advantage by the death of his child. He said at most there was a mere speculative possibility of benefit and that, not being assessable, was not actionable. The boy was only four, he would be sixteen before he would earn anything, and even then there was no certainty the father would derive any advantage from the earning. "In any event he would scarcely have been expected to contribute to his father's income as he had $1,000 a year." The child himself might have died before he could aid his father, and the father might have predeceased the son, so as Mr. Justice McCardie said, "the whole matter was beset with doubts, contingencies and uncertainties." N.B. We have rather fully reported this so that some remedy may be applied in this country, at least, to the anomalies of this well-intentioned but most imperfect enactment. BOOK REVIEWS. We have received for Review the following new works: 1 Woodfall's Law of Landlord and Tenant, 12th ed., by A. J. Spencer, B.L. Law of Torts, by Hugh Fraser, M.A., LL.D. Problems of Peace and War. Grotius Society, Vol. VI. London: These will be reviewed in an early issue of the CANADIAN LAW TIMES. WIT AND HUMOUR. Where Mansfield Erred. Mr. Dunning, afterwards Lord Ashburton, was stating the law to a jury at Guild Hall when Lord Mansfield interrupted him by saying, "If that be the law, I'll go home and burn my books." "My Lord," replied Dunning, "you had better go home and read them." When You Tell an Anecdote. It was DeQuincey who said that all anecdotes are false and all dealers in anecdotes tainted with mendacity. He also added that "rarer than the Phoenix is that virtuous man who will consent to lose a prosperous anecdote on the consideration that it happens to be a lie." "Patrick O'Grady," said the Clerk of the Court, "you are charged with being drunk and disorderly"— "guilty or not guilty?" Arrah, b'gorrah, yer honour, why axe me that? Sure its a matter of evidence and that I must hear before I can answer ye! An English counsel in the famous Parnell case in London after exhausting every method of bullying and blarney to extract some evidence out of a wily Hibernian at last collapsed in despair firing the parting shot at Pat-"Dense stupidity is reflected in your very countenance." "Sure an oim plazed to know that ye foind it such a foin lookin' glass, sir," rejoined Pat. Law as a vocation or a career is a very wide subject. The difficulty which one feels who has been for many years identified with the study, practice and administration of law is to compress within reasonable limits the many points of interest which naturally occur to one. The common law of England (the basis of our Canadian law outside the Province of Quebec where the Civil law rules) was declared by Sir Edward Coke to be the "perfection of human reason." Another Englishman known to fame, the late Mr. Sam Weller, said: "The law is a hass." There you have law seen from the two opposite poles. I take it that my words will be of chief interest to the young men and women (for we must now reckon with this new factor in the legal equation), whose eyes are already being directed towards the law as a career. I do not desire to paint the prospects in too rosy a light, nor on the other hand to present too drab a picture of the outlook for students about to embark on such a life. It is only the chosen spirits of nature, the darlings of the gods, who reach the starry heights. The legal profession to-day, like most of the learned professions outside of the ministry, seems overcrowded: This is no new condition. It has been the chronic condition historically of the English Bar, and yet it does not dissuade an ever fresh army of students coming down upon it like "an army with banners''the favorite phrase by the way which Sir John Macdonald, himself a lawyer, used to apply to the hordes of placemen and VOL. XLI. C.L.T.-33 office-seekers that periodically swept down on the old man. It has been true of certain periods in the development of Canada. I recall an old friend telling me his experience coming to Toronto in the early "fifties" with an Old Country friend, John Hoskin, who afterwards rose to be quite an eminent lawyer in that city. After casting about a while his friend said he had decided to study law. My friend tried to dissuade him on the plea that "the profession was overcrowded." Nevertheless he entered bravely in, and rose to be quite a distinguished man in the life of the community. To-day the educational institutions, high schools and universities scattered all over the land are turning out an ever increasing grist of budding professional men or lawyers in embryo. The social movements of our people, the steady exodus which is going on from country to city are great influences contributing to the blocking up of the learned professions. The teaching profession takes a certain toll from the university graduating class. Science, forestry, agriculture and engineering take their due quota, but the vast majority of the university graduates go into either law or medicine, with law distinctly a prime favourite. It was true thirty years ago and is still true to-day. It is a matter of free choice. One often wonders what is going to be the outcome of it all, where all this flood of applicants is going to be placed and established. Take the City of Vancouver. Twentyfive years ago it had a population of 25,000 souls. It then had about 25 practising lawyers. To-day with a population of some 150,000 it has a small army numbering over 350 practitioners. The increase in the number of lawyers has outstripped the growth of population by over two to one. I have no doubt a similar result has followed in many western cities, like Calgary, Edmonton, Regina and Winnipeg. Twenty-five years ago it was a different story in the west. There was rather a dearth of professional men in those days, and especially in the years which followed when the west had such a phenomenal growth. Any honest lad in |