preference over other creditors and give him a first charge on the assets, and the appeal was dismissed. The statutes, it was pointed out, were not intended to legalise a pretended association for the purpose of enabling an individual to carry on his own business with limited liability in the name of a joint stock company. This decision has already borne fruit in another case where a winding-up order has been made against the London and Continental Bank and Exchange, Limited. There it appeared that the total assets amounted to £4,736, as against unsecured liabilities of £16,576, and debentures £8,000, but the vendor and his family offered to abandon their claims both as debenture-holders and as unsecured creditors. The effect of this offer reduced the unsecured creditors' claims to £3,800, and released the assets so that the creditors would probably be paid in full. No doubt this result is owing to the foregoing important decision. It was out of an argument in one of these cases that the following story arises :-Two companies claimed possession of the assets of another concern which had reached the stage of liquidation. The claim of both companies was contested on the ground that they were bogus concerns, and one eminent Q.C., nettled by the assertion that his company consisted of three shareholders only, retorted rather warmly that his opponents' consisted only of two. But his learned friend was quite equal to the emergency. "I would point out, my lord," he said, "that it is a well understood thing that while two are company three are none." He got the verdict. Clerks and Dissolution of Partnership. The following case is instructive as shewing that the possession of a bare legal right may not be always worth asserting :-When on dissolution of a firm the servants are dismissed, if a proper notice of dismissal is not given to such servants, they are wrongfully dismissed and have a claim for damages. This is the result of the case of Brace v. Calder and Others, before a Divisional Court, where it appeared a clerk was employed by a firm of three partners for a fixed time. Before that time the firm was dissolved, and the business was carried on thenceforth by two partners only, who offered the clerk employment on the same terms, but he refused and brought this action. The Court considered that the maximum damages obtainable would be the amount of salary which would have been earned had the employment been continued during a time corresponding to the length of notice to which the discharged servant was entitled. But from this would have to be deducted the amount which the servant earned during the period in question, or which, but for his own default, he might have earned. The damages awarded here were therefore nominal. This case is likewise of interest both to master and servant as regards contracts of service with partners. The plaintiff, it was clear, was employed by a firm to act as their agent for a certain period, but before the expiration of the time fixed there was a dissolution by retirement of some of the partners and the remaining ones offered to continue the plaintiff's employment on the same terms as before, for the rest of the period. This he refused and brought this action for wrongful dismissal. The Court of Appeal's view was that the dissolution of the partnership operated as a wrongful dismissal and, therefore, the plaintiff was entitled to damages. As, however, the plaintiff would not have suffered by accepting the offer of the continuing partners, he was rightly adjudged to receive only nominal damages. The fact that the plaintiff had under his agreement the security of several persons instead of only two, and therefore, although he might not actually suffer by the change, yet, there was a substantial breach of agreement, was a contention not supported by the Court. Outgoing Partners and Creditors. Last year the House of Lords laid down the rule that if a retiring partner leaves a firm, and the continuing partners agree to pay the debts and indemnify the outgoer, the creditors who know of and raise no objection are bound to treat the outgoer merely as surety for the debts. (Rouse v. Bradford Banking Company, 1894, A.C. 586.) This decision has been added to by the more recent case of Lloyd's Bank v. Rootes. There a trustee under a will was empowered to carry on the testator's business, and he did so. In that capacity as trustee he became partner in the firm. Subsequently he retired, at the same time giving notice to the bank, to which the firm and he owed a large sum of money. The bank thereupon opened a new account, and the sums which were received from the continuing firm were duly credited to the new account. The Divisional Court, however, held that as the bank had no notice of the terms on which the trustee retired, he remained a principal debtor, and did not become a surety, and, further, that the bank was not