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expense to every county before the use of the press was introduced; and in the same places and in the hands of ancient magistrates, or of their families, some of the fugitive sheets of the laws of separate sessions, which have been usually distributed since the practice commenced of printing them.

But recurring to what we actually possess, the question is, what means will be the most effectual for preserving these remains from future loss? All the care I can take of them will not preserve them from the worm, from the natural decay of the paper, from accidents of fire, or those of removal when it is necessary for any public purpose, as in the case of those now sent you. Our experience has proved to us that a single copy, or a few deposited in manuscript in the public offices, cannot be relied on for any length of time. The ravages of fire and of ferocious enemies have had but too much part in producing the loss we now deplore.

How many of the precious works of antiquity were lost while they existed only in manuscript? Has there ever been one lost since the art of printing has rendered it practicable to multiply and disperse copies? I think, therefore, that there should be printed, at public expense, an edition. of all the laws ever passed by our legislatures that can now be found; that a copy should be deposited in every public library in America, in the principal public offices within the State,

and some, perhaps, in the most distinguished public libraries in Europe; that the rest should be sold to individuals toward reimbursing the expenses of the edition. Nor do I think that this would be a voluminous work. The MSS. would probably furnish matter for one printed volume in folio, and would comprehend all the laws from 1624 to 1701.

My collection of fugitive sheets forms, as we know, two volumes, and comprehends all the extant laws from 1734 to 1783, and the laws which can be gleaned up from the revisals to supply the chasm between 1710 and 1734, with those from 1783 to the close of the present century (by which term the work might be completed), would not be more than the matter of another volume, etc.

THOMAS JEFFerson.

Mr. Jefferson took a very great interest in this matter, and afterward, when he became President, wrote a letter to Mr. Hening, who had undertaken to edit the collection of the early laws, dated at Washington, January 14th, 1807, as follows:

"The only object I had in making my collection of the laws of Virginia was to save all those for the public which were not then already lost, in the hope that at some future day they might be replenished. Whether this be by private or public enterprise, my end will be equally answered. The work divides itself into two very distinct parts, to-wit: the printed and unprinted laws. The former began.

in 1662 (Purvis collection). My collection of these is in strong volumes, well bound, and therefore may safely be transported anywhere.

"Any of these volumes which you do not possess are at your service for the purpose of republication. But the unprinted laws are dispersed through many manuscript volumes, several of them so decayed that the leaf can never be opened but once without falling into powder.

"These can never bear removal farther than from their shelf to a table. They are, as well as I recollect, from 1622 downward. I formerly made such a digest of their order and the volumes where they are to be found, that under my own superintendence they could be copied with once handling; more they would not bear. Hence the impracticability of their being copied out at Monticello. But independent of them, the printed laws beginning in 1662, with all our former printed collections, will be a most valuable publication, and sufficiently distinct.

"I shall have no doubt of the exactness of your part of the work, but I hope you will take measures for having the typography and paper worthy of the work.

"THOMAS JEFFERSON."

It is creditable to the enlightened statesmen of that period and to the great State of Virginia that the General Assembly had the good sense to rescue from oblivion the records of the early settlement of that common

wealth, and has preserved them in enduring form in the shape of "Hening's Statutes at Large," in which not only the people of the United States have a great and abiding interest, but especially the people of the State of Illinois, who at one time were citizens of that State, and occupied the frontier county of that old dominion under the name and style of the County of Illinois.

Hening's Statutes are not alone a transcript of old musty records and State papers, but they contain many things which serve to throw light upon the events in England which transpired during the reign of James. the First and Charles the First, the period of the Commonwealth, Charles the Second, down to the reign of George the Third, and the close of our own great revolution.

Hening, in speaking of this matter in the introduction to his first volume, says:

"The colony of Virginia having been planted long after the revival of letters in Europe, as well as the general introduction of the use of the press, it might have been expected that everything relating to our early history would have been carefully preserved.

"But it is a melancholy truth that though we have existed as a nation but little more than two hundred years, our public offices are destitute of official documents.

"It is to the pious care of individuals only that posterity will be indebted

for those lasting monuments which perpetuate the oppressions of the kings of England and the patient sufferings of the colonists. When we compare the extensive grant of territory contained in the charters of King James I. to the London Company with the narrow limits to which the colony of Virginia was afterward reduced; when we review the arbitrary conduct of that monarch in suspending the powers of that company by proclamation, and the equally unjust proceedings of his son, Charles I., in taking the government into his own. hands; and when we contemplate the gradual but progressive encroachments of his successors on the rights of the people till resistance became indispensable, we shall cease to wonder that so few evidences of their turpitude have been suffered to remain. What was left undone by the predecessors of George III. was consummated during his reign.

"All the papers, except a few fragments deposited in the archives of the Council of State and other public offices within the reach of his myrmidons, were, with more than savage barbarity of the Goths and Vandals, committed to the flames."

