SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., LL.D., CORPUS PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF oxford. TURNER & RUSSELL (from p. 107)-1 SIMO & STUART - SMOORE - 3 BARNEWALL & ALDERSON-1 DOWLING & RYLAND- LONDON: SWEET AND MAXWELL, LIMITED, 3, CHANCERY LANE. BOSTON: LITTLE, BROWN & CO. 1896. PREFACE TO TO VOLUME XXIV. In this volume Const v. Harris, p. 108, is the leading case on the powers of a majority of partners. The infancy of dramatic and pictorial copyright (which have not even yet grown up to be free from the troubles of disorderly youth) is illustrated by Murray v. Elliston, p. 519, West v. Francis, p. 541, and Jones v. Bird, p. 579. Blundell v. Catterall, p. 353, is the celebrated case which, against the opinion of Best, J. denied the existence of "a common law right for all the King's subjects to bathe on the sea-shore, and to pass over it for that purpose on foot and with horses and carriages" (per Abbott, C. J. at p. 386). From the Chief Justice's judgment we learn that "sea bathing" or any other bathing, as he might have vouched Erasmus to witness-" was, until a time comparatively modern, a matter of no frequent occurIt is something, however, to know that "bathing in the waters of the sea is, generally speaking, a lawful purpose." rence." At the end of the volume we have an important case of Parmeter v. Att.-Gen., reported out of due time in a note in 10 Price. It appears by Lord Eldon's remarks (at p. 768) that in 1813, when this case was decided, it was still unusual for the judicial members of the House of Lords to deliver any statement of the reasons on which their opinions were founded. We may conveniently mention here that, the Sale of Goods Act, 1893, being now pretty well known, we do not think it needful to furnish every decision on the 17th section of the Statute of Frauds with a reference to the re-enactment (Sale of Goods Act, s. 4) which has superseded it. The learned reader is requested to observe the note on p. 346 as to Jackson v. Attrill, 3 R. R. 683, a case which turns out to be of no authority. A learned correspondent has called our attention to the further proceedings in the ecclesiastical court in the case of the patent iron coffin, R. v. Coleridge, 21 R. R. 498. They are reported in Gilbert v. Buzzard (1821), 2 Hagg. Cons. 333, a suit against the churchwardens of St. Andrew, Holborn, for preventing the interment of a parishioner in an iron coffin. Lord Stowell, then Sir William Scott, discussed the history of burial customs with much elegant learning; pointed out that a man may have an absolute right to be buried in his own church yard, but has not "the right of burying a large chest or trunk in company with himself"; and, after receiving much conflicting evidence of chemists, concluded on the balance of common-sense evidence and observation that iron lasts longer than wood. The judicial result, on the whole, was that an involucrum of some sort for a corpse is only decent; that a coffin is usual but not necessary; that there is nothing unlawful in a coffin of iron or other unusual material, but also there is nothing to prevent the churchwardens from charging special fees for its admission, and there are plausible reasons why they should. A fee of 107. was settled for future burials, and the inventor protested that he would be ruined, and petitioned the House of Commons as set forth in the appendix to the volume: with what result I know not. The object of the patent iron coffin was to baffle the professional body-snatcher. F. P. |