impracticable to ascertain to what particular section the decision referred.

I cannot therefore hope that I have in all cases attached the cited case to the proper section. I can only hope that the great pains that have been taken to be accurate has rendered the number of errors in this respect rather small.

OMISSIONS.

Some omissions will be found in the first two volumes that would seem inexcusable, if no explanation was given.

Thus, it has not been unfrequent for the Legislature to pass an Act entitled "An Act to amend Art. Title of Chapter

of the

Part of the Revised Statutes," and then make an enactment that has no reference whatever to the Revised Statutes except that it is upon a subject touched upon in the Article named in the title of the Act.

Now, as the title is no part of the Statute I could not incorporate the latter into the text of the Revised Statutes without taking that liberty with legislative enactment which throughout I have endeavored to avoid.

Then again - there are some instances where a new Statute is intended as an entire substitute for a particular article or title of the Revised Statutes, yet by mistake the Legislature has repealed another article or title.

Thus, where the new act is a substitute for Title 4 of Chapter 2 and Title 4 of Chapter 3 is repealed.

So too where a substitute has been enacted for a whole title, the proper title repealed, and, by some oversight, the new act is not made a part of the Revised Statutes. Such is the case with the census law, and the election law, and with some others.

The duty of an editor to leave them out of the text of the Revised Statutes proper would seem plain enough, but a difficulty is created by the fact that having found their way into some of the Editions of the Revised Statutes, subsequent enactments have recognized them as belonging there.

Within the thirty-two years which have elapsed since the Revised Statutes went into effect, acts have been passed that do, in fact, but not in terms, repeal some parts -some that repeal in terms and

enact a substitute which is not made a part of the Revised Statutes—some that repeal what "is inconsistent" with the new enactment-some where the Revised Statutes are altered as to certain localities, extended to some new place or some old place exempted from their operation-many instances where by subsequent events portions are rendered inoperative—some where the titles say the enactments are in addition to or amendatory of the Revised Statutes, yet those Statutes are not even alluded to in the enactment—and, frequently, alterations are made without any reference to the former law.

These circumstances presented to me the alternative of either usurping the province of the Legislature and acting the part of a Reviser, for which I had no authority, or, giving the enactments precisely as I found them.

The latter, being the course I have marked out for myself, has been pursued; but without injury to the reader, for those enactments which are omitted from the Revised Statutes proper, will be found among the general laws, in the subsequent volumes. And the present publication gives the Statutes which it purports to contain, precisely as the Legislature has enacted them and not otherwise.

To facilitate the use of these volumes, I have endeavored to give, at the proper place in the Revised Statutes, a reference to all the subsequent enactments which affect the same topic.

Such of those subsequent enactments as are yet in force and are not merely local in their application, will be found in the subsequent volumes, arranged under the topics to which they belong.

THE REVISERS' NOTES.

In the original report of the Revisers to the Legislature they incorporated notes setting forth their reasons for the enactments proposed by them. Those notes were characterized by great learning and research and were highly valued by the Legislature and by the profession. So much so indeed, that the Revisers in their second Edition felt themselves compelled to publish them, and I have always regarded the second Edition as the most valuable of all for that reason among others.

The lawyers would cite those notes as evidence of what the Statutes meant, and, strange as it may appear! it is, nevertheless,

true, that the Courts set their faces against this citation. They were impelled to that by the consideration, often expressed by them, "that though the Revisers so intended, the Legislature might have had a different intent."

The profession, however, have all along felt that in those notes they have often found, in the language of Lord COKE: "The very lock and key to set open the windows of the Statute," and they have persisted in referring to them until at length, in the lapse of time, the Courts have ceased their repugnance to hearing them quoted, and it has become quite common for even our Judges to refer to them.

I cannot persuade myself that this is not right. I have therefore inserted in this compilation such of the notes as would be calculated, in the eye of good sense, to throw light on the true meaning of the Statutes.

RULES OF INTERPRETATION.

In the same spirit, which prompts me to give the Revisers notes as a means of getting at the meaning of the Statutes, I am prompted to go a step further and give a brief synopsis of some of the leading rules of Interpretation which are well established in our Courts.

