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In a word, if it falls and rolls under the bureau, can it be found again?" The query was put with the utmost apparent gravity, and it staggered the lawyer completely, so that after adding a few hesitating remarks, he closed his argument. Justice Brown and Justice Harlan were both convulsed with mirth, because it happened that each of them had lost a collar button that very morning. Brown's had rolled under the fireplace and lodged in a spot secure from recovery behind the gas-log. Whether the joke had any influence in the decision favorable to the plaintiff, which was rendered, nobody can tell. — Washington Star.

BOOK NOTICES. Restrictions upon Local and Special Legisla tion in State Constitutions. By Charles Chauncey Binney, of v the Philadelphia Bar. Kay & Brother, Philadelphia, 1894.

S1. 50.

The branch of constitutional law treated of in this volume owes its origin, as the author says, to a wide spread lack of confidence on the part of the people of the several states in their own representatives in the state legislatures. That this lack of confidence is well founded, the proceedings of some of our recent legislatures leave no room for doubt. Mr. Binney has given his subject careful consideration, and his work contains much of value and interest to the profession. The contents are as follows : — Chapter 1. — The Treatment of Local and Special Legis lation in England and the United States. Chapter 2. — The Distinctions between General, Local, and Special Legis lation. Chapter 3. — Classification. Chapter 4. — Local Option as affected by the Restrictions. Chapter 5. — Legislative Discretion as controlled by the RestrictionsChapter 6. — The Restrictions actually in force in the several States. The Historical Development of the Jury System. By Maximus A. Lesser, of the New York Bar. Lawyers' Co-operative Publishing Co., Rochester, N.Y., 1894. Law sheep, $2.50. Mr. Lesser, in this volume, offers the legal profes sion a work of great interest and one which will be heartily welcomed by all scholarly lawyers and

students of the development of our legal institutions. Since Mr. Forsyth's admirable work upon Trial by Jury, published many years since, we have had nothing so comprehensive regarding the source and growth of the jury system. The author's treatment and presentation of his subject is original, and the general reader as well as the lawyer will find the book well worthy a careful reading. Infamia. Its place in Roman Public and Private Law. By A. H. J. Greenidge, M.A., Hert ford College. McMillan & Co., New York, 1894. Cloth, $2. 60. This work, of more than ordinary interest to the legal profession, displays a vast amount of study and research on the part of its learned author. Branches of this subject have been treated by writers on con stitutional and private law, but nowhere, so far as we know, has Infamia been treated from a historical standpoint as a whole, as it is in this book of Greenidge's. All students of Roman law will wel come this contribution as a valuable addition to the literature upon that subject, for Infamia is in touch with almost every department of Roman life, and in its juristic aspect it is difficult to say what depart ment of Roman law — public, criminal and private — it did not to some extent control. We commend, therefore, the work to every thinking lawyer as one in which he will find both entertainment and instruc tion. American Railroad and Corporation Reports, being a collection of the current decisions of the courts of last resort, in the United States, pertaining to the Law of Railroads, Private and Municipal Corporations, including the Law of Insurance, Banking, Carriers, Telegraph and Telephone Companies, Building and Loan Associations, etc. Edited and annotated by John Lewis. Volume VIII. E. B. Myers & Co., Chicago, 1894. Law sheep, S4.50. The lawyer who wishes to keep abreast of the times, as to the law of corporations, should possess this excellent series of Reports. Mr. Lewis displays good judgment and discrimination in his selection of cases, and his annotations are unusually full and valuable. The present volume reports some one hundred and twenty cases, decided in the year 1893.