are sound, any new series of reports that it may be thought wise to edit, must depend for their success upon their merits alone, and must, in the first instance, compete with the reports now in the field. But your Committee are convinced that a new series of the reports, properly edited, and based upon sound principles, would, within a year, compel the withdrawal of all the existing reports; and that while the publication of the reports should be legally free to whoever will undertake it, the State might aid, by necessary legislation, or by reasonable appropriations, any responsible body that would relieve it of the duty imposed upon it by the Constitution of making known its laws to its citizens."

Reviews.

On the Causes of Relapse into Crime, and on the Means for diminishing their Mischievous Action. By Dr. K. OLIVECRONA. Stockholm. 1872.

THIS work is characterised by clear and cautious exposition, leaving no doubt as to the quality of the author's facts, or as to the excellence of his judgments. There is just enough of reiteration to secure the attention of the reader. For examples and illustrations, the author refers not only to the recorded experience of his own country, but to that of Great Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. His personal observations give vividness to his references to foreign countries. The work contains many interesting details, and though perhaps there is no part which is strikingly novel, the conclusions justly derive much weight from the authoritative position of the author, his high intelligence, and candid and judicious spirit of inquiry. The work is one which, were it published in a more accessible language than Swedish, would be read with great pleasure by the many who now interest themselves in Reformatories and Industrial Schools, to explaining the benefits of which it is mainly devoted. Poverty, occasional deaths, and neglected education, the author places among the more important of the general causes exciting to crime. Possibly he might have insisted more on a perverted rather than a neglected education, where crime was taught with an assiduity rarely applied to honest arts. The more important of the special causes exciting to relapse he considers to be the present system of imprisonments-whether the sentences be for long or short periods-and the difficulty of finding employment for the released. As to short imprisonments, the author concurs with those who think that they produce no enduring impression of good, and that they afford many opportunities for engrafting impressions of evil. To long imprisonments the author objects, on the ground that they impair the fitness of those subjected to them for a resumption of social relations, and for a return to the active duties

of life, by engraining apathy into them, shaking their self-dependence, and attaching to them a stigma which makes them unwillingly received. He makes the same complaint with reference to Sweden which is often made here, namely, that the prisons are made too comfortable, so that the gaol loses its terrors. A Swedish cottager or day-labourer, he tells us, has often it not in his power to have animal food ten times in a year, and indeed scarcely on other occasions than at Christmas and a few other high festivals. On the other hand, the Swedish prisons not only supply far better and more plentiful food than is attainable by the free labourer, but they give the prisoner better clothes and bedding, and attend better to keeping him warm, well ventilated, and clean. To complete everything, they pay him well, and the savings allowed him from the profits of his work may actually exceed those possible to a free labourer. Then there is, lastly, the difficulty of the released prisoner finding a refuge elsewhere. Those prisoners who most easily find re-employment in Sweden, he remarks, are the child-murderers. Generally the released prisoner finds his refuge only among relatives, or among some rare philanthropists. The result is unhappy. The re-convictions of those condemned to penal labour in Sweden, the author finds to average, during the four years ending in 1870, 3055 per cent. of the general committals. The average re-committals of those released "conditionally" (corresponding with our tickets of leave) reached the alarmingly high proportion, for the same period, of 86.85. It is no wonder that, in the face of these facts, the author strenuously recommends the Reformatory instead of the Prison.

Among reformatories, the author specially prefers that of the Val d'Yevre, but he pleads for them all as not being more costly than prisons, and as having aims and producing results diametrically opposed in their goodness to the evils incident to prisons. He recommends the establishment of a parent institution as a centre, in the capital of the country, with affiliated branches throughout the provinces, proceeding all on a common rule, yet with freedom of adaptation to local circumstances, and knowledge of each others' efforts, successes, and failures. In this way he points out that the statistics of the whole would be more ample, instructive, and valuable than any now accessible. The British system of local action, with central control and inspection, gives to our reformatories and industrial schools-though perhaps not so completely-many of the advantages which the author claims for his proposed system. To those who are in search of ideas for the improvement of our penal system we cordially commend the consideration of Dr. Olivecrona's views.

