TO THE LEGISLATURE

OF THE

STATE OF NEW YORK:

The Commissioners of the Code, appointed by the Act of April 6, 1857, having completed their labors, beg leave to make this their NINTH and final

REPORT.

They have already reported, from time to time, the various steps taken by them in the progress of their work. Their duty, it will be remembered, as expressed in the act by which they were appointed, was "to reduce into a written and systematic Code the whole body of the law of this State, or so much and such parts thereof as shall seem to them practicable and expedient, excepting always such portions of the law as have been already reported upon by the Commissioners of Practice and Pleadings, or are embraced within the scope of their reports." This work was to be divided into three portions; one containing the Political Code, another the Civil Code, and a third the Penal Code.

The Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure, as reported complete by the Commissioners on Practice and Pleadings, were designed to embrace all the law of this State, respecting remedies in the judicial tribunals, civil and criminal, including the law of evidence. There then remained the vast body of substantive law; that is to say, the law of civil rights and obligations affecting all the transactions of men with each other in their private relations, the law of crimes and punishments, and the law of government, including every branch