A Recent History of English Law

In 1607, if his own word can be behaved, tough old Sir Edward Coke, that monster of legal learning, told King James I that causes which concern the life, or inheritance, or goods, or fortunes of his subjects are not to be decided by natural reason, but by the artificial reason and judgment of the law, which requires long study and experience before a man can attain to the cognizance of it. The celebrated Sir John Fortesque, when pressed on one occasion in the reign of Henry VI by the legal absurdity of a distinction he was laying down as to when a writ of scire facias would and when it would not issue against a person who had possession of the goods of one attainted, finally declared: Sir, the law is as I say it is, and so it has been laid down ever since the law began, and we have several set forms which are held as law, and so held and used for good reason, though we cannot remember that reason. Then in the case of pleading, for example, we are told that: rules based upon primitive legal ideas, and upon the physical necessities of an older age, became the permanent basis of an elaborate structure of technical rules. The rules of law on this subject had become fixed before they had had time to become rational. Truly the law does: often seem to be based upon artificial reason, and many rules that seem at present obscure and difficult to understand are only explicable by a knowledge of the circumstances under which they arose and by a patient study of their strange and tortuous development. No one of our existing institutions is more securely rooted in the past, none shows a more unbroken continuity of, growth than our law. The constant dependence of the judge of today upon ancient precedent is too well recognized to require comment. Burke said over a century ago: the English jurisprudence hath not any other sure foundation nor consequently the lives and property of the subject any sure hold, but in the maxims, rules and principles and judicial traditionary line of decisions contained in the notes taken, and from time to time published (mostly under the sanction of the judges) called Reports. To give judgment privately is to put an end to the Reports; and to put an end to the Reports is to put an end to the law of England. These words would apply almost equally well to the law of present day England, and, to a somewhat less degree, to that of our own land

OLD ENGLISH LOCAL COURTS AND THE MOVEMENT FOR THEIR REFORM

The first Reform Bill of 1832 was at once a symptom and a further cause of momentous changes in English institutions, political and legal, to say nothing of social and ecclesiastical. Many of these were brought about as the result of patient and competent investigations of royal commissions which, though not unknown before the third decade of the nineteenth century, were active to an extent hitherto unheard of during that notable epoch of reform. While a few men of law were among the forward spirits, the bulk of the advance guard were laymen. As a rule judges, barristers and attorneys were averse to taking the initiative, partly because prospective changes threatened vested privileges involving fat fees, partly because they clung to learning which they had painfully acquired, and partly because of their exclusive pride in the fact that they alone knew their way about in the deep ungodly jungle of the common law and in the equally inpenetrable morass of equity. While the issue was forced from outside the profession, the working out of the details was fortunately left to the trained men who knew their business. As an English historian once shrewdly remarked, many a man is judge of a good dinner who cannot cook one and an amateur lawyer can wreak more damage than a chef in the pupillary stage

English History and the Study of English Law

Ranke, the Nestor of modern historical research, was wont to say that he only wanted to know how things had happened. Lamprecht, however, more truly indicated the aim and purpose of the investigation of the past when he said that be wanted to know how things had become. Another distinction between the schools which these two men represent is, that one is primarily interested in political affairs, while the other would include within the historical field all phases of social activity. A survey of the course of scholarship during the century just closed, leads to the conclusion that this latter point of view represents the prevailing tendency. History has come to be more than a mere record of political events. Moreover, not only has history, as such, come to be a more inclusive study, but the historical method has invaded the domain of special subjects, and has been applied with advantage to the study of philology, literature, art, economics, law, and theology, not only in their relations to one another, but as independent branches of learning. Modern historical study, however, began with political problems, the impulse being furnished by the questions involved in the revolutionary movements of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and the far-reaching political and constitutional reconstructions which followed. This helps to explain the attitude of Ranke and his disciples, an attitude which has had powerful advocates in many quarters until comparatively recent times. Freeman, for example, declared that history was only past politics, and the late Sir John Richard Seeley professedly regarded historical study as a mere John the Baptist for the study of political science. But the attempts of these men to narrow the scope of their subjects were resisted even in their own lifetime, and would probably be rejected by a vast majority of the younger generation of scholars

Judges in the British Cabinet and the Struggle which Led to Their Exclusion After 1806

Among the anomalies in the queer and devious course of Eng- £ lish constitutional progress few have been more striking than the number of reforms which have been due to the Conservatives.. One of no little significance was brought about during that period of political stagnation-the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This was the exclusion of judges from the Cabinet, as the result of a political struggle in which the forces of opposition, though temporarily defeated, formulated a policy which was destined henceforth to prevail

