The recognition of ‘torts’ as a separate and distinct branch of th law is, as things legal go, extremely recent. The first English text-book on the subject (Addison) did not appear until 1860. Since that time, however, the subject of ‘Torts’ has probably received more attention from both legal writers and the Courts than any other subject in the law. This is understandable if one grasps the extremely wide scope of the field involved, and at the same time bears in mind the impact of modern science on the various activities in which men engage in present-day society.

In his ‘Common Law’ Mr. Justice Holmes expressed the view (see pp. 300, 301), that a contract is properly to be regarded as the taking of a risk creating a liability to pay damages in a certain event. ‘The only universal consequence of a legally binding promise is, that the law makes the promisor pay damages if the promised event does not come to pass.’ In the Pollock-Holmes'Letters the matter is frequently discussed, and there are various passages from which we can get his views in detail (see vol. i, pp. 21, 119, 177; vol. ii, pp. 55, 200, 234). His position seems to be that liability in Contract is completely analogous to that in Tort. If you commit a tort you are liable to pay damages. If you commit a contract you are liable to pay damages, unless something happens, i.e., performance, over which you may or may not have control (i, 177). It is a conditional liability to pay damages. There is, he holds, no reason to speak of ‘promise’ in the matter at all, in particular, the performance and the payment of damages are not to be thought of as alternative obligations (this in answer to an objection by Pollock).

All who belong to the small class of persons interested in medieval legal procedure will wish to express their thanks for, and admiration of, the latest contribution made to our knowledge of the subject by the distinguished literary partnership of Mr. H. G. Richardson and Dr. G. O. Sayles. It appears in Volume 60 of the Selden Society publications (dated 1941, but issued last year) entitled, ‘Select Cases of Procedure without Writ under Henry III.’ It is, we are told, an instalment prefatory to another volume which will carry the story beyond the year 1272.

In an article in the Canadian Bar Review on the recent case of Bourhill v. Young Dr. Cecil Wright says that this is ‘one of the most important decisions in the law of tort which has appeared since Donoghue v. Stevenson.’ But, as he points out thereafter, it is difficult to determine from the speeches of the law lords exactly what principles it has established concerning the ‘ambit of risk’ or the extent of liability for nervous shock. That this doubt is fully justified is shown by the fact that Professor Winfield in his Text-book of the Law of Tort deals with the case in the section entitled ‘Remoteness of consequence (or damage)’ while Dr. Stallybrass suggests that it is primarily authority on the problem of negligence. Perhaps this difference of opinion reflects a certain degree of uncertainty in the judgments themselves, for their Lordships, although reaching the same conclusion, do not seem to have been in complete agreement concerning the grounds on which they did so.

In its ordinary form, the warranty of land was an obligation, owed to the tenant of certain land, to defend him in his possession of that land against all men. This obligation to warrant was primarily, therefore, an obligation to come into Court, if called upon (‘vouched’) by the tenant, in order to defend some action brought against him for the possession of that land.

The subject falls conveniently into two parts, (I) comment made during the century since McNaghten's Case in 1843 on the answers given by the judges to the questions put to them by the House of Lords, and (II) discussion of the defence of irresistible impulse. For the convenience of readers the Questions and Answers are reprinted from the tenth volume of Clark and Finnelly's Keports, 200, 209–212.