Commentaries upon Martial Law. By W. F. Finlason. (Stevens and
Sons.)—In his masterly charge to the grand jury on the Jamaica ques- tion, the Lord Chief Justice made especial reference to a work of Mr. Finlason's, written between the occurrence of the insurrection and the Report of the Royal Commissioners. Mr. Finlason now comments on the Lord Chief Justice's charge, and defends himself from its censures. We cannot think him very successful in either attempt. Some of his arguments are peculiarly weak, as where he suggests that the insuffi- ciency of the evidence on which certain of the Jamaica victims were hung is much the same as that on which prisoners are constantly con- victed at assizes, and that, as such convictions are legal, although the judge has declared that the evidence is insufficient, so the Jamaica exe- cutions must have been legal. This i8 a fair sample of Mr. Finlason's peculiar style of strained analogy and surface resemblance. We do not say the whole book is written in the same tone, but much of it is, and the result is that we cannot place implicit reliance on Mr. Finlason's conclukions.
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