Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1833, by HENRY DUTTON, in the Clerk's office,
of the District Court of Connecticut.

Printed by Hezekiah Howe & Co.

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PREFACE.

THE principal object of the Compiler, in the following pages, has been to bring together all the decisions on questions of law, which have been made and reported in this State. Such a work, he has had many assurances, would be acceptable to a large majority of the profession, and useful to magistrates and others, who have an immediate interest in being acquainted with the law. In accomplishing this object, he deemed it useful to introduce, occasionally, decisions of the courts of the neighboring states, and of the United States, where they were calculated to elucidate the same subject, or where the same point has been adjudged in the same or a different way.

In collecting together the decisions of our courts, scattered as they are, through sixteen volumes of reports, by three different reporters, it has been the design of the Compiler, to make each decided principle a part of a regular system. He was led to adopt this course from the dissatisfaction which he has always experienced in reading detached cases, and especially digests of cases, thrown together without any regard to their connection with each other. Principles of law are never isolated. They have a common bond of union, and mutually give and receive support. The general order of subjects, in this work, is the same which has been familiar to the profession since the days of Blackstone. But, in treating of the remedies by particular forms of action, it has been found convenient to bring into one chapter the grounds of the action, and the mode of proceeding under it.

Every decision by a court of justice, either illustrates or limits some general principle. The Compiler has therefore ventured to lay down the principle, with all the decided cases under it, as illustrations or exceptions. He has been particularly careful to express the rules in concise, definite, and unambiguous language.

The principles of the cases reported by Mr. Day have in most instances been expressed in the language made use of by him. This has been done, partly on the ground that he had the best means of knowing the views of the court, and partly, from a conviction, that except in a few instances of mistake or inadvertency, the notes of the cases by him, could not easily be improved.