OF INDICTMENTS. BY THOMAS WILLIAM SAUNDERS, ESQ., BARRISTER-AT-LAW, RECORDER OF BATH. LONDON: HORACE COX, 10, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND, W.C. PREFACE. THE difficulty which the author of the following pages has frequently experienced in his criminal practice, in readily finding apt precedents of indictments, and the distrust which he has entertained upon relying alone upon his own professional learning and experience as to the requisites of these technical documents, combined with the knowledge that this difficulty is one which has equally embarrassed other practitioners, have induced him to compile and publish the within body of forms. Although precedents in abundance in nearly every other description of legal instruments, are readily to be obtained, no work at present exists in which any considerable numbers of modern forms of indictments are found to be collected. True it is, that in "Archbold's Pleading and Evidence in Criminal Cases"-a work necessarily in the possession of every gentleman who practises in our criminal courts-many very useful forms are embodied; but, indispensable as is this publication to the practitioner, he will still.experience the want of that variety and choice of forms of indictments which it is the object of this volume to supply. In saying this, however, it must not be imagined that the author has proposed to himself to do more than to supply such a body of varied forms as may meet the common wants of the practitioner. The limits within which he designed to comprise these pages forbad him from including any very lengthy, unusual, and complex precedents; believing, moreover, that no indictments of such a nature would be required to be drawn without the draughtsman having ample time for consideration and research. As regards the method which has been adopted in treating the subject—the author having in the preliminary treatise explained the rules to be observed in framing an indictment, he has assumed that these will be present to the mind of the practitioner when engaged in drawing such an instrument, and so has not thought it worth while to repeat them. For the convenience, however, of the draughtsman, the formal commencement and endings of counts and indictments have been frequently repeated; and that a ready reference may be had to the entire contents of the volume a very full and copious index has been added. Temple, Dec. 23rd, 1871. T. W. S. |