There is not in the United States so great a depository of interesting materials for a history of the early settlement of the seaboard States as is to be found in the thirteen volumes of Hening's Statutes at Large.

We are chiefly concerned, however, at this time, in tracing the relation of

the State of Illinois to that commonwealth, and the influence of her laws. upon our own judicial history.

The administration of justice in Virginia was extremely cheap and simple in its details.

Commanders of plantations held monthly courts for the trial of civil actions not exceeding the value of one hundred pounds of tobacco, and for the punishment of petty offenses, reserving the right of appeal to the quarter court held by the governor and council, which possessed the supreme judicial power under the different charters, and had original jurisdiction in all cases whatsoever. Commissioners of monthly courts succeeded to commanders of plantations, with the like jurisdiction in civil cases; which was afterward extended to five pounds sterling. The jurisdiction of the court was further extended to sixteen hundred pounds of tobacco, and they were to be called county instead of monthly courts; and that of a single magistrate was final as far as twenty shillings sterling.

In consequence of the great distance of many of the counties from James City, where the quarter courts were held, jurisdiction was finally given to county courts in all cases of law and equity, and the trial by jury secured to those who desired it. The decision of the county court was at first final as for sixteen hundred pounds of tobacco, and for all sums. above that appeal was allowed to the quarter court, and from thence to the

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In the year 1643, the first act was passed for regulating lawyers, though they had certainly attended the several courts before that period. By the first law on the subject, no attorney was permitted to plead without a license, which was granted by the court in which he practiced; nor could an attorney have a license from more courts than the quarter and one county court.

Their fees were twenty pounds of tobacco in the county, and fifty pounds in the quarter court; and no attorney could refuse to be retained, unless employed by the other side. In 1645, all mercenary attorneys were expelled from office.

In 1647, that act was amended by adding a clause to it declaring that no attorneys should take any fees; and if the court should perceive that either party by his weakness was likely to lose his cause, they themselves should either open the case or "appoint some fit man out of the people" to plead the cause, and allow him a reasonable compensation if no other attorneys were admitted.

In 1656, the act prohibiting attor neys was repealed; the governor and council were authorized to license them for the quarter courts, and the commissioners for the county courts, and if any controversy should arise concerning their fees, it was to be settled by the courts respectively. In 1657-8, the law against mercenary attorneys was again revived.

Clerks of county courts were at one time appointed by the governor, but afterward by the courts themselves.

Commissioners of county courts (the same as justices of the peace) were formerly appointed by the governor, afterward by act of assembly, but at the commencement of the commonwealth they were appointed by the House of Burgesses; afterward they were recommended by their court, and commissioned by the governor and council, and finally their appointment was confirmed by the assembly.

During the same period the county courts recommended three or more to the governor and council, out of which they made a selection for sheriffs, who were to continue in office for one year only."

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HON. THOMAS CARROLL.

AMONG the men who have been a power in making the city of Tacoma one of the finest in the west, is Hon. Thomas Carroll, who, in the days. when the place was a struggling and almost hopeless village, turned the tide in its favor.

He was born at Philadelphia, Pa., June 30, 1842, but when ten years old his parents moved to a farm in Waupaca County, Wisconsin, where the son grew up, helping his father on the farm and occasionally attending school in the little log school-house. His mother, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Stuart, is a decendant of the House of Stuart, and possesses in a marked degree the graces of womanhood. Robert, the father was born in Ireland, in 1811, of an ancient AngloIrish family, but early conceived a strong dislike to the system of government existing in his native land, and like many another, emigrated to America.

It was the intention of the parents to send the son to Philadelphia to prepare for College in the fall of 1860, but in the meantime the war broke out, and although but seventeen years of age, three days after the attack upon Fort Sumter he enlisted, but was rejected on account of his small size and boyish appearance,

but on the 11th of August following he again enlisted and was accepted as a member of Company A, 8th Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and passed muster, and was immediately sent to St. Louis, Mo., where, on the evening of his arrival, his company was sent to Big River Bridge and engaged in battle with Jeff Thompson's forces. He was afterward in the battles of Fredericktown, Mo., New Madrid, Point Pleasant, Island No. 10, Farmingtown, Corinth, Iuka, Danville, Corinth 2d, Holly Springs, Jackson, Miss., Raymond, Vicksburg, Mechanicsburg, Richmond, La., and numerous smaller engagements.

The following incidents of his army life are given by "Tom's" old comrade and friend, Major Arthur A. Putnam, the present Internal Revenue Collector for the Puget Sound District :

After the battle of Richmond he was detailed for special duty as scout, in which capacity he continned to act during the rest of the war, and in which service he met many perilous adventures, but always came out all right, ofttimes by aid of his ready wit. On one occasion, just after the battle of Jackson, he was sent ahead of the corps as scout. He was informed that Gen. Tuttle's division, to which he belonged, would be in Clinton.

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