In this edition, about nineteen hundred cases, decided since the publication of the last edition, have been added, and the whole text has been carefully revised. In order to make room for the new matter without materially increasing the size of the volume, the American statutes have been omitted from the appendix. It is believed that no serious inconvenience will result from this omission, as each practitioner may be supposed to have ready access to the statutes of his own State.

The author takes great pleasure in acknowledging his obligations to his co-editor for thorough research and intelligent criticism.

CAUSTEN BROWNE.

Boston, June, 1895.

Preface To The Fourth Edition

In the preparation of the present edition, no pains have been spared which seemed to promise for the book a higher degree of accuracy or of usefulness to the profession. The text has throughout been carefully revised. Much of it has been entirely rewritten, in order to present certain topics with greater fulness or in new aspects, as seemed, by the course of recent judicial decisions, to be rendered desirable. Besides adding the cases reported since the third edition, all citations made in earlier editions have been carefully verified, and many other cases of that date added, with the result that the present edition contains in all more than a thousand cases not previously found in the book. Improvements have also been made in its index and table of cases. The author trusts and believes that the result of the careful and thorough work put into this edition will be to confirm the favorable judgment which the book has heretofore enjoyed at the hands of the profession.

And he takes peculiar pleasure in acknowledging his obligation to Alex. Porter Browne, Esq., of the Suffolk bar, for constant and very valuable aid in this revision; gladly conceding to him a least an equal share in whatever credit the work done may be held to deserve.

Boston, March, 1880.