The Law of Criminal Conspiracies and Agreements. By R. S. WRIGHT of the Inner Temple, Barrister at Law, Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. London: Butterworths, 7 Fleet Street.

THIS is an exceedingly clear and satisfactory history of the development of the modern law of conspiracy out of the old doctrine that, the essence of crime being in the intention, a criminal intent manifested by any act done in furtherance of it may be punishable, although that act is not in law an actual attempt. This doctrine was very early applied to the crime of conspiracy as defined by 33 Edw. I., the rule being finally settled by the Poulterer's case in 1611, that " although the crime of conspiracy, properly so called, was not complete unless in a case of conspiracy for maintenance some suit had been actually maintained, or in a case of conspiracy for false and malicious indictment, the party against whom the conspiracy was directed had been actually indicted and acquitted, yet the agreement for such a conspiracy was indictable as a substantive offence, since there was a criminal intent manifested by an act done in furtherance of it, viz. by the agreement: and from this time, by an easy transition, the agreement or confederacy itself for the commission of conspiracy came to be regarded as a complete act of conspiracy." The doctrine was further enlarged into a rule that "a combination to commit or to procure the commission of any crime was criminal, and might be prosecuted as a conspiracy, although the crime might have nothing to do with the crime of conspiracy properly so called;" that is, as it may be necessary to explain to Scots lawyers, a confederacy or alliance for the false and malicious promotion of indictments and pleas, or for embracery or maintenance of various kinds.

In the course of the seventeenth century it was further settled that the "gist of the crime" was in the agreement to do the criminal acts, and not in the acts themselves, and that even where the acts were statutory offences, the conspiracy to do them might be laid and punished as a substantive crime at common law. The phrase that the conspiracy was the "gist of the indictment," however came to be used for a different purpose, and it was held that a combination to cheat might be criminal as a conspiracy, although the proposed deception is not itself punishable. In the same period we find for the first time statements of the general doctrine that a purpose may be criminal when concerted by several, which would not be of that character if entertained merely by an individual; e.g., in Hawkin's Pleas of the Crown (i. 72, 2) it is stated that "there can be no doubt but that all confederacies whatever, wrongfully to prejudice a third person, are highly criminal at common law," a proposition, says Mr. Wright, "to which, unless by 'wrongfully' he meant by criminal means, the authorities cited by him furnish little or no support." By the end of the eighteenth century an impression had grown up among lawyers, "which can only be described by the double proposition that a combination to do an unlawful act is criminal, and that in this phrase 'unlawful' does not necessarily mean criminal."

The most important application of the doctrine of criminal combinations in this century is its extension to combinations of VOL. XVII. NO. CC. - AUGUST 1873.

2G

workmen. In England certain statutes were passed prohibiting combinations of workmen to alter wages or hours in the reign of Edward VI., but the important acts of modern times are 39 Geo. III. c. 81; 39 & 40 Geo. III. c. 106; 5 Geo. IV. c. 95; repealed by 6 Geo. IV. c. 129, repealed by the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1871. "These statutes were soon enforced, not merely by the summary proceedings which they prescribed, but also by the more stringent means of indictments for combinations to enforce their provisions." The question was also raised whether combinations for the purposes dealt with by the Acts are criminal at common law. Mr. Wright deals with these subjects too extensively for quotation or criticism in this review. His chapters on this subject, as indeed his whole book, will be of the highest value to all who engage in the discussions on this subject which are likely to demand attention for some time. We have only room to state his conclusions; first, as to the actual state of the law; and secondly, as to the uses of the doctrine of conspiracy in criminal law.

