STATUTES AND STATUTORY CONSTRUCTION INCLUDING A DISCUSSION OF LEGISLATIVE POWERS, CONSTITUTIONAL REGULATIONS RELATIVE TO THE FORMS OF LEGISLATION AND TO LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURE TOGETHER WITH AN EXPOSITION AT LENGTH OF THE PRINCIPLES OF BY J. G. SUTHERLAND AUTHOR OF "A TREATISE ON THE LAW OF DAMAGES" CHICAGO CALLAGHAN AND COMPANY PREFACE. No apology to the profession is necessary from the author for offering a new book on Statutory Construction, although it is a subject which his predecessors in the same work have treated in a masterly manner. It is a field in no danger of being over-cultivated. The law for the construction of written contracts and other private documents is as certain and well defined as upon any other branch of legal science. This is not equally true of the law for the construction of Written Laws. They deal with subjects of greater complexity; they are the product of so many minds, not having common views, that incongruities cannot be wholly excluded, and threads of diverse ideas are often interwoven; and, moreover, opposing considerations of broader range press for recognition in their construction. In many ways converse rules overlap, and the lines of distinction are faint and shifting. The natural tendency and growth of the law is towards system and towards certainty, towards modes of operation at once practical and just, by the process of its intelligent judicial administration; but this process is impaired by overwork and legislative interference. When it is considered how many legislative bodies there are, and how many independent courts administer their laws, the diversities of construction which have occurred are not surprising; these divergencies lead to permanent contrarieties bounded by state lines. Under such circumstances it is important that cognate cases be often collated and their princi |