EPITOME OF THE LAWS OF NOVA-SCOTIA, BY .BEAMISH MURDOCH, Esq BARRISTER AT LAW. 331 VOL. I HALIFAX, N. S. PRINTED BY JOSEPH HOWE. 1832. TO THE HON. S. S. BLOWERS, CHIEF JUSTICE, AND PRESIDENT OF H. M. COUNCIL. THIS ESSAY ON THE LAWS OF A COLONY, OVER WHOSE TRIBUNALS HE HAS LONG PRESIDED, IS BY HIS KIND PERMISSION, INSCRIBED. IN TOKEN OF RESPECT AND VENERATION FOR HIS PUBLIC SERVICES, HIGH JUDICIAL QUALITIES, AND INFLEXIBLE INTEGRITY, WHICH ARE INTERWOVEN WITH THE AUTHOR'S EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. PREFACE. Above 70 years' legislation has accumulated a mass of provincial enactments (contained in 3 large quarto volumes, down to 1826.) Since 1826, very many acts have passed. Much inconvenience has been felt in referring to them, as it requires an intimate acquaintance with their contents, to enable any one to distinguish those directly or virtually repealed, from such as remain in force. This difficulty has been experienced by professional men as well as others, although the small Index published by Chief Justice Marshall afforded some remedy. The variety of instances in which our Provincial acts and usages have altered the laws of England, and the uncertainty as to what English acts are or are not in force here, suggested to the writer the usefulness of a work in humble imitation of the Commentaries of Blackstone, retaining such English law as we have adopted, and adding under each head or chapter the substance of provincial enactments that belonged to it. (Under an impression of an analogous kind, an edition of Blackstone, with notes showing the changes of law in the United States, has been there published.) The author has been favored with a reading of the Commentaries of Mr. Kent on American law, and has found them of much service, in preparing this work. The materials from which he has produced this Epitome were so scattered and disjointed, that few can appreciate the fatigue attending it. He has had in constant view, to give the substance of all the provincial statute laws in the plainest terms, freed from רי |