PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION, ix

seventy-six; and which, by experience, have been found appli-
cable to their local and other circumstances, and have been
introduced, used and practiced by the Courts of Law or Equity."
The distinction, therefore, made in former draughts of the Bill
of Eights, between those Statutes which existed at the time of
the first emigration of the people of Maryland, and were found
applicable to their local circumstances, and those which had
been subsequently made, and had been introduced, used and
practised in the Courts, and which is alluded to in Dashiell v.
the Attorney General, now no longer exists.

The present volume contains those English Statutes and parts
of Statutes, which were reported by Chancellor Kilty to have
been found applicable and proper to be incorporated in our
laws; and, in addition, several others, vhich have since been
declared by the Court of Appeals to be iu force. Thus, iu 8ib-
ley v. Williams, 3 G. & J. 52, it was determined that the Stat-
utes 30 Car. 2, c. 7, and 4 & 5 W. & M. c, 24, s. 12, and, in Shriver
v. the State, 9 G. & J. 1, that the Statute 9 & 10 W. 3, c. 15,
were in force in the State; and these Statutes are accordingly
included. So in Matthews v. Ward, 10 G. & J. 443, the Court
of Appeals said that it was questionable whether the Statute
1 R. 3, c. 1, was in force here; I have not considered this expres-
sion of the Court as excluding all doubt, and have therefore
inserted that Act by its title. I have added notes; in which I
have endeavoured to collect the Acts of Assembly and those
parts of the Code, which have changed, added to, or otherwise
varied the provision of the several Statutes; and in which, also,
I have endeavoured to collect the principal decisions of the
English and our own Courts, construing the Statutes, or our
Acts of Assembly, or the Code, respectively. I have conrmed
myself to the English and Maryland cases, because my book
would have grown enormously, liad I cited the decisions of other
States. But, with regard, to the English cases, a noteworthy
distinction is made, vis.: that the received construction of the
English Statutes, at the time of the Revolution, may very prop-
erly be considered as accompanying the Statutes themselves,
and forming an integral part of them; but subsequent de-
cisions, although entitled to great respect, are not to be received
as absolute authority; and, as an example of the application
of the distinction, I may refer to Mayor, &c. v. Banks, 6 Md. 235.