We are making preparations to celebrate John Marshall day, February fourth, as it should be celebrated. We are to have a banquet at the Hotel Manhattan, at which we are to have as guests two honorary members of Dwight chapter, Professor Alfred G. Reeves and Professor Robert D. Petty, of the New York law school faculty.

Altogether, I am glad to be able to state that it is the opinion of all acquainted with Dwight chapter that it has never been so enthusiastic or so flourishing as it is to-day.

NEW YORK CITY, Jan. 24, 1901.

JAY-ALBANY LAW SCHOOL.

T. D. H.

Jay chapter again greets her sister chapters, wishing them a happy New Year as well as a prosperous one. Since my last letter, we have experienced the pleasure of initiating new members, and the candidates have felt the invigorating effects of being initiated. On December 7th, six students were received into the Fraternity, and on the 18th, two other students, who were unable to be present on the previous date, were initiated. The exercises were very interesting and a decided success.

On Thursday, November 1, 1900, the Senior class held its annual election and our candidate, Bro. Charles J. Herrick, was unanimously chosen president. While his election was, to some extent, due to the efforts of the members of the chapter, yet for the greater part it was the result of his own personal popularity and his fitness for the office. Naturally we have felt quite elated.

In January, Bro. Darius E. Peck, Yale '98, passed the Bar examination and received the congratulations and best wishes of his fellow students.

During the past week school examinations have been creditably passed by all the members of this chapter. As yet, we have held no banquets, dinners, etc., nor have we entertained in any way, as the course here requires much of our time. JAMES V. COFFEY.

ALBANY, Feb. 7, 1901.

SWAN-OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY.

Swan chapter has added three strong men to her members since her last chapter letter: R. S. Leonard, Granville, Ohio; F. A. Shotwell, Marengo, Ohio, and W. C. Sager, Bryan, Ohio. Their initiation was followed by a royal spread at the Neil house. We have more of

the second-year men pledged whom we shall initiate shortly, but we will take in no first-year men, according to custom, until the latter part of spring.

An event thoroughly enjoyed by attending lawyers from all over the state and by many Phi Delta Phi men was the banquet held in Columbus at the Neil house, on the 4th of this month, in honor of John Marshal. Chief Justice John A. Shauck, Swan, of the Ohio Supreme Court, gave the principal address.

The moot-court class of the second-year men recently argued the close question whether or not the statutory lien of a liveryman on a horse entrusted to his care was paramount to that of the holder of a prior recorded chattel mortgage on the animal. The question was championed by appointees of Dean Hunter and turned largely on the wording of the Ohio statute giving the lien. It resulted in a sharp division of opinion among the members of the class. We have two decisions in the state on this point, one from a Circuit Court, giving preference to the liveryman; and one from the Franklin county Common Pleas, holding for the chattel mortgagee.

The semester examinations have kept our noses to the grindstone. The questions were framed by the professors as if they had well in mind the exhortation, "Let no guilty man escape." We have all escaped flunks, however, and, ergo, none of us have been guilty of shirking.

DAVID T. KEATING.

CONKLING-CORNELL LAW SCHOOL.

For several years previous to last fall, it was the policy of Conkling chapter to take into its membership only those who had had no previous connections with other fraternities, but last October it was agreed that the broad interests of Phi Delta Phi demanded that its membership be not restricted to any one class of college students. It was believed that the largest possible field for the selection of members ought to be open to the Fraternity. In accordance with this decision the following men have been initiated without regard to the previous fraternal affiliations of some of them: Davis Hawley, Jr., 1901, Cleveland, O.; William Waldo Pellet, 1901, Watkins, N. Y.; Welford J. Golden, 1901, Little Falls, N. Y.; George Rivet Van Namee, 1901, Watertown, N. Y.; Carl Dautel, 1901, Cleveland, O.; Roy Meldrum Hart, 1901, North Rush, N. Y.; Joseph Cook Culver, 1902, Eau Claire, Wis.: Charles Shoemaker Yawger, 1902, Seneca Falls, N. Y.; James Hamilton Macbeth, 1902, Buffalo, N. Y.

The active members of the chapter are highly elated over the prospect of the holding of the next General Convention at Buffalo at the time of the Pan American Exposition, this coming summer, and, to a man, are preparing to attend.

ITHACA, N. Y., March 2, 1901.

GERALD B. FLUHNER,

Scriptor.

Book Reviews.

Andrews's American Law: A Treatise on the Jurisdiction, Constitution and Laws of the United States. By JAMES DEWITT ANDREWS. Pp. 1300. Price, $6.50. Callaghan & Co., Chicago. This is the latest work of Professor Andrews, who is also the author of "Wilson's Works," "Andrews's Stephen's Pleadings," and "Cooley's Blackstone."

We have found it rather difficult to form an opinion of this work, and understand that others have had similar trouble. Some reviewers praise it highly, others criticise it unsparingly.

The work certainly shows untiring research. In his desire to state the law tersely in many cases Professor Andrews has dealt in too broad generalities, and made statements which are at least loose, if not inaccurate. This may be noticed in section 390, in treating of judicial notice of the journals of the legislature by the courts; and in section 557, in speaking of a wife's acting as her husband's agent.

