MD. STATE LIBRARY.

PREFACE.

THESE volumes have been compiled and published under the
direction of the Legislature of Maryland, and contain, all the
Acts of Assembly, except private Acts, now in force in this
State. *

The statutes of Maryland, embracing all the legislation from the
first settlement of the State and covering a period of more than
a century and a half, were scattered through more than forty
volumes, so that it was difficult and expensive to procure them,
and from the numerous supplements, repeals and re-enactments,
it was no easy matter to ascertain what was the law. These
and other reasons, induced a provision in the new Constitution,
requiring the Legislature to appoint Commissioners to revise
and codify the Acts of Assembly. In pursuance of this provi-
sion, the General Assembly, in eighteen hundred and fifty-three,
appointed OTHO SCOTT, and HIRAM M'CULLOUGH, Commissioners,
and these gentlemen reported the result of their labors to the
Session of eighteen hundred and sixty. Their report was con-
tained in two volumes; the first volume comprising all the
Public General Laws, in articles and sections, and arranged
alphabetically; and the second containing all the Public Local
Laws, arranged by counties, in alphabetical order. At the
Session of eighteen hundred and sixty, the Legislature adopted
the volumes reported by the Commissioners and repealed all the
previous legislation of the State, making these two volumes com-
prise all the Acts of Assembly in force, and abolishing all not
contained in them. The same Legislature appointed the under-
signed to superintend the printing of the Code thus adopted,
and to incorporate into it the Acts of the Session of eighteen
hundred and sixty, and prepare an Index to the whole. By
the same Act, JOHN MURPHY, of the city of Baltimore, was
appointed to print, and publish the work.