Southern District of New York, ss. BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the nineteenth day of August, in the forty-ninth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Gould & Banks, of the said District, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as Proprietors, in the words following, to wit: "Reports of Criminal Law Cases, with Notes and References; containing, also, a View of the Criminal Laws of the United States. By Jacob D. Wheeler, Counsellor at Law." IN CONFORMITY to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, "An Act for the encouragement of Learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned." And also to an Act entitled "An Act supplementary to an act entitled An Act for the encouragement of Learning by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books to the Authors and Proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." JAMES DILL, Clerk of the Southern District of New York. Rec. Oct. 28, 1873 TO THE PATRONS OF THIS WORK. NOTWITHSTANDING I have detailed the plan of this work in the numbers as they have been issued from the press, and in the public journals, I cannot omit saying a word or two here, at the close of the second volume, in relation to it. My object is, to collect and publish every criminal trial that has occurred in the United States, making a complete collection of AMERICAN STATE TRIALS. They will contain trials in full, decisions of the judges, state papers, legislative reports, &c., and every thing that can tend to throw light upon, or elucidate the criminal jurisprudence of our country. They will, in most instances, be published entire; and if all the cases, &c. can be collected, (and I have not the least doubt, from the mass of matter already in my possession, they can,) it is difficult to conceive a publication of greater importance, in a national point of view, than such a collection would be; nor of one more useful to those gentlemen engaged in the practice of the criminal law. To make the work still more valuable, the cases hereafter will be set up in type similar to that of the preface in this volume by that means a much greater quantity of matter will be printed on a page, without any additional expense to subscribers. It is also contemplated to iv add to each volume, in the form of an appendix, the fosms used in criminal proceedings in the United States. They will be printed with the greatest care and accuracy. I hope the preface to this volume will be found useful as a reference, &c. The acts of congress have been copied verbatim, and the construction given to them by courts of justice, follow, each in their order so that the reader will have before him the statutes of the United States, and the adjudication of the courts upon them. If it can aid the learned, who have not time to look into a great number of books for principles collected within the small compass of this preface; or if it can assist those who are beginning their studies, and are at a loss for a connected and systematic view of the principles of criminal jurisprudence, I shall congratulate myself on being of some little service to those to whom I am always willing to be indebted; and for the time, expense and trouble, (for really it has cost me not a little of either,) shall consider myself amply remunerated. New York, July 15th, 1824. J. D. WHEELER. |