aforesaid, without this state. The same act includes as felons all persons who shall be guilty of fighting in any corporate city or town, or any other town or public place, in this state, and shall in such fight use any rifle, shot-gun, sword, bowie-knife, pistol, &c., or any deadly weapon, or if any person shall be aid or second in such fight, and further, any persons having, or carrying any dirk, dirk-knife, bowie-knife, &c., or any deadly weapon, and shall exhibit the same, in the presence of three or more persons, in a rude, angry or threatening manner, and not in necessary self-defence, or use them unlawfully in any fight or quarrel. Recent circumstances have brought the subject of duelling in the most solemn manner to the consideration of the people of the United States. Independent of its enormity in a legal and moral point of view, it is a species of felony which especially endangers the lives of the most valuable and better educated classes of society. Hitherto, every inducement, that could work upon the noblest impulses of an ardent and generous mind, have been perverted to force it into the commission of an act the most foreign and abhorrent to its real nature. I believe that this evil was originated by the law, which, in the olden time, admitted of trial by test of personal combat, in the hope that Providence would aid the right.' It is peculiarly the business of the law to correct its mistakes, nor should it suffer a polite homicide to confer honor, when the common murderer is consigned to execration."

1 Co. Litt. 294; Montesquieu-Diversitè des Courts, 304.

6.-The Revised Statutes of the State of Michigan, passed at the adjourned session of 1837, and the regular session of 1838. Printed and published, by virtue of a resolution of December 30, 1837, under the supervision and direction of E. B. HarRINGTON and E. J. ROBERTS. Detroit: John S. Bagg, Printer to the State, 1838.

On the recommendation of governor Mason, contained in his annual message of the year 1836, the legislature of the then territory of Michigan appointed the Hon. William A. Fletcher a commissioner to prepare and arrange a code of laws, and to report the same to the legislature of the next year. At the time of his appointment, the commissioner held the office of circuit judge of the circuit court of the territory of Michigan, and, on the organi. zation of the state government, was appointed chief justice of the

supreme court.

The time for the report of the commissioner being found insufficient for the accomplishment of his task, it was extended to November, 1837; at which time the report was accordingly submitted to the legislature, then in session for the purpose; and, after various additions and amendments, the act denominated the Revised Statutes was enacted, on the thirty-first of December following. Several chapters were added by the succeeding legislature, at its regular session; and the whole code went into operation on the first of September, 1838.

The Revised Statutes of Michigan, like those of Massachusetts, are divided into four parts, with similar titles. Each part is subdivided into titles, each title into chapters, and the chapters into sections. Unlike the statutes of Massachusetts, however, in those of Michigan, the chapters are not numbered continuously from the beginning to the end. The consequence is, that in referring to the latter, it will be necessary to give the part, title, chapter and section, instead of chapter and section only, as in referring to the former. We cannot pretend, in a short notice, to criticise this work. It seems, however, upon the cursory examination which we have given it, to be well executed; and, upon comparing it with the preceding laws of Michigan, it will be seen, that it is a work of legislation, as well as of revision. We cannot but notice, that the general arrangement of the subject is borrowed or rather imitated from the Revised Statutes of Massachusetts; to which source, also, the commissioner has been indebted for many of his additions and amendments.

The gentlemen, appointed to superintend the publication, certify, "that they have personally superintended the publication, examined the proof sheets, compared the same with the original acts in the office of the secretary of state, prepared marginal notes to the sections, head notes to the chapters, and an exact and copious index to the whole, and, that the same is correctly printed." We take pleasure in adding, that the Revised Statutes of Michigan are also printed in a style, which would do no discredit to any of the Atlantic cities.

7.-The Monthly Law Magazine and Political Review. London: J. Richards & Co., and Milliken & Sons, Dublin.

The above is the title of a new English periodical, the publication of which was commenced in London about a year since. It is devoted to politics as well as law. In the former department, it appears to be ultra tory in its principles; and, in the latter, of course, conservative of old and established forms and institutions. We have examined the numbers for February, March and April, of the present year, which are the only ones we have yet seen. They contain a variety of well written articles on the several subjects, embraced in the plan of the work; and, though we cannot entirely coincide with the writers, in some of their legal and in most of their political doctrines, we cannot deny that they manifest talent, research, and learning, of a high order. We are particularly pleased with the article on Moral Insanity, in the April number, in which the writer, who is evidently of the legal profession, recognises the kind of insanity known under that name, and enforces in a forcible and eloquent manner the importance of a knowledge of it, in those who are called to adjudicate upon the legal relations of the insane.

