I beg to call more especial attention to the Errata at the end of both Volumes. I found it impossible, with all the assistance I had from my Secretary, W. H. Needham, Esquire, to make the Index to the former Volume more complete, owing to the hurry of printing so large a quantity of matter within so short a period of time, besides being compelled to put it to press immediately after the issue of the last Chapter. It was found very difficult, also, to make an Index to the Revised Statutes, which had already been compressed into a more enlarged kind of digest, without the danger of nearly reproducing the whole work. Some errors have crept into the second Volume also, notwithstanding the most diligent and often repeated examinations of Mr. Needham and myself, jointly as well as separately given. It is not indeed surprising that such should occur, as we had to glean these Laws from a mass of Statutes enacted, amended, repealed, revived, or confirmed, and scattered about in a number of books, in the most loose manner, ranging over a period of nearly seventy years, and, with the exception of the old first Volume, and the Acts of 1849 and 1850, without revision or consolidation.

After finishing the revision or consolidation of the first Volume, a large arrear of public business in the Gazette Office, greatly increased by the recent short Session, has delayed the issue of this Volume. The printing of the third, to consist of the Local and Private Acts, cannot, I fear, be commenced until the present Session is over.

A Table of Statutes considered obsolete, together with an Appendix, containing two highly important Public Treaties, . and the Act of Parliament giving effect to the first one, will be found at the close of this Volume. The mode of giving up Criminals fleeing from justice to or from the United States or this Province is by this Act regulated.

Should any other error be detected, as my authority only extends to the republication of these Acts, the actual state of the Law will remain unaltered. If, however, the most laborious research can preserve the public from the inconvenience of any such errors, reliance may be placed on the accuracy of this Edition.

W. B. KINNEAR.

SECOND REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS.

To His Excellency Sir Edmund Walker Head, Baronet, Lieutenant Governor, and Commander in Chief of the Province of New Brunswick, &c. &c. &c. MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY,

Since our first Report made in accordance with Your Excellency's Commission, and the Act of Assembly, we have given attention to those matters required by the Act, which we had not time to investigate on the former occasion, and also to the finishing of the revision; and now submit this second Report, together with the printed revision of the Statutes, and six Chapters on Equity Law Procedure.

Although we anticipated, when the first Report was presented, that we had nearly finished that part of our duty which related to the revision of the Acts of Assembly, we found, on further investigation, a large amount of labour in arrear in that department alone; and while superintending the printing of the Chapters accompanying our first Report, we proceeded to complete the codification of all that remained, with the exception of those Acts which required to be infused into the Common Law and Chancery Reform, and such as are deemed necessary to form a second Volume.

We have prepared also for the Revised Volume a Chapter containing a Chronological List of all the Acts repealed by our Codification.

We have to observe that we have received a very small number of replies to the printed Queries, which we long since forwarded to the Legislators, the Judges, Officers of the Courts, Barristers, and Magistrates, throughout the Province. The Chief Justice, the Master of the Rolls, Judge Parker, and Judge Street, the Advocate General, the Hon. Thomas Gilbert, the late Hon. Wm. Crane, and Richard Carman, Edward Smith, Wm. N. Buckerfield, John T. Williston, and D. L. Dibblee, Esquires, are the only Gentlemen who have sent in answers.

After the utmost consideration that we have been able to give to the subject, we are constrained to differ from the view taken by the three Judges and Master of the Rolls, who have favoured us with their valuable suggestions on almost every head of our enquiry, relative to a very important and leading feature of reform, namely, the union of the Court of Chancery with the Supreme Court, and have unanimously decided on proposing such a union, according to the plan prepared and now submitted, under the Title of "Supreme Court, Equity side."

From this difference of opinion, and the importance of the change from the existing mode of administering Equity both in this country and in England, we feel it to be necessary to enter somewhat at large into the considerations which have induced us to adopt this view.

