tion. But every case in which the construction put by a judge on any part of the code is set aside by any of those tribunals from which at present there is no appeal in India, and every case in which there is a difference of opinion in a court composed of several judges as to the construction of any part of the code, ought to be forthwith reported to the legislature. Every judge of every rank whose duty it is to administer the law as contained in the code should be enjoined to report to his official superiors every doubt which he may entertain as to any question of construction which may have arisen in his court. Of these doubts all which are not obviously unreasonable ought to be periodically reported by the highest judicial authorities to the legislature. All the questions thus reported to the Government might with advantage be referred for examination to the Law Commission, if that commission should be a permanent body. In some cases it will be found that the law is already sufficiently clear, and that any misconstruction which may have taken place is to be attributed to weakness, carelessness, wrongheadedness, or corruption on the part of an individual, and is not likely to occur again. In such cases it will be unnecessary to make any change in the code. Sometimes it will be found that a case has arisen respecting which the code is silent. In such a case it will be proper to supply the omission. Sometimes it may be found that the code is inconsistent with itself. If so the inconsistency ought to be removed. Sometimes it will be found that the words of the law are not sufficiently precise. In such a case it will be proper to substitute others. Sometimes it will be found that the language of the law, though it is as precise as the subject admits, is not so clear that a person of ordinary intelligence can see its whole meaning. In these cases it will generally be expedient to add illustrations such as may distinctly show in what sense the legislature intends the law to be understood, and may render it impossible that the same question, or any similar question, should ever again occasion difference of opinion. In this manner every successive edition of the code will solve all the important questions as to the construction of the code which have arisen since the appearance of the edition immediately preceding. Important questions, particularly questions about which courts of the highest rank have pronounced opposite decisions, ought to be settled without delay; and no point of

law ought to continue to be a doubtful point more than a few year's after it has been mooted in a Court of Justice. An addition of a very few pages to the code will stand in the place of several volumes of reports, and will be of far more value than such reports, inasmuch as the additions to the code will proceed from the legislature, and will be of unquestionable authority, whereas the reports would only give the opinions of the judge, which other judges might venture to set aside.

"It appears to us also highly desirable that, if the code shall be adopted, all those penal laws which the Indian Legislature may from time to time find it necessary to pass should be framed in such a manner as to fit into the code. Their language ought to be that of the code. No word ought to be used in any other sense than that in which it is used in the code. The very part of the code in which the new law is to be inserted ought to be indicated. If the new law rescinds or modifies any provision of the code that provision ought to be indicated. In fact the new law ought, from the day on which it is passed, to be part of the code, and to affect all the other provisions of the code, and to be affected by them as if it were actually a clause of the original code. In the next edition of the code the new law ought to appear in its proper place."

Although the illustrations, we believe, will obviate many questions of construction, and will do much to fix the sense of the law, yet undoubtedly many cases will occur in which there will be difference of opinion among judges as to what the law is. Room will still be left for doubts as to the meaning of rules, and also as to the right application of illustrations; and cases will no doubt arise where the enacted law is silent; in all such cases the judges will be compelled to use their law-supplying power. It will consequently inevitably follow, if no measures are taken to prevent it, that the enacted law will ere long be incumbered with a mass of comments and decisions; and although the number of chief courts has been reduced since the letter we have quoted was written, yet such is still the judicial system of India that probably many of those decisions will be opposed to others of equal authority.

We agree with the framers of the penal code in thinking that, for the prevention of this great evil, the enacted law ought, at intervals of only a few years, to be revised and so amended as to

make it contain, as completely as possible, in the form of definitions, of rules, or of illustrations, everything which may from time to time be deemed fit to be made a part of it, leaving nothing to rest as law on the authority of previous judicial decisions. Each successive edition after such a revision should be enacted as law, and would contain, sanctioned by the legislature, all judge-made law of the preceding interval deemed worthy of being retained. On these occasions, too, the opportunity should be taken to amend the body of law under revision in every practicable way, and especially to provide such new rules of law as might be required by the rise of new interests and new circumstances in the progress of society.

We have much pleasure in stating that the New York Commissioners (Mr. David Dudley Field, Mr. William Curtis Noyes, and Mr. Alexander W. Bradford) appointed in 1857, to prepare a code for that State, have issued the draft of a penal code, for examination by the judges and others, prior to revision by the Commissioners. Through the courtesy of Mr. Noyes we have received a copy of the draft, and we trust in our next number to be able to offer some observations thereupon. We cannot, however, let this opportunity pass without expressing our sense of the importance of the work in which the Commission is engaged, not only to the State of New York, but to all communities speaking the English tongue, and inheriting the laws and usages of the English race. It is singular enough that the appearance of two Reports, each devoted to the object of codifying English law, should have been nearly coincident, though prepared on different sides of the Atlantic, and intended to apply, the one to the ancient civilization of the East, the other to the young energy and boundless future of the Western Continent. It will be more singular still if England should come to be the only State ruled by the English race which does not possess a code of law.

