BOOK NOTICE.

Evening Star, Issue 7473, 17 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOOK NOTICE.

Digest of Cams from 1861 to 188G, by Lowther Broad, Esq., barrister, District Judge, etc., and Mr Frank H. Cooke, barrister (second edition). This is the second edition of Judge Broad's valuable 'Digest of Cases' in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court of New Zealand, and in this edition the scope of the work has been so far extended as to include the decisions of the late Judge Wilson Gray and other District Judges upon questions of mining law. The reason for including these decisions is no doubt because, on appeals from the Goldfields Wardens, the decisions of the District Courts are final. The whole work has been entirely rearranged, the style of ' Fisher's Digeßt' and ' Edmondson's ' Victorian Digest' having been followed as closely as possible. Toe book now contains, with indices, over 350 double-column pages, and includes the whole of the reported, and many unreported but properly authenticated, decisions down to the end of 1886. A most valuable addition has been made to this edition in the shape of a table of statutes of some thirty-eight columns, containing over 1,500 cases. We notice many fresh "headings"—notably that of" words " —which were omitted from the first edition, whilst the cross-references are unusually full, and will prove of great assistance. Under each heading there are paragraphs numbered consecutively, whilst the headings are divided where necessary into old and new decisions. Thus under "Bankruptcy" and "Practice and Procedure" there ia a clear division between decisions under the old law and the present. " Criminal Law" we notice is suitably divided into (1) evidence; (2) practice, (3) indictment, and (4) offences generally. Throughout the book much care seems to have been taken to arrange the cases under their appropriate headings. Thus the well-known case of Ward v. the National Bank will be found digested under "Principal and Surety," the case having been decided upon questions of law affecting guarantees ; but we also find under the heading of "Banking Account " a crossreference to these cases. It would be strange if, in a work like this, the critic oould not find some fault. We notice nothing particularly calling for fault-finding, however, in this book. There are some printers' orrors, which indicate a certain amount of carelessness in the reader of the proof or of negligence on the part of the compositor in making the final corrections. Comprising, as this work does, a digest of the decisions of our principal courts upon all questions of commercial and banking law for so long a period of years, it should prove invaluable as a work of reference to the banker and merchant, no less than to the practising lawyer. The learned authors may fairly be congratulated upon having produced a most useful book ; one which must have cost an infinity of care to bring' up to its present excellence. The type used is all that can be desired, and the printers have, generally speaking, done their work very well.