The Gazette 1971

The object of the author has been to state the principles of Revenue law in as readable and intelligible a form as the subject-matter allows. No attempt is made to be exhaustive, but in a number of places, the reader is referred to the standard works on the various branches of Revenue Law where a more detailed dis- cussion or citation of authorities on particular topics may be found. The book is now in four parts : Part 1 deals with the taxes on income and on capital gains. This part is in four divisions dealing respectively with : (a) The taxa- tion of the income of non-corporate bodies; (b) the taxation of companies; (c) the taxation of capital gains and (d) administration, assessment and back duty. This section leads on to Part 2 dealing with estate duty. Part 3 states the principles of stamp

mentioned editors. Whereas the 6th 7th and 8th editions each contained over 800 pages, it is satisfactory to note that Mr. Jolowicz has managed to mention all the most modern dicisions up to last July and yet in reducing the compass of the book by nearly 150 pages. This in itself is a remarkable feat for which the learned editor deserves our congratulations. The learned editor, following the excellence of the previous edition, has deemed it wise to state the law as it is rather than as it should be. The standard of printing is as usual excellent. This edition is essential reading for the practitioner and the student. C.G.D. Beyond any Reasonable Doubt?—A book of murder trials by Kenneth E. L. Deale; 8vo; pp. 194; Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1971; £1.95. The learned author of this work is well known to the legal profession not only as the eminent Circuit Judge of the Eastern Circuit, but as the outstanding author of Irish Law of Landlord and Tenant. This is the second occasion on which the author has ventured to describe criminal trials, and his literary style will ensure the attention of the reader from beginning to end. Seven murder cases have been selected; four of the accused were convicted and executed, and two women (Ha nah O'Leary and Mary Anne Cadden) as well as Thomas Kelly were reprieved. The Convic- tion of Edward Kelly and of Edward Gorman (1924) was quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal because the evidence of identification was most unsatisfactory. The first case, that of David O'Shea (1931), certainly justifies the question mark in the title. Not only was a Guard who had taken no notes hidden under a bed allowed to describe an alleged conversation between the accused and his sister but Mr. Justice Hanna on very slim evidence introduced the question of necro- philia (rape on a dead woman) in his charge. The case of the dismembered body of Patrick O'Leary (1925) reminds one of the rather similar case of Kirwan in the bogs of Offaly; the accused brother and sister were found guilty, although they declined to give evidence and did not make a statement. Patrick Kelly was charged with murdering his co-lodger in Boyle in 1936; although subject to long cross-examina- tion, he was convicted a first time before O'Byrne, J. the Court of Criminal Appeal heard three unavailable witnesses to the effect that Henry was alive on 12th September 1935 (although he was supposed to be murdered on the 10th). In the second trial held before Hanna, J. the jury disagreed. In the third trial the accused was convicted a second time, but the death sentence was eventually commuted. John Fleming was accused of murdering his wife in Drumcondra by administering strychnine poison and attacking her with a hammer, he was eventually convicted and hanged. Mary Anne Cadden's trial, which took place in 1956, is the only relatively recent case in the book; she was tried before McLoughlin, J. for murdering a woman, by having caused her death as a result of performing an abortion; as she had previously been convicted, the result was a foregone conclusion despite Ernest Wood's eloquence. Throughout, the learned author has sustained our interest, although perhaps some of the more grue- some details might have been omitted. Let us hope that Judge Deale will next produce a book about famous modern Irish defamation cases. C.G.D.

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