Notices of New Books.

[** It should be understood that the Notices of New Works forwarded to us for Review, and which appear in this part of the Magazine, do not preclude our recurring to them at greater length, and in a more elaborate form, in a subsequent Number, when their character and importance require it.]

The Ocean, the River, and the Shore. Part I. Navigation. By J. W. Willcock, Q.C., and A. Willcock, M.A., Barrister-at-Law. London: Routledge, Warne, and Routledge. 1864.

THE Preface to this book tells us that it is "intended rather for the merchant, the mariner, the 'riparian' proprietor, the fisherman, the jurist, and the general reader, than for the lawyer." It is written by lawyers, avowedly, and it supplies both history and law. The "historical sketch of navigation "fills 130 pages out of 465, and would, in our opinion, have been better omitted; for we do not find in it that evidence of command of the subject and of the compendious method of treating it with advantage which, in the rest of the work, invites the confidence of the classes of readers to whom it is avowedly addressed. It is true that from none less than from is criticism of the " history" of navigation to be looked for. Perhaps no class, as a class, has displayed less interest in the past progress of the art by which it has its being; though this, be it observed a lack of historical interest in the bygones of the daily occupation-is by no means distinctive of seamen. We all, more or less willingly, "take for granted" in the past, what troubles us quite enough in the present. And this work, as one of practical utility, in which character it claims a high place, would, we think, have been well confined to that of which its writers have evidently a competent command, and in which its intended readers may be expected to have a direct and somewhat lively interest.

" seamen

The remainder of the work is well done. A vast mass of law, complicated, in no ordinary degree, by its being derived, in many instances, from several independent sources-the products of which can be reconciled only by reference to those general principles to which, for lack of a better title, we give the collective name of international law-is brought into a space moderate enough to satisfy any reader who has intelligence enough to see that there are limits to the useful compression of such matter. It is arranged in numbered paragraphs, and under heads so distinguished as to lead the various classes of readers addressed each to its own peculiar section of the book. That so much is not done without some expression of opinion as to the reason, or rather unreason, of some of the rules laid down, is

to be expected. Confusion and contradiction so inevitably beget controversy, and all three do so abound where-as in matters arising on the high seas, and involving different national interests-the conflict of laws is incessant, that it is not possible to obtain, for some problems, more than a choice of solutions, with an indication of which is most palatable to the writer who offers them. When the guidance thus offered does not run to needless refinement, is done with manifest impartiality, and with adequate knowledge, and leaves the character of the work, as a compendium, intact, it constitutes no mean addition to its value-for the occasional consultation of such books, by far the most frequent method of use, more frequently has reference to cases disputed (with or without reason) than to such as lie within, and are readily decided by, ordinary and well-established rules. And it needs but a moment's consideration to show how large a section of all that concerns rights to be asserted at sea, or on rivers, or with reference to water boundaries, must be controversial, either as affected by conflicting national pretensions, or as based upon the nicest regard to what is apt to form a shifting and slippery basis, as to facts, and referred to rules which are none the more likely to be intelligible, or readily applicable, for their adaptation to what is naturally erratic and fluctuating.

Messrs. Willcock afford us no indication of the intended scope of their complete work; and it is possible that, in forming an opinion of the present volume as it stands, we give them less credit than they may ultimately prove to deserve.

A Treatise on the Power and Duty of an Arbitrator, and the Law of Submissions and Awards, with an Appendix of Forms; and of the Statutes relating to Arbitration. By Francis Russell, Esq., M.A., Barrister-at-Law. Third Edition. London: Stevens, Sons, & Haynes. 1864.

MR. RUSSELL's work may now be treated as the book on the Law of Arbitration. Since the publication of the other text books we have on the subject, the obligation and the power to refer to arbitration have been extended to a great variety of matters in litigation, which could formerly only be disposed of at considerable cost to both parties, and rarely with advantage to either. Arbitration, up to a very recent period, only resulted from the voluntary submission of litigants after their differences had arisen. Conveyancers were in the habit of introducing clauses into partnership deeds, providing prospectively for the settlement of disputes by arbitration; and a variety of local and personal acts contained provisions of a similar tendency; but Westminster Hall almost always managed to free the willing litigant from an obligation to refer thus created. At length the Acts of 1845, for consolidating the clauses required to be inserted in a variety of special Acts, contained minute provisions