WISBY, LAWS OF. A concise but compre hensive code of maritime law, established by the "merchants and masters of the magnifi cent city of Wisby." The port of Wisby, now in ruins, was situated on the northwestern coast of Gottland, on the Baltic sea. It was the capital of the island, and the seat of an extensive commerce, of which the chief relic and the most significant record is this code. It is a mooted point whether this code was derived from the laws of Oleron, or that from this ; but the similarity of the two leaves no doubt that one was the offspring of the other. It was of great author ity in the northern parts of Europe. "Lem Rhodia navalis," says Grotius, "pro jure gentian in illo mare Mediterraneo vigchat; sicut spud Gallium leges Oleronia, et aped omnes transrhenanos leges Wiabuensea." De Jurc B. lib. 2, c. 3. It is still re ferred to on subjects of maritime law. An English translation will be found in 1 Pet. Adm. D cc.; also in the Black Book of the Admiralty and 30 Fed. Cas. 1189.
The main additions to the above title, re ferring to recent codes or publication of new editions of the older codes, have been pre pared for this work 'by William W. Smithers, of the Philadelphia Bar, Secretary of the Comparative Law Bureau of the American Bar Association (organized August 28, 1907), of which Simeon E. Baldwin, Founder of the
American Bar Association, was also a Founder and has been the Director. The work of the Bureau has been of great public value and promises even greater results.
Publishers announce the publication of "The Commercial Laws of the World" in thirty-five volumes.
In a learned address before the American Bar Association (Annual Report, 1886), upon "Codification, the Natural Result of the Ey olution of the Law," Mr. Semmes, one of the most earnest advocates of the merits of the civil law and the code system, sketches the history of the codes of Europe and the rela tion of the civil to the common law and in conclusion says: "The history of codification teaches that the task of preparing a code of laws is difficult, that its proper execution is a work of years, to be entrusted, not to a deciduous committee of fugitive legislators, but to a permanent commission of the most en lightened and cultivated jurists, whose project, prior to adoption, should be subjected to rigid and universal criticism."