PRINTED DEMERARA: AND PUBLISHED BY L. M'DERMOTT, AT THE 1870. ΤΟ HIS EXCELLENCY JOHN SCOTT, ESQ., GOVERNOR OF BRITISH GUIANA. THIS EDITION OF THE LAWS OF THE COLONY IS, BY SPECIAL PERMISSION, DEDICATED, BY HIS EXCELLENCY'S MOST OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT, THE PUBLISHER. TO SUBSCRIBERS. A FEW words of explanation may not be amiss, in placing before the public the first number of the "NEW AND REVISED EDITION OF THE LAWS OF BRITISH GUIANA." It has been thought advisable to adhere to the old title, which has done duty already on many former occasions, though the compiler would at the same time deprecate the idea that the labours of his predecessors in this field have been appropriated by him, except in so far as they have served as guides, sometimes to facts, and at others to errors. Indeed, one very great reason for the appearance of the present publication is the inaccuracy, and consequent unreliability, of existing Editions, as for instance where as in the last published Edition of THE LAWS OF BRITISH GUIANA, the "Sabbath Ordinance" of 1836, No. 79, is inserted as Ordinance No. 1 of 1837, which latter in fact repeals the former, and does not appear at all in that Work. The Scope and Plan of this Edition are entirely original. Previous Compilers have been satisfied to re-publish, without direct reference to Originals, the principal Enactments in force, and each has apparently considered himself at liberty to alter the wording to suit his own caprice. The consequence is that many of the most important Public Documents, so far as they are accessible to the general public, are only to be found in the form of garbled and mutilated fragments. As an instance of this the Reader is referred to the "Plan of Redress," as published, from the Original, in the present Volume, and is invited to compare it with any other printed copy to which he may have access. He will then readily see that not only is every other than the present version incomplete, but that the text itself has boen so |