Wilhs: Anglo-American Law 
23 
sovereign authority of state or nation, for the primary pur- 
poses of carrying on a local and subordinate government.” 
SCHOULER. 
International law concerns states as legal entities in their 
relations with each other. In the past it has had no arbiter 
beyond the parties themselves. 
2. Private rights are those which reside in natural and 
artificial persons in their private capacity. Violations of the 
correlative duties are either torts, or breaches of obligations 
in personam, like breaches of contract, etc. 
Breaches of obligations, torts, and crimes are all legal 
wrongs. They are violations of legal duties and obligations. 
Some wrongs are crimes only, as for example getting drunk 
and being disorderly on the street. Some wrongs are torts 
only, as where a person unintentionally collides with another 
and injures him. Some wrongs are breaches of contract, or 
quasi-contract, or trust, or bailment, or public calling only. 
Other wrongs are both crimes and torts, as where one in- 
tentionally runs into another and knocks him down. Other 
wrongs are both torts and breaches of contract, as where a 
railway which has made a contract to carry a passenger safely 
is guilty of negligence. In such case the railway is also guilty 
of a breach of a public calling obligation. If in such case 
the railway had been guilty of an assault and battery by the 
act of one of its servants, the same wrong would have been 
a crime as well as a tort, breach of contract, and breach of 
public calling obligation. Suppose that A, purporting to act 
for B as his agent, collects from C a debt which C owes B, 
and then refuses to pay the money over to B. The law will 
impose an obligation on A to pay the money over. This would 
be a quasi-contract. A would be guilty of the tort of fraud 
against C, and of the crime of obtaining money under false 
pretense against the state, but he would be guilty of neither 
a tort, breach of contract, nor any other legal wrong than 
breach of quasi-contract against B. A tort is a violation of 
a private antecedent duty in rem. There are many different 
kinds of torts, and they will be referred to further in con- 
nection with the consideration of such duties. A breach of 
contract is a violation of a private antecedent obligation in 
personam created by law as the result of a promise, or set of 
promises, under seal, of record, or in the form of agreement. 
