PREFACE. THE design of the following Work is to illus trate those branches of the Law of Scotland that depend on Statute. Although chiefly intended as a book of reference for students and practitioners of law, the subject is important also to the historian, and to all who hold situations of judicial authority in Scotland. Almost every branch of the law of Scotland is affected by the Statutes. These statutes comprehend the acts of the Scottish Parliament which passed in the reign of James I. of Scotland, and from thence downwards to the union of the two kingdoms in 1707; and such of the British Statutes, enacted since the union, as concern this part of the united kingdom. To become acquainted with statute law, however, is an attainment by no means unattended with difficulties. These arise, in some in stances, from the obscure or ambiguous phraseology of some of the statutes; while it is frequently difficult to distinguish, with precision, acts repealed or which have gone into desuetude, from those in force. Even prior to the union, the statutes were published in a chronological order, without reference to the several departments of law which they were intended to fix or explain; and, since that period, the labour of making this selection from the statutes of the united kingdom has much increased. The plan of the present work is not entirely new it has been suggested by Lord Kames' Abridgment, which has long enjoyed the approbation of the public. It is intended to present an alphabetical arrangement of the Scottish Statutes prior to the Union; and a selection from the British Statutes, from the Union to the close of the last Session of Parliament 1827, of all those which seem to apply to Scotland. All statutes possessing a temporary or local interest only, and all those which relate to the public revenue or expenditure, have been excluded. The laws of excise have been digested in a practical form by Mr Huie of that department; and those of the customs have been compiled, by direction of his Majesty's Treasury, by Mr Hume, comptroller of customs in the port of London. In the hope of extending the practical convenience of Lord Kames' and Lord Swinton's works, I have enlarged the range of illustration under the present plan, which is meant to constitute a Dictionary, rather than an Abridgment of the statutes. The early acts, and such as have been repealed or amended, are narrated in the introductory remarks prefixed to each title: the enacting clauses of those statutes by which practice is now regulated are given in detail: acts repealed are distinguished from those in force; and to each title are subjoined, notices of acts of sederunt of the Court of Session, references to the opinions of institutional writers, and to the leading decisions of the Supreme Court, which explain or illustrate the application of the statutes. |