same system, which is the New England system with some modifications and increase of jurisdiction. Wisconsin received it from Michigan, and Minnesota from Wisconsin. It is a jurisdiction which touches the home life of the people more than any other reaching into their families, following the track of death; dealing with the interests of bereaved widows and helpless orphans; and once in every generation attaching to, and acting upon, the accumulated wealth of the state. That the courts waich exercise it have not the dignity and importance in the popular estimation which might be expected is due, to some extent, to their peculiar organization, and the legislation which, in Wisconsin at least, has done what legislation could do to render them objects of contempt, by making the judges ministerial officers of their own courts, and providing pecuniary penalties for neglect of ministerial duties, which nearly everywhere else are performed by a register or clerk who is an officer of the court. Experience (and the reported cases) furnish abundant evidence that a knowledge of the extent and limitations of the jurisdiction of courts of probate under this system, and of the proper manner of exercising it in all cases, does not come by intuition and reading the statutes alone. If this work accomplishes the design of the author, it will aid in attaining that knowledge. It is deemed essential to the success of a local work of this character that it should not be a very large book, and therefore (upon the assumption that those who use it will have access to the statutes) the statutes considered in it are digested, and not copied. Many references are made to cases to illustrate principles and propositions stated, without giving the exact point decided in each, and only the statutes which relate to the jurisdiction and practice are treated of. The work is the result of a laborious and honest effort. If it has merits, they will be discovered without any attempt to state them here. It is not expected that it will be found free from defects and errors, or escape criticism, both for what is in it and for what is omitted. It is submitted with regret that it is not a better book, but with the hope and belief that it may be found a useful one. OSHKOSH, WIS., July 24, 1879. NOTE EXPLANATORY OF THIS SECOND EDITION. 66 “T His Orphans Legacy not satisfied for want of Typ ographal Assets, it was held expedient to have recourse to a Second Edition; which yet without some considerable Additions would have been but a Tautological impression; For prevention whereof many are the Law-Cases, not as meer Mangoria on any Bibliopolous score, but as Perutilia, on the Publick account that by way of Augmentation to the former Edition are here super-added" "To the reader." Godolphin's Orphans Legacy, second edition London, 1685. The experiment of combining the law and practice of two states in a local work, in the first edition of this book, was so successful, and the work was so favorably received, that the author felt encouraged to extend the experiment in this edition and attempt to digest and collate the statutes and decisions in Michigan with those of Wisconsin and Minnesota. The labor of doing this, in addition to the other work incident to the preparation of a new edition after a lapse of thirteen years from the publication of the first, has been no holiday task. This combination would not have been attempted but for the fact that Michigan furnished the original from which the general probate statutes of both Wisconsin and Minnesota were derived. The codification of all the probate statutes of Minnesota into a single act in 1889, the publication of the third volume. of Howell's Annotated Statutes of Michigan, and Sanborn & Berryman's Annotated Statutes of Wisconsin, which bring together the legislation in each state to the same year, rendered the time favorable for the attempt. To those compilations, and their excellent and exhaustive annotations, the author acknowledges his indebtedness for greatly facilitating his work. The changes required by recent legislation and later adjudi vi NOTE EXPLANATORY OF THIS SECOND EDITION. cations, and the addition of the state of Michigan, necessitated a revision or rewriting of many sections of the book. New sections have been added where it was deemed necessary. The notes have necessarily been largely rewritten. A considerable increase in the text and notes was unavoidable. That its usefulness will be correspondingly increased is the hope of the author. OSHKOSH, WIS., July 24, 1892. |