Book Reviews

Cases on Quasi Contract, by Edward S. Thurston. American Case Book Series. St. Paul: West Publishing Co., I916; pp. 622

The role of LINEs and CpG islands in dosage compensation on the chicken Z chromosome

Most avian Z genes are expressed more highly in ZZ males than ZW females, suggesting that chromosome-wide mechanisms of dosage compensation have not evolved. Nevertheless, a small percentage of Z genes are expressed at similar levels in males and females, an indication that a yet unidentified mechanism compensates for the sex difference in copy number. Primary DNA sequences are thought to have a role in determining chromosome gene inactivation status on the mammalian X chromosome. However, it is currently unknown whether primary DNA sequences also mediate chicken Z gene compensation status. Using a combination of chicken DNA sequences and Z gene compensation profiles of 310 genes, we explored the relationship between Z gene compensation status and primary DNA sequence features. Statistical analysis of different Z chromosomal features revealed that long interspersed nuclear elements (LINEs) and CpG islands are enriched on the Z chromosome compared with 329 other DNA features. Linear support vector machine (SVM) classifiers, using primary DNA sequences, correctly predict the Z compensation status for >60% of all Z-linked genes. CpG islands appear to be the most accurate classifier and alone can correctly predict compensation of 63% of Z genes. We also show that LINE CR1 elements are enriched 2.7-fold on the chicken Z chromosome compared with autosomes and that chicken chromosomal length is highly correlated with percentage LINE content. However, the position of LINE elements is not significantly associated with dosage compensation status of Z genes. We also find a trend for a higher proportion of CpG islands in the region of the Z chromosome with the fewest dosage-compensated genes compared with the region containing the greatest concentration of compensated genes. Comparison between chicken and platypus genomes shows that LINE elements are not enriched on sex chromosomes in platypus, indicating that LINE accumulation is not a feature of all sex chromosomes. Our results suggest that CpG islands are not randomly distributed on the Z chromosome and may influence Z gene dosage compensation status

A Prospective Study of Red and Processed Meat Intake in Relation to Cancer Risk

Using data from a large cohort study, Amanda Cross and colleagues found that both red and processed meat intakes were positively associated with cancers of the colorectum and lung

Regulation of Coronary Blood Flow

The heart is uniquely responsible for providing its own blood supply through the coronary circulation. Regulation of coronary blood flow is quite complex and, after over 100 years of dedicated research, is understood to be dictated through multiple mechanisms that include extravascular compressive forces (tissue pressure), coronary perfusion pressure, myogenic, local metabolic, endothelial as well as neural and hormonal influences. While each of these determinants can have profound influence over myocardial perfusion, largely through effects on end-effector ion channels, these mechanisms collectively modulate coronary vascular resistance and act to ensure that the myocardial requirements for oxygen and substrates are adequately provided by the coronary circulation. The purpose of this series of Comprehensive Physiology is to highlight current knowledge regarding the physiologic regulation of coronary blood flow, with emphasis on functional anatomy and the interplay between the physical and biological determinants of myocardial oxygen delivery. © 2017 American Physiological Society. Compr Physiol 7:321-382, 2017

OLD ENGLISH LOCAL COURTS AND THE MOVEMENT FOR THEIR REFORM

The first Reform Bill of 1832 was at once a symptom and a further cause of momentous changes in English institutions, political and legal, to say nothing of social and ecclesiastical. Many of these were brought about as the result of patient and competent investigations of royal commissions which, though not unknown before the third decade of the nineteenth century, were active to an extent hitherto unheard of during that notable epoch of reform. While a few men of law were among the forward spirits, the bulk of the advance guard were laymen. As a rule judges, barristers and attorneys were averse to taking the initiative, partly because prospective changes threatened vested privileges involving fat fees, partly because they clung to learning which they had painfully acquired, and partly because of their exclusive pride in the fact that they alone knew their way about in the deep ungodly jungle of the common law and in the equally inpenetrable morass of equity. While the issue was forced from outside the profession, the working out of the details was fortunately left to the trained men who knew their business. As an English historian once shrewdly remarked, many a man is judge of a good dinner who cannot cook one and an amateur lawyer can wreak more damage than a chef in the pupillary stage

Judges in the British Cabinet and the Struggle which Led to Their Exclusion After 1806

Among the anomalies in the queer and devious course of Eng- £ lish constitutional progress few have been more striking than the number of reforms which have been due to the Conservatives.. One of no little significance was brought about during that period of political stagnation-the era of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. This was the exclusion of judges from the Cabinet, as the result of a political struggle in which the forces of opposition, though temporarily defeated, formulated a policy which was destined henceforth to prevail