The February number contains a short notice of Mr. Justice Story's Commentaries on Bailments, recently republished in England, in which the writer speaks of the work in a manner highly complimentary and flattering to the author. The republication of this work seems to have awakened some attention to the subjects of which it treats; and the April number contains the first of a series of articles, in which the writer proposes " to offer a slight sketch of the general principles of the Law of Bailments," mostly deduced from the work of Mr. Justice Story. The article before us evinces great learning and acuteness; and, in those points, in which the writer dissents from the doctrines of the "Commentaries," his remarks evidently proceed from no spirit" of unfriendly criticism," towards the author, "dictated by the unaffected desire of rendering his work as free from blemish, and as useful

as possible."

but are

8.-Archiv für die Civilistische Praxis [Archives of Civil Prac tice], herausgegeben von FRANKE, LINDE, von LÖHR, MITTERMAIER, MÜHLENBRUCH, THIBAUT und WECHTER. XXI. Bd. 2 Heft. Heidelberg: bei J. C. B. Mohr, 1838.

This periodical is not devoted, as its title would seem to indicate, to matters of civil procedure, but to all the various topics, connected with civil as contradistinguished from criminal law, which concern the practical application of the law, in the administration of justice. The following are the titles of the articles contained in the present number:-On the commencement of delay in collation, by professor Guyet, of Jena ;-On the question of the priority of a general right of pledge, in respect to things subsequently acquired by the pledger, by Dr. L. A. Warnkönig, of Freiburg;-Contributions to the doctrines of oaths-(1) under what circumstances, the Roman law allowed of the settlement or decision of a controversy, by means of the judicial oath ? (2) what is to be understood by the juramentum suppletorium quantitatis? by F. B. Busch, of Arnstadt ;-On the validity of an insurance effected in contravention of the laws of a foreign state, by Dr. Lewis Duncker, of Marburg;-Remarks on the limitation of the suits of minors, and on the acquisition by prescription against them, and on c. 11, C. VIII. 18. qui potior. in pign. by Dr. Haimberger, of Vienna;-On the so-called derivative possession, by Dr. Rosshirt, of Heidelberg;-On the relation of justice to affairs of administration,-on administrative justice and conflicts of jurisdiction, by Mittermaier ;-On the impediment to marriage of the so-called civil or legal relationship, by Dr. J. J. Lang, of Tubingen. These articles are learned, profound, and thorough. We observe, that in the last but one, the author refers to the Federalist and to the works of Messrs. Kent and Story, and also in terms of particular approbation to Mr. Oliver's work on the rights of an American citizen.

The last article, in the April number of our journal, which is a translation of one of the above-mentioned, will give our readers some idea of the contents of the Archives of Civil Procedure.

9.-De Principio Imputationis Alienationum Mentis in Jure Criminali recte constituendo. Disserit C. I. MITTERMAIER. Heidelbergæ: 1838.

[The following notice of this interesting tract is translated from an article by Mr. Faustin Hélie, (one of the authors of the Théorie du Code Pénal), in the Revue Etrangère et Française, for June, 1838.]

This dissertation is a new service rendered to science, by the celebrated professor, to whom it is already indebted for so much progress. Mr. Mittermaier has undertaken to settle the limits of the principles of irresponsibility, which covers the acts of those whose understandings are enfeebled by disease. This matter is one of the gravest subjects of penal law: for, by what signs is it to be known, that the agent has not a knowledge of the morality of his act, and the liberty to abstain from it,-scientia boni et mali,-et facultas alterutrum eligenti? And what degree of injury of the intellectual faculties is necessary, to destroy imputability? In order to arrive at a solution of these questions, which have been the subject of scientific inquiry for so many centuries, the author of the dissertation establishes a fundamental rule, by the light of which he subsequently examines the melancholy series of human infirmities. In order to withdraw the agent from the imputability of his act, it is not sufficient that his mind should for the moment be blinded by a transient cause; it is necessary, that the feeling which impels him to crime should arise from a disease; that this disease should be its only source; and that its power should be so irresistible, that the liberty to act ceases completely to exist: aquilibrium atque harmoniam virium animi ita turbatam esse, ut libertas plane tollatur.

This rule gives rise to no difficulty, when the idiocy or insanity of the individual is complete,-when the understanding is entirely darkened, and when the agent possesses neither knowledge nor liberty. But even when this is the case, difficulties begin to arise in relation to lucid intervals. Are acts committed in these in

tervals imputable? Mr. Mittermaier remarks, with reason, that authors have frequently confounded lucid intervals with intermis