some professional
purchaser by a simple bill of sale without physical delivery. Nearly
all States have adopted statutes against this practice, although in
several they have been held unconstitutional. The feeling that they
are dishonest is doubtless justified by the facts; but it may also be
truly described as a reaction to the simpler English law as against
Oriental innovations.

The descent of property throughout the United States is regulated by
English common-law ideas. That is to say, there is no primogeniture,
although in early colonial times the older son took a double portion;
and there is, except in Louisiana, complete liberty of testamentary
disposition, although in one or two other States there have been
statutes forbidding a man to dispose of all his estate to a charity
within a short time previous to his death, to the prejudice at least
of his direct heirs. The Code Napoleon, of course, limits testamentary
disposition in favor of these latter, so in Louisiana, only half of
a man's estate can be given away from his children or widow, and not
more than three-fourths of his estate can be bequeathed to strangers
or to charity, to the prejudice even of collateral heirs.

In matters of general business the usual lines of legislation have
been the ordinary ones found in English history. That is to say,
statutes of frauds, usury or interest laws, and other familiar
matters. The only tendency one can note is a broad range of
legislation devised in the interest of the debtor--not only liberal
insolvency laws now superseded by the national bankruptcy act, which
is still more liberal than the laws of the States preceding it, but
statutes restricting or delaying foreclosure of mortgages, statutes
exempting a substantial amount of property, implements of trade,
agricultural articles, goods, land, or even money, from the claims of
his creditors. The exemption of tools or implements of trade goes back
to Magna Charta, it will be remembered, but the exemption of other
articles is modern and American. There is probably, however, no
subject which is so apt to be let alone by our legislatures as that of
business law. Upon that subject, at least, they are fairly modest
and inclined to think that the laws of business are known better
by business men. Imprisonment for debt is, of course, absolutely
abolished everywhere, and in most States a woman is not subject to
personal arrest in civil process. The statutes prevailing throu