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FROM THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE GOVERNMENT TO THE SESSION OF THE LEGIS-
LATURE, ENDING ON THE 24TH FEBRUARY, 1834.

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PREFACE.

THE present DIGEST will be found to embrace all the Statutes of a public and permanent nature, enacted by the Legislature of Kentucky, together with such Acts of Virginia as have not been repealed or superseded, and such English Statutes as have, by legislative and constitutional adoption, been incorporated into our code. Under some of the titles, a few acts will be found which may be considered obsolete or repealed, but which have been retained from the necessity of frequent reference to them in the deduction of titles to real estate, and which hitherto have been preserved in a form scarcely accessible to the public.

Much difficulty has been experienced in so arranging the titles as to embrace under each head all the acts relating thereto, and at the same time presenting the Statutes in a continuous and unbroken form. To accomplish this, and avoid unnecessary repetition, no mode appeared so advisable as to select from the various acts those sections relating to the same subject, when their construction would not be obscured thereby, and cast them together under the several titles as now presented. The variety of subjects frequently introduced in the same act, and often in the same section, has, in some instances, made it necessary to depart from this arrangement, and print an entire act under a title to which all of its provisions do not apply. Such instances, however, are not numerous, and a reference to the Index will, it is hoped, remove all difficulties, and at once show the whole legislation on the subject, and direct the reader to the proper page or pages. The acts are given in chronological order with the addition of their titles except in those cases where the title was wholly unimportant, or the change of the chronological order rendered necessary for the purpose of placing in immediate connection, those Statutes which relate to a single subject.

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The references to judicial decisions are probably more numerous than the character of the work required; and, in some instances, such references have been made to cases that do not give a direct construction to the act itself, but merely relate to the same subject. It would have required less labour to have cited those cases alone in which a direct construction was given, and the work,

when thus completed, would have assumed a more strictly scientific character. The object of the Legislature, however, in encouraging the publication, being to place the Statutes in the hands of her judicial officers of every grade, it was believed, that its utility would be enhanced by referring in many instances to the leading cases of our appellate court, which, although not giving a construction, tended to elucidate the subject on which the act treated. These references might have been greatly extended, but from a belief that it would swell the work to an inconvenient size.

In presenting the following Volumes to the public, no other merit is claimed for them than what may be found in the general arrangement of their contents, and the accuracy with which the Statutes have been transcribed. The labor of the compiler is strictly a work of care and attention; and, with the limited ambition of being useful, he can hope for no other praise than that of being faithful and accurate.

The work, such as it is, is submitted to the candid and enlightened judgment of the profession, with a reliance upon its liberality to place a proper estimate on the difficulty of producing system and order out of the legislation of nearly half a century.

FRANKFORT, Ку. 1834.

AN ACT

To encourage the Publication of a new Digest of the Statute Law of Kentucky.

SEC. 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, That when CHARLES S. MOREHEAD and MASON BROWN shall file in the office of the Secretary of State, the certificate of the Judges of the Court of Appeals, or any two of them, that the Digest of the Statute Law of Kentucky, which they propose and are about to publish, is faithful and accurate, and worthy of public patronage, and should be received as authority in the courts of justice, the Secretary of State is hereby authorized and required to contract with the said Morehead and Brown, for two thousand copies of said work, at the price of three dollars and fifty cents for every six hundred pages of printing contained therein, tables and indexes being taken into the claculation; the work to be printed on a fair legible type, in two or more royal octavo volumes, on super-royal paper, well bound and lettered; and when they shall deliver to the Secretary of State, the aforesaid number of copies of said Digest of the Laws, he shall give a receipt for the same, and certify to the Auditor of Public Accounts the amount due for the same, at the aforesaid price; and the Auditor of Public Accounts is thereupon directed to issue a warrant upon the Treasury, in favor of said publishers, for the amount so certified, which shall be paid out of any money in the Treasury, not otherwise appropriated.

Judges of the Court of Appeals to exam

ing the Digest, and give a certunicate.

Secretary of. State to contract for two

thousand copies The price, and how paid.

What laws to be contained in the Digest, and

Index.

SEC. 2. Said work is to contain a digest of the Statute Laws, down to the close of the present session of the Legislature, with a reference to the most important Judicial Decisions, which have to contain given a construction to any of said laws, and shall contain a copious and correct Index of the principal matters contained therein, alphabetically arranged: Provided, That said Digest shall not contain any local or private acts, or any of the acts in relation to the Bank of Kentucky.

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SEC. 3. So soon as the said work is received, the Secretary of Digest, how

State shall proceed to have the same distributed, in the following manner: one to each Judge of the Court of Appeals, Circuit Judge and Justice of the Peace, one to each Circuit and County Court Attorney, one to the Clerk of the Court of Appeals, one to the

distributed.

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