bound to allocate the moneys received to the old account. The result of this decision is, therefore, that creditors are not bound to treat the outgoing partner merely as surety for debts unless such creditors receive notice of the terms of the retirement. T. F. UTTLEY. Books Received. The Anglo-Indian Codes. By Whitley Stokes, D.C.L. The Clarendon Press, Oxford. The Principles of Bankruptcy. By Richard Ringwood, M.A. Stevens and Haynes, London, 1895. A Manual of Public International Law. By Thomas Alfred Walker, M.A., LL.D., Lecturer of Peterhouse, Cambridge. The University Press, Cambridge, 1895. Text-Book of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology. By Arthur P. Luff, M.D., Official Analyst to the Home Office. Two Vols. Longmans, Green and Co., London, 1895. A Digest of the Law of Light. By Edward Stanley Roscoe. Reeves and Turner, London, 1895. A Manual of the Study of Documents. By Persifor Frazer. J. B. Lippincott Coy., London and Philadelphia. The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I., a Judge of the High Court of Justice. By his brother, Leslie Stephen. Smith, Elder and Co., London, 1895. The Theory of Credit. By Henry Dunning MacLeod, M.A. Second edition. Longmans, Green and Co., London. The Principles of Negligence. By Thomas Beven. Second edition. Two Vols. Stevens and Haynes, London, 1895. A Treatise on the Statutes of Limitations. By Edgar Percy Hewitt, LL.D. Sweet and Maxwell (Ltd.), London. Our Indian Protectorate. By Charles Lewis Tupper. Longmans, Green and Co., London. The Theory and Practice of Private International Law. By L. v. Bar. Translated by G. R. Gillespie, of the Scottish Bar. William Green and Sons, Edinburgh. The Principles of Summary Criminal Jurisdiction According to the Law of Scotland. By Henry Hilton Brown, Procurator-Fiscal. T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1895. By Adoption and Amendment of Constitutions in Europe and America. Charles Borgeaud. Translated by Charles D. Hazen. Macmillan and Co., London, 1895. La Legislazione Inglese Sulla Stampa. By Celso Grassi. Bologna, 1895. Zanichelli, Einleitung in eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des Rechts. By Dr. Ernst Neukamp. Carl Heymanns Verlag, Berlin, 1895. Notes on Perusing Titles. By Lewis E. Emmet. Jordon and Sons, London, 1895. De la Contrebande de Guerre et des Transports Interdits Aux Neutres. By Richard Kleen. Pedone-Lauriel, Paris. Om Krigskontraband Enligt Allmän Folkrätt. By the above. Fryckt Hos A. L. Normans. Boktryckeri-Aktiebolag, Stockholm. La Question D'Alsace. By Jean Heimweh. Hachette et Cie., Paris. Reviews. Infamia; its Place in Roman Public and Private Law. By A. H. J. GREENIDGE, M.A., Hertford College, Oxford. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1894. The monographs on Roman Law issued by the Oxford University Press are becoming an important factor in the progress in England of that rather neglected study. Within a few years have appeared Dr. Grueber's Lex Aquilia and Dr. Moyle's Contract of Sale in the Civil Law. Mr. Greenidge's Infamia, though of a somewhat narrow scope, is quite worthy of its predecessors. It is more interesting than might have been expected à priori. The explanation of this no doubt is that Mr. Greenidge is a master of his subject, and any subject treated by one who has made it the study of years can hardly fail to be interesting. A reviewer cannot but recognise that Mr. Greenidge knows far more about it than his critic possibly can. The aim of the work is to show the gradual and halfunconscious transition from the indefinite moral influence of the censor to the definite legal rules fashioned in the Edict and adopted or extended by numerous imperial constitutions. The basis of the prætorian infamia was procedure, the granting or refusing of postulatio in the prætor's court depending on the character of the applicant. The infamia, in case the applicant were infamous, might be either mediate (juris) or immediate (facti), that is, might be the result of judicial sentence, or might attach simply from following a trade which in itself was regarded as infamous, such as that of an actor or gladiator. Both in the text and in his appendices, Mr. Greenidge has the courage of his convictions, and does not hesitate to measure swords even with Savigny and Mommsen. He holds, for instance, that there is no evidence to justify the theory of Savigny that there was during the Republic a definite set of legal rules affixing infamia according to fixed principles, and distinct from censoria notatio, which was discretionary. The technical nature of the discussion is relieved from time to time by stories more or less interesting. One is that of the tribune Marcellus, who, on the authority of Aulus Gellius, urged the citizens to marry, and so show that they preferred the safety of the State to their own happiness. The same writer records |