We think there is no one branch of our Jurisprudence in which we are so deficient as in our Courts of Appeal. In the Supreme Court we have four Judges, who, from a sound legal education and long experience in the Common Law Courts, are prepared at any time to settle principles of Law, after the case has undergone a thorough sifting at Nisi Prius. Whatever at times may be the doubts entertained of the soundness of a decision thus given, the general feeling among the Profession has always been that of confidence in their finally matured judgment, especially when each Judge has distinctly applied his mind to the particular case, and given his reasons for the opinion expressed. From this Court there is an appeal to the Court of Error, consisting of the Head of the Government, and his Council, which is open to some grave objections. The matters of error are usually merely technical, and often for that reason, and their extreme nicety, the more abstruse; but they may, by means of a Bill of Exceptions, and in some other cases presented on the Record, become substantial; in which case it is obvious there is an appeal from the best Court in the country to one singularly formed for the review of matters decided by such a Court. In ordinary cases it is plain that the judgment of this Court is liable to be reversed by the decision of two or more professional gentlemen, at the very time in full practice, whose judgment may be heated by contests with the Judges, and by the violence of political debates; while it is

possible the professional portion of this Court may one day consist of the Attorney and Solicitor Generals alone, and either, or even both of whom may have been Counsel in the cause appealed from, and consequently disqualified from acting. If these two gentlemen, supposing them to be qualified to sit, had the decision of an important case in their hands, or the nonprofessional members of the Council were to take part in it, and the Governor were unacquainted with the ordinary principles of Law, it must seem evident that such an appeal would be a mere inockery.

In the Court of Chancery we have on the Bench a sound lawyer, and a gentleman thoroughly acquainted with Equity Jurisprudence in all its branches. From any Order or Decree made by him there is an appeal to the Governor as Chancellor, in which case it becomes necessary to seek the assistance of one or more of the Common Law Judges, upon whom, in general, from the peculiar circumstances, the responsibility of affirming or reversing the Decree rests. Now here is perhaps as great an anomaly as in the case of a Review by the Court of Error; for the appeal is from the best judgment on points of Equity Law and practice, often more complicated and abstruse than the Common Law, to the judgment of those which, although the best in their own department, and when at the Bar undoubtedly good in this also, has become by disuse necessarily liable to be strongly influenced by that which weighs strongest on the most learned and the most upright minds, a delicacy in deciding against the views of one they deem more thorough than themselves in the knowledge of the principles they are called upon to review.

We conceive an appeal under such circumstances relieves the Equity Judge from none of his heavy responsibilities, while it throws a portion of them on those who feel themselves in a certain sense not fully adequate to undertake them.

The result is, that in some of the heaviest cases which can be conceived-such as the redress of breaches of trust and of frauds of the most peculiar character, the issue of injunctions to stay the hands of parties and even the Supreme Court from intermeddling with property or proceeding with suits, and requiring the literal performance of contracts-they all come to be decided substantially by a single individual, and that decision

given under a peculiar species of Law, which, although in general better defined than is supposed, is yet spoken of as exercised through "the conscience of the Court," and conse quently must afford a pretty extensive latitude of interpretation. In cases of fraud especially, Courts of Equity undertake to govern their decision by a much broader construction of what constitutes fraud than Courts of Law.

In strong contrast with these vast powers wielded by a single individual, we find the Supreme Court performing its branch of jurisprudence by the instrumentality of four Judges, with the aid of Juries and previous Nisi Prius trials, and in cases where upon Common Law principles the wrong and the remedy are both of a well defined and comparatively certain description, while the importance of the demand can never exceed that of any litigated in a Court of Equity.

There can be no doubt that strong as the opinion is in favour of the manner of administering Equity Law by the present learned Judge, there is a degree of want of confidence in the Court because of the deficiency experienced in no other of a proper test of its soundness; and as our Province advances in population and prosperity, with the occurrence of vacancies which will often be filled by men chosen probably more from regard to their political than their professional standing and character, it can scarcely be expected that the people will submit to be deprived of their property by the decision of a single Judge, or to be obliged to cross the Atlantic for the expensive judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

We propose, therefore, as a remedy for these evils, to transfer the whole jurisdiction of the Court of Chancery to the Supreme Court, giving the Master of the Rolls, on the Bench of the latter Court, a position of precedence in accordance with his present one, and conferring on that Court all the powers of Chancery, without a fusion of the principles or mode of administration belonging to the respective Courts. We ask particular attention to this last observation, because we think there is some confusion of ideas on this subject, which have served to create a prejudice against the union of the Courts, when in fact we alter nothing but the instrumentality by which Equity Law is for the future to be administered; and