subjects in a sensible manner ; and, so far as has been noticed it does cite the cases for what they represent. j. s. s., jr. Cases on Constitutional Law. By James Bradley Thayer, Weld Pro- fessor of Law in Harvard University. Part IV. Cambridge : Charles VV. Sever. 1895. pp. xviii. 987 (1433-2420). This part contains Ch. VIII., Ex Post Facto and Retroactive Laws (100 pp.) ; Ch. IX., Laws impairing the Obligation of Contracts (249 pp.) ; Ch. X., The Regulation of Commerce (410 pp.) ; Ch. XL, Money, &c. (82 pp.) ; and Ch. XII., War, &c. (228 pp.). It completes the whole in four parts and 2,420 pages, which will in future be divided for convenience into two volumes, the dividing line coming in the middle of what is now Part III., at p. 1189, between Eminent Domain and Taxation. There is a good index, and a preface worth reading. A comparison naturally suggests itself between this collection of cases and parts of cases and the similarly constructed law-books which are called by their authors text-books and treatises. Here one has the meat of the cases, garnished with much sound sense and comment furnished by the editor ; there one has long abstracts from the cases, furnished by a person who in his preface in one breath condemns himself to be dumb, and in the next calls himself the "author." The comparison is decid- edly to the advantage of the editor. No one would care to make up his mind upon any branch of a subject like Evidence, Insurance, or Constitutional Law merely from reading a selection of abstracts called a text-book. Here one knows and sees what one is getting, and can trust to it. R. w. H. Handbook of Equity Jurisprudence. By Norman Fetter. St. Paul: West Publishing Co. 1894. (Hornbook Series.) To write an admirable treatise on Equity Jurisprudence within the space of a few hundred pages would require an amount of knowledge and skill that could hardly be attained in any other way than by an original and laborious analysis of the very sources of that system of law. In the present work the author has attempted no such ambitious task, but has endeavored to state clearly, and in the most convenient and attractive form, the principles of his subject as they are generally understood. With this aim in view, the leading books on the topic have been freely consulted and greatly rehed on as guides, in many cases to advantage, in a few with less valuable results. The subject of misrepresentation, for example, as distinct from mistake on the one hand {Redgrave v. Hurd, 20 Ch. D. I, 2), and fraud on the other {Newbiggifig . Adam, 34 Ch. D. 582, Peek v. Derry, 14 App. Cas. 347, Anson on Contracts, (6th ed.), 154, Holland, Juris. (6th ed.) 237), has, as usual, not been given its proper due.. This and similar mistakes, however, are perhaps not fair tests by which to estimate the value of the work, considering the limited purposes it aims to fulfil. On the whole, the book is a good one, and contains in little space such a concise and succinct statement of generally accepted theories as can hardly fail to recommend it to students in search of handy and not uninteresting summary of equity jurisprudence. d. a. e.
