TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED THE DECLARATION OF RIGHTS, PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO AN ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY, 1803 BY an a it was ordained, that a collection should be made of all fuch acts of the Af fembly, of a public and permanent nature, as were then in force. For this purpofe, feveral lawyers were folicited to fuperintend the compilation. Mr. Davis, then printer to the Commonwealth, did not get the work completed 'till the clofe of the year 1794. It, therefore, embraced all fuch laws, of a public and permanent nature, as were paffed during the feffion, which commenced November 11th, 1794. It was unavoidably to happen that this collection would almost immediately become defective; and that its defects were to increase annually, and without intermiffion. The new laws of the more important clafs were, for the most part, occupied in altering, or in repealing fome of their predeceffors. Hence, it was evident, that if a man of business was not regularly supplied with the additional laws, the Revised Code would be quite as likely to lead him into mistakes, as to give him proper information. The confequence was, that every practitioner of the law found it neceffary to purchase, annually, the large folio pamphlet, containing the laws of each fucceeding affembly, In the course of a man's life, these publications would have fwelled into a library; and, what was extremely inconvenient, by far the greater part of them were laws of a local and private nature, which were totally ufelefs, and a mere incumbrance to the practitioner in a court. This Revised Code, with all its augmenting imperfections, had become extremely scarce. The original price was eight dollars. But it was almost impoffible to obtain the book at any price whatever. The conftant demand for the Revised Code induced the proprietors of the prefent work to publish propofals for a fecond, and improved edition, which was to bring down the collection fo late as to the end of the feffion of December, 1801. In the former PREFACE. edition, therefore, the latest act of Affembly bears date the 26th of December, 1794. In the prefent edition, the latest ftatute paffed upon February 2d, 1802. This makes a difference of more than feven years; and thefe feven years appear to have been diftinguished beyond every former period of the history of the commonwealth, by the multitude and importance of the laws which in that time were paffed. To give a complete idea of this fact, we have only to obferve, that the edition of Mr. Davis contained one hundred and eightyone ftatutes; and that the prefent contains THREE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN. Of thefe, one hundred and thirty-two additional ftatutes, one hundred and twenty-fix were paffed within those seven years. They compose, therefore, in point of number, more than two-fifths of the whole collection. The other fix laws, which make up the total additional number of one hundred and thirty-two, had been paffed long before the publication of the former edition of "The Revifed Code." Some of them are of very confiderable length. They were felected, and inferted by the fpecial advice and defire of Governor Monroe. He was one of the gentlemen who had been appointed to revile the former edition; and it was his opinion that thefe fix acts of Afsembly had been improperly omitted. Exclufive of the index, the title page and preface, the prefent volume contains four hundred and fifty-four pages. Of thefe, the additional laws fill an hundred and twenty-four pages, which is not much less than a third part of the whole text, It is not neceffary to fay how much more convenient this concife and perfpicuous arrangement must be, than to have the trouble of wandering through feven folio pamphlets, in quest of a statute. Thefe details, without any comment of ours; abundantly prove, had, indeed, other evidence been wanting, the propriety and neceffity for a fecond edition of this book. It is now, alfo, condensed into a much more manageable fize than it formerly affumed. No gentleman's pocket can, at least, in the prefent age, contain a folio volume; and much lefs would it contain the enormous appendage of feven folio pamphlets. In riding ten, or fifteen miles to a county court-house, a gentleman does not always think it worth while to take a portmanteau along with him; nor, indeed, is every portmanteau large enough to contain such maffes of print and paper. Upon this account, the prefent edition has been reduced to an octavo fize, and printed as clofely as poffible. Hence, a lawyer, when he fets out for the county court-houfe, will no longer be obliged to leave his eight folios behind him, and, amidst a croud of competitors, to folicit the unfortunate clerk of the court to let him have a fight of the Revised Code. He can now put his hand into his pocket, and take out a genteel, portable, octavo volume, which comprehends his former library, difencumbered of all its rubbish. The type, on which the prefent edition is printed, is either the fame, or almost exactly the fame with that of the laft, and moft efteemed London edition of Coke upon Littleton. This circumftance is mentioned here, because a complaint had been made, in one of the Richmond newspapers, by fome nameless writer, that the type was too fmall. You cannot, at the fame time, enjoy the cool, bracing breeze of winter, and the verdant vegetation of fummer. You cannot, in the fame book, unite the advantages of a folio, and of an octavo. If this edition had been printed upon a type as large as that of Mr. Davis, it must have been one-third part dearer than it is; for the volume, including the new index, and the bottom notes, pofitively contains one third part more of matter than the former edition. The price, to fubfcribers, must have been raised to nine dollars; and to non-fubfcribers, to twelve dollars. Very few purchasers will regret that the publication can be had at a price fo much more reasonable. The former edition laboured under more than one material defect. It was often impoffible to tell at what time a ftatute had originally paffed. Put the cafe, that a deed was to be contefted, which bore date in 1760. It is clear that this tranfaction could not be affected by laws made pofterior to its date. It became a question how long the law had exifted, or, when a predeceffor to it, or to fome part of it, had been paffed in, perhaps, a different form. For instance, of chapter CXXVII. a confiderable part appears to have been enacted at different periods; one part in 1786, others in 1791. In the old edition of the Revised Code, the law is dated December 26th, 1792. |