"It is conceived that on a review of all the decisions there is a great preponderance of authority in favour of the proposition that, as a rule, an agreement or combination is not criminal unless it be for acts or omissions (whether as 'ends' or as 'means') which would be criminal apart from agreement (see esp. 1725 Edwards; 1788 Fowler; 1811 Turner; 1834 Seward); and that the modern law of conspiracy is in truth merely an extension of the law of attempts, the act of agreement for the criminal purpose being substituted for an actual attempt as the overt act. It has been seen by what steps a beneficial exception has established itself in the case of agreements to defraud, and how the ancient crime of conspiracy, properly so called, has been extended to charges of any kind of crime made for purposes of extortion. Probably also in the case of agreements 'directly of a public nature and levelled at the government,' and perhaps in the case of agreements to pervert or defeat justice, the law of criminal combinations has gone somewhat beyond the bounds of the ordinary criminal law. In the case of agreements to injure private persons, the balance of decisions seems to incline against any such extension, though expressions of opinion occur in favour of the possibility of such an extension in cases still to be defined. In the case of agreements to coerce a master or workman in the conduct of his business or in the disposal of his industry, there seems to be recent authority in favour of such an extension, but it has not yet been placed beyond doubt by number of cases or by the authority of a court of appeal; and it has been seen that there is much difficulty in finding authority for such an extension in the common law before the present century."

"On the whole it would seem that the uses in criminal law of the doctrine of the criminality of agreement are of the following kinds and subject to the following limitations, viz.:

"1. Its principal function is that of a general auxiliary to laws creating particular crimes. Four modes have been specified in which it may be so auxiliary.

"2. In some cases it may be proper to treat the agreement for a minor offence as so altering its quality and mischief as to make it a fit object for punishment as a crime. But these cases are probably few, and they ought to be specified in the written law.

"3. There are some mischievous conditions of things, such as an unlawful assembly, which ought to be punished as crimes, and which cannot be brought about except by the concurrence of more persons than one.

"4. There may be cases in which acts done by several persons in agreemen' ought to be punished, although the same acts ought not to be punished if done without agreement. But these ought to be specified and carefully defined.

"5. In an imperfect system of criminal law the doctrine of criminal agreements for acts not criminal may be of great practical value for the punishment of persons for acts which are not, but which ought to be made punishable irrespectively of agreement, and especially for some kinds of fraud; but this use of the doctrine involves an important delegation of a legislative power in a matter in which the exercise of such power ought to be carefully guarded, since the legislature admits its own inability to discover the principles on which legislation ought to proceed."

Tidd Pratt's Law of Friendly Societies and Industrial and Provident Societies, with the Acts, Observations thereon, Forms of Rules, etc., and the leading Cases at length, and a copious Index. Eighth Edition. Revised and Enlarged. By EDWARD WILLIAM BRABROOK, F.S.A., of Lincoln's Inn, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, AssistantRegistrar of Friendly Societies in England, Author of "The Law of Co-operative Societies," and "The Law of Trade Unions." London: Shaw and Sons, Fetter Lane.

THE late Mr. Tidd Pratt's "Manual of the Law of Friendly Societies" is so well known, and has proved so useful in its department, that it needs no commendation from us. The seventh edition was published in 1867, and it has been for some time out of print. Mr. Brabrook's intimate official acquaintance with the practical working of the law marked him as the proper editor of the new edition, and we can testify that his duty has been well performed. The additional matter amounts in all to about thirty pages, some of it being of much importance. We observe that a new chapter has been given on the law relating to unregistered Societies (see p. 82).

Even to the Scotch lawyer and the Scotch manager of a Friendly or Co-operative Society this is a book of indispensable utility, containing as it does in a convenient form the numerous acts, with an index and all the English authorities. To us however it would have been much more useful if it had contained some reference to the Scottish authorities of which there are a considerable number, and a brief statement of the differences between the Scotch and English law. It would probably effect the sale of a much larger number of copies in Scotland, if a short supplement supplying these deficiencies, along with a new index to the whole, could yet be added.

The Month.

The Judicature Bill-The Appellate Tribunal for Scotland. ON Monday, June 30, Mr Gladstone intimated that the retention of the jurisdiction of the House of Lords in Scotch and Irish appeals would not be insisted in, and that Mr. Bouverie's proposal to transfer