PREFACE. The undersigned, in the supervision of the publication of the Laws of Montana Territory, under the authority given him by Hon. Thomas Francis Meagher, Secretary of the Territory, in compliance with "An Act relating to the Printing of the Laws and Journals of the Council and House of Representatives of the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Montana," approved January 31, 1865, has not considered himself at liberty to go beyond the strict letter of the law, which authorizes corrections of only the slight and evident errors in spelling and punctuation; believing it his duty to attempt no correction of verbal errors, even where the intention of the Legislature was most manifest, but rather leaving the construction of all such portions to the decisions of the courts. For the same reason, he has not deemed himself authorized to change in any manner the numbering of the chapters in the Civil Practice Act, though a re-arrangement of them would seem to be urgently needed. The undersigned has constantly endeavored to make the indexes to the Civil and Criminal Practice Acts as full and minute as possible, particularizing each section in such manner as to facilitate to the utmost the reference to every portion; and has also striven to index with all necessary completeness and particularity all other Acts of a public character according to their subject matter; while those laws of a more private nature and less general interest have been collected in the index in one body under the head of "Private Laws." EDW. B. NEALLEY. MAY, 1866. |