OF TH STATE OF CALIFORNIA: CONTAINING ALL THE Acts of the Legislature OF A PUBLIC AND GENERAL NATURE, NOW IN FORCE, PASSED AT THE SESSIONS OF 1850-51-52-53. то WHICH ARE PREFIXED THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, THE CONSTITUTIONS OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF CALIFORNIA, THE TREATY OF QUERETARO, AND THE NATURALIZATION LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES. Beucius By S. GARFIELDE AND F. A. SNYDER, ESQRS. COMPILERS. By Authority. BENICIA: PUBLISHED BY S. GARFIELDE. PRESS OF THE FRANKLIN PRINTING HOUSE, 1853. INTRODUCTION. Ir may perhaps not be amiss to present briefly the plan of the following work, which is published under the provisions of an act to authorize the compilation and publication of the laws of the State of California, passed in April, of the present year. The provisions of that act allow but a narrow discretion to the compilers, in consequence of which, no condensation or alteration of the enrolled copy has been made, with the exception of verbal corrections, which are generally contained within brackets, and some corrections in punctuation, where the sense obviously required them. In order, however, to have the work as correct as possible, the printed statutes of the four preceding sessions have not been implicitly relied upon, but the enrolled acts, in the office of the Secretary of State, have been carefully examined, and the text corrected accordingly. The large amount of legislation incident to the organization of the government of a new state, has necessarily resulted in many crudities and imperfections. Laws are left unrepealed which conflict, in many parts, with each other, while others are evidently badly digested and hardly answer the ends for which they were enacted. In these cases, the compilers have not felt at liberty to deviate from the enrolled copies, nor even to leave out or harmonize conflicting sections or sentences, but have referred to the defective or conflicting portions, in notes at the bottom of the page; and after thus having called atten tion to the defects in question, left the intelligent reader to draw his own inferences. All acts of a public and general nature, in force at the close of the fourth session of the legislature, have been retained in the present volume. Amended sections have been removed, and the sections, as amended, inserted in their places. Statutes upon similar subjects have been brought together, and references are made to subjects of the same nature contained in different acts. Notes of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the State have been made and appended wherever applicable. But one volume of Reports having issued from the press, and that for the year 1850, and most of the statutes then in force having been repealed, but few of the decisions then made apply to the present statute law of the state. Wherever a repealed section has been taken out, an amendment inserted, or allusion made to the same subject in different acts, foot notes have been added referring to the page or chapter of the present volume, where the same subject is contained, or to the volume and page of the old statutes from which an amendment has been taken. The publication of the present volume was commenced before all the acts of the fourth session of the legislature were received; in consequence of which, a few acts were amended after they were in type, and the amendments were inserted afterwards, with notes referring to the original acts. It is believed that the following are the only examples of the kind in the work, viz:-The "Act to fix the time of holding court in the eleventh judicial district of this state," on page 211, is superseded by a general act upon the same subject, on page 932. The "Act to provide for the redemption of Comptroller's warrants, drawn payable out of the general fund," on page 222, is amended on page 931. The "Act to provide for the appointment and prescribe the duties of guardians," on page 154, has an additional section on page 904. The 182d section of an "Act concerning corporations," on page 309, is amended a second time on page 900. Chapter IV. of an "Act concerning corporations," on page 290, was in type when |