In some places the reader, unless he remembers the title of the work he is perusing, is apt to think that he is reading Bartlett's "Poetic Quotations," as where, in discussing the divine rights of sovereigns, Mr. Andrews quotes from the Iliad: "Be still, thou slave, and to thy betters yield; be silent, wretch, and think not here allowed that worst of tyrants, an usurping crowd. To one sole monarch Jove commits the sway. His are the laws, and let him all obey." The author also often lapses into ethics, history of philosophy, sociology, and political economy; all somewhat connected, it is true, with the law; but one ordinarily prefers to read these subjects in books specially devoted to them. Professor Andrews has a fondness for making extended quotations from other authors, and also largely from after-dinner speeches, political addresses, etc., which makes one think, for the moment, that he has met the orator's pocket companion. The practice of introducing a chapter with a quotation, as he often does, is certainly novel.

The book is written on the analytical basis, and is said to be the "Blackstone of America." It seems though that for a purely elementary book, there is too much of it, and for a book of practical use

there is not enough. The author seems to have attempted on a small scale what the editors of the American and English Encyclopedia of Law have attempted on a large scale, i. e., to give us all the law. This is surely an impossible task for one man to attempt, and it is wholly unnecessary when we have so many books on so many special subjects, each book written by a specialist.

The work is out of all proportion to the relative amount of attention given each subject. He himself admits this (section 570). Criminal Law is given three pages; Real Property sixty-seven pages.

These little matters-faults, we regard them-should not prejudice us to the merits of Mr. Andrew's work. He has shown rare skill in arranging in logical, analytical form our American law as nearly as the state of things allows, and has quite successfully, we think, worked out the philosophy of the law. The first 680 pages treats of the Law of Persons in an entirely novel way, novel, at least, as applied to American law. He begins with definitions of jurisprudence, municipal law, and civil liberty; then comes a treatment of the people as a populace, as members of the states, and then as members of the nation. Then follows a discussion of the national government with its three subdivisions, and with various powers under the constitution; then of the state, of its relation to the nation, and to its own subdivisions; and finally of the people as individuals and in their personal rights and domestic relations.

The outlines scattered through the book are a great assistance in in crystallizing one's ideas. An admirable index impresses one with the fact that many pretentious works are lacking in this respect.

M. I. ST. J.

The Case and Exceptions. By FREDERICK TREVOR HILL, of the New York Bar. Pp. 241. Price, $1.25. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York.

The young lawyer who still dreams of the laurels which he will some day win, will enjoy reading Mr. Hill's collection of "story of council and clients" published under the title of "The Case and Exceptions," especially if he is not of too critical a turn of mind. We all like to feel that our daily work and life has a dash of romance in it, and nothing so helps us to realize that fact as a tale which deals with our chosen profession.

Although Mr. Hill has shown by some of the passages in his book that he has a grasp of his subject and can write interestingly and well, he does not seem to have exercised sufficient care in the choice or

construction of his plots. The stories, though interesting, remind one rather sadly of the undergraduate efforts which we had to read in order to get our money's worth out of our subscription to the college weekly or monthly. We doubt whether Mr. Hill's book would be able to wean the older practitioner even for one hour from his briefs and his volumes of reports.

We believe, however, that Mr. Hill could do very much better if he tried, and shall welcome another volume from his pen. If in a new volume he can interest us as he did for instance by the story of "His Honour" of the present volume, we shall be satisfied.

F. v. B.

Attorney's Common-Place and Brief Book. Pp. 300 and 500. Price, $3.00. The Williamson Law-Book Co., Rochester, N. Y. The book is put out in two sizes, 300 and 500 pages, 9 x 10% inches, Russia back and corners, good linen stock with 11⁄2 inches space at side and top for titles. Pages 1-19 are devoted to an alphabetical list of such legal titles to cover such subjects as one will ordinarily meet and a two-inch space is left at the bottom of these pages so one can add the extraordinary things. It is taken for granted that every lawyer keeps some sort of reference system, either a common place-book and file, or cards and files. Which is the better is determined by the habits of the user. A common-place book is always at one's hand, but in time it is filled; the card system always grows, but it requires methodical traits to avoid chaos. If you prefer the common-place book, you will find this one good.

State and Federal Control of Persons and Property. BY CHRISTOPHER G. TIEDEMAN, Tiedeman. 2 vols. Pp. 1273. Price, $12.00 F. H. Thomas Law Book Co., St Louis.

This is an enlarged edition of Professor Tiedeman's "Limitations of Police Powers," published in 1886, when the author was professor of law in the University of Missouri law school. During the past fourteen years the field covered by that book has developed to such an extent-which development has been added that the present work is really more nearly a new book than a new edition.

"Limitations of Police Power" was largely original-research work and if Mr. Tiedeman had given the profession nothing else his name would have long remained among our legal writers, but his "Real Property," "Commercial Paper," "Sales," "Municipal Corporations," ," "Bills and Notes," and "The Unwritten Constitution of the United States," etc., are well-known books.