IN THE EYES OF THE LAW By G. Evelyn Miles
and Dorothy K. Dix
The purpose of this book (Arnold, 3s. 6d.) is to explain the elements of the English legal system and its everyday working in terms which can be under- stood by readers with no previous legal knowledge. It is divided into five sections : the first deals with the scope 'and development of English law, the second with contracts and civil wrongs, the third with property, the fourth with crimes, and the fifth with the machinery of justice. The book as a whole is clearly and brightly written. There are one or two ambiguities in detail, the most important of which might mislead a lay reader into thinking that a decision by a King's Bench judge is not binding on the other divisions of the High
Court. The omission most surprising in a popular study of the law is the entire neglect of divorce, though this may be due either to Mr. Herbert's Marriage Bill or to the authors' eye to the scholastic public, which would also account for the exclusion of any reference to the Slander of Women Act from the chapter on defamation. No account of our judicial• system can be complete without mention of the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty, Division. That the authors should not have mentioned that the growth of the social services has led to the development: of a whole system of administrative law,"• or have discussed its operation, will not . surprise anybody who is familiar with; the state of mind prevalent in the Temple and Lincoln's Inn on the subject : what'" Dicey wrote in 1915 the practising: barrister may have read by 195o. Within their chosen limits, the authors are to be congratulated on a readable and useful little work.
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