Essays in the History of Canadian Law

This third volume of Essays in the History of Canadian Law presents thoroughly researched,original essays in Nova Scotian legal history. An introduction by the editors is followed by tenessays grouped into four main areas of study. The first is the legal system as a whole: essays inthis section discuss the juridical failure of the Annapolis regime, present a collective biographyof the province's superior court judiciary to 1900, and examine the property rights of marriedwomen in the nineteenth century. The second section deals with criminal law, exploringvagrancy laws in Halifax in the late nineteenth century, aspects of prisons and punishmentsbefore 1880, and female petty crime in Halifax.

The third section, on family law, examines theissues of divorce from 1750 to 1890 and child custody from 1866 to 1910. Finally, two essays relateto law and the economy: one examines the Mines Arbitration Act of 1888; the other considers thequestion of private property and public resources in the context of the administrative control ofwater in Nova Scotia.

'The essays are thus an important manifestation of the "new" legal history and open up many insightsand avenues for both the Canadian legal historian and the comparativist. Most striking, however, isthe coherent picture of the scope and role of the legal order in nineteenth century Nova Scotia thatbegins to emerge.'

'The appearance of Volume III with its focus on the legal history of Nova Scotia represents animportant new contribution, both because of its differing perspectives from eastern Canada andbecause the new volume aptly demonstrates the increasing scope of legal history that has occurredover the past decade in Canada ... As a series of essays on the regional legal history of NovaScotia, this volume is exceptional; as a microcosm of the issues that need to be researched andanalysed - questions about law reform, about criminal law and punishment, about families and familylife, and about law and the economy “?- this volume is a contribution to a more texturedunderstanding of Canadian legal history as a whole.'

'A major contribution to both regional and national historiography.'