To the profession, who are well instructed on that subject or who have in their libraries the books from which they can learn the canons of construction, my synopsis may be of little value.

But there is a large class of inferior magistrates and local officers to whom it may be serviceable, and it is for them that I have prepared it, and to their attention I commend it, in the hope that I may be able to aid them in the performance of duties, which though humble and obscure in their operation, do, nevertheless, largely affect the peace, good order and well being of the whole people.

Any one can readily appreciate the value of this consideration who will pause long enough to imagine what would be our condition, if we should strike from existence the power now wielded by Justices of the Peace and our numerous town and county officers, or if we should be doomed to see it wielded by corrupt or weak or ignorant functionaries.

RULES.

1. The primary object is to discover the true intention of the law, and, whenever that can be clearly ascertained, it must govern,

whatever the language and whatever the opinion of its wisdom or policy.

2. A matter clearly within the intention of the Act is within its scope, for the intention prevails over the literal sense of the words used, and that which is within the intention is as clearly within an act as if within its very letter, and that which is within the letter and not within the intention is not in the act.

3. To get at the intention of an Act, recourse must first be had to its words and next to the occasion and necessity of its enactment. 4. The true inquiry is: 1. What was the former law? 2. What was the mischief or defect to be remedied? 3. What was the remedy proposed? and, 4. The reason of that remedy?

5. The effort must always be to suppress the mischief and to advance the remedy.

6. The mischief or the defect intended to be remedied, may be ascertained from the act itself or from extrinsic circumstances, but the remedy must be ascertained only from the act itself.

7. The intention of an act is not to be presumed, but is to be gathered from its language, and if that can be done, the policy of the enactment is not to be regarded.

8. Words in an act are to be construed in their ordinary and familiar signification as in general and popular use; except where terms of art are used, and then they are to be received in their technical sense.

9. Where the meaning of the words used is under inquiry, regard must be had to the subject matter, in respect to which the words are used.

10. General words may be qualified by subsequent special clauses.

11. General words are to be taken as distributive where the sense requires it and in furtherance of the intention.

12. The collocation of words is often material to be attended 'to. If they are at the beginning of a sentence, they may govern the whole. If at the end they do refer to the whole. If in the middle and sensibly applying to a particular branch, they cannot be extended to that which follows.

13. Words of permission are obligatory-(for instance, "may" means "shall,”) whenever the enactment is for the sake of justice or for the public benefit.

14. The word "and" in an act is generally conjunctive, but may be read in the disjunctive as "or," when such is the clear intention.

15. Relative words, such as "aforesaid," "said," "such," "in like manner," &c., are to be construed as limited to matters precedent, and as carrying forward the sense and extending its operation.

16. When in the same Statute, different words are used, though synonymous, or nearly so, a different meaning is to be understood. 17. So the omission of a clause previously used is to be understood as done purposely.

18. The principles of the common law are never to be lost sight of. Their abrogation is never to be presumed, but to be tolerated only when the enactment is clear and specific; the intendment being that the common law was to be altered no further than the case absolutely required.

19. When an act alters the common law, the meaning shall not be strained beyond the words, except in cases of public utility, when the aim of the act appears to be larger than the enacting words.

20. Whenever the words used are general and declaratory of the common law, they extend beyond the persons and things named in the act and embrace all persons and things within the purview of the act.

21. All parts of an act are to be construed together, and are to receive such interpretation as will enable all its clauses to be operative.

22. All acts on the same subject, whenever passed, are, what is termed, in pari materia, are to be construed as if constituting one act, and are to be so interpreted that all of them and all their clauses may be operative.

23. An act repeals all prior enactments on the same matter, so far as they are inconsistent with each other, excepting only, that where it is the manifest intention that a subsequent act shall not control a former, it shall not do so, though the words strictly and grammatically would repeal it.

24. When a repealing act expires, the original act is revived. 25. The repeal of a repealing act revives the act first repealed unless the contrary is clearly manifest.

26. Contemporary expositions are to be regarded in getting at