Description
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 ten
essays grouped into four main areas of study. The first is the legal system as a whole: essays in
this section discuss the juridical failure of the Annapolis regime, present a collective biography
of the province's superior court judiciary to 1900, and examine the property rights of married
women in the nineteenth century. The second section deals with criminal law, exploring
vagrancy laws in Halifax in the late nineteenth century, aspects of prisons and punishments
before 1880, and female petty crime in Halifax.
The third section, on family law, examines the
issues of divorce from 1750 to 1890 and child custody from 1866 to 1910. Finally, two essays relate
to law and the economy: one examines the Mines Arbitration Act of 1888; the other considers the
question of private property and public resources in the context of the administrative control of
water in Nova Scotia.
Reviews
'A major contribution to both regional and national historiography.'
- Greg Marquis
'The appearance of Volume III with its focus on the legal history of Nova Scotia represents an important new contribution, both because of its differing perspectives from eastern Canada and because the new volume aptly demonstrates the increasing scope of legal history that has occurred over the past decade in Canada ... As a series of essays on the regional legal history of Nova Scotia, this volume is exceptional; as a microcosm of the issues that need to be researched and analysed — questions about law reform, about criminal law and punishment, about families and family life, and about law and the economy — this volume is a contribution to a more textured understanding of Canadian legal history as a whole.'
- Mary Jane Mossman
'The essays are thus an important manifestation of the "new" legal history and open up many insights
and avenues for both the Canadian legal historian and the comparativist. Most striking, however, is
the coherent picture of the scope and role of the legal order in nineteenth century Nova Scotia that
begins to emerge.'
- L. Kinvin Wroth