TO THE READER.

THIS work, originally estimated to contain not more than from 12
to 1400 pages, has swelled to upwards of 2900. The estimate of
the Public General Law approximated very nearly to the truth. No
satisfactory data existed upon which an estimate could be formed of
the Public Local Law. A general knowledge of that, is not pre-
sumed to be known by the oldest and most experienced of the profes-
sion. Its aggregate can only be ascertained by minute, patient and a
most uninteresting research.

The course of our legislation is to alter, by scraps detached here
and there, difficult to be found, and very frequently impracticable to
be reconciled with preceding enactments. This practice has contri-
buted much to the increase of this work, by rendering indispensable a
re-print of sections which have been modified, but which are requisite
to be known to arrive at a correct knowledge of what the law is.

The notes, very full, to the chapters, but indispensable, to enable the
reader to trace subsequent alterations, have contributed much to in-
crease the pages. In the thousands of references, it would be folly to
hope that in the first edition no error should occur ;* but every effort
has been made to guard against them. Wherever an omission in the
text has been discovered, it has been corrected in the Index, by
inserting the omitted article.

I have assumed with fear and trembling, the responsibility of giving
to the Constitution a new arrangement, by distributing under familiar
titles, all of the constitutional provisions connected with that title, so
that the reader may find all of the Constitution, relating thereto, ar-

* There is an error in the second note to sec. 4, of 1791, ch. 68, p. 279, which
may be corrected by reference to the laws relating to appeals.