CONTAINING THE CASES Submitted at the JANUARY TERM, 1883, JANUARY TERM, 1884- TERM, 1890, APRIL TERM, 1891, OCTOBER TERM, 1891, APRIL TERM, 1892, AND THE OCTOBER TERM, 1892. ST. PAUL, MINN. 1893 PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. THE Wyoming Legislature has, we understand, made no provision for reporting and publishing the decisions of the Supreme Court for the past 10 years or more, and the bench and bar have been dependent on the efforts of private enterprise to supply their imperative need of notice of the adjudications and decisions of their tribunal of last resort. Happily this need has been amply filled through the existence of the National Reporter System. Every decision rendered since April, 1883, has been fully reported in the Pacific Reporter, and through its pages circulated, not only in Wyoming, but throughout the entire country. Now, however, these decisions have become quite numerous, and it is a serious inconvenience to the judges and lawyers of Wyoming to have to search for them, scattered, as they are, among 15,000 to 18,000 cases from other states, through 30 volumes of the Pacific Reporter. There has been an urgent demand for their publication in a separate form, in a volume by themselves. This, under ordinary circumstances, would involve a considerable expense, as there is now matter enough to make two volumes, if published in the ordinary padded style; and because of the small population of the new state, and the consequent limited demand, these would have to be sold for $5 or $6 per volume, or subsidized heavily from the public treasury. In this emergency the publishers of the National Reporter System have placed at the service of the Court their unusual facilities for this kind of work, and have given the state the benefit of their means of accurate reporting and economical publication. After consultation with the Judges of the Supreme Court of Wyoming, the Attorney General, and leading members of the bar, we have arranged to compile and reprint from the Pacific Reporter all the decisions of the territorial and state Supreme Courts from 1883 to 1892, including everything since the cases in volume 2, Wyoming Reports. By using the compact typography of the Reporters, we are able to put into a single volume what would easily have made two in the ordinary report style. Thus, the present volume contains reports of 90 cases, many of them of unusual length; while in volume 2 there were but 50. Again, since a large part of the expense of composition has been saved,—having been already done for the Pacific Reporter, we are enabled to supply the state and citizens such copies as they need at a price which means a large saving to them of the cost under ordinary circumstances. The opinions in this volume have in all cases been furnished by the Clerk of the Supreme Court, and the reports have been submitted to the Judges for revision. The reporting has been done by carefully trained editors of long experience in this department of editorial work. Some of the headnotes of the earlier cases reported in the earlier volumes of the Pacific have been rewritten, and all have been revised by competent men. In addition to this, a large number of annotations have been made, giving references to all pertinent Wyoming decisions, and also to the latest decisions in point from all the state and federal courts. This feature is found in few, if any, contemporary State Reports, and it is hoped that it will be appreciated by the bar. Desiring to make the volume a complete repository of the information that might be looked for in it, numerous special features have been incorporated in it. In addition to the customary tables of cases reported and cited, a special table is given of Wyoming cases overruled, reversed, affirmed, etc.; an index of the notes; and in the index a full table of statutes cited. Also lists of the Judges and Clerks of the Supreme Court during the period covered by this volume; a table showing the present constitution of the Court; a list of the members of the Supreme Court Bar in active practice, corrected down to November, 1892; the act of congress admitting Wyoming to statehood; and the Supreme Court rules now in force. By numbering the columns instead of the pages, greater exactness of citation is possible, with increased convenience of reference. We desire to acknowledge our obligations to the Judges of the Supreme Court, and in particular to Chief Justice GROESBECK; to Hon. C. N. POTTER, Attorney General; to Hon. J. W. LACEY, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court; to Hon. J. B. SENER, former Chief Justice, now of Washington, D. C.; and to W. R. STOLL, Esq., and EDMUND J. CHURCHILL, of the Cheyenne bar,-for their cooperation and suggestions in the preparation of this volume. And we wish to make particular recognition of the kind assistance of Hon. R. H. REPATH, Clerk of the Supreme Court, to whom we are indebted for most of the special information which makes the volume complete. ST. PAUL, MINN., December, 1892. WEST PUBLISHING COMPANY. |