THE STATUTES AND CASES, TO HILARY TERM 1827, ARE AND THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF THE POOR-LAWS IS PLACED IN A CLEAR AND PERSPICUOUS POINT OF view. LAW-PRINTER TO THE KING'S MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY; ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE CHARLES LORD COLCHESTER, &c. &c. &c. THE FOLLOWING WORK IS, WITH HIS LORDSHIP'S PERMISSION, MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY HIS LORDSHIP'S MOST OBEDIENT AND OBLIGED HUMBLE SERVANT, JOHN TIDD PRATT. 4. Elm Court, Temple, 1st October, 1827. PREFACE ΤΟ THE SIXTH EDITION. THE plan of this work is to insert, first, the several existing statutes on each subject of the Poor Laws, and then to add chronologically the cases that have been determined on the several branches of those statutes. Since the publication of the last edition, (more than twenty years ago,) several statutes have been passed, and nearly four kundred cases decided on subjects connected with the Poor Laws. In order, however, to lessen the size of the work, the sections of the different statutes are merely referred to, although, in the Digest, the substance of each section is given, particularly as the third volume of Mr. Nolan's Treatise will be found to contain all the statutes at length. The length of many of the cases was found inconvenient, and therefore in most of them, the arguments of counsel (except where the retaining of them was necessary to the better understanding of the determination of the Court,) have been expunged in the present edition. Other alterations, which it is hoped have considerably improved this edition of the work, have also been made. The cases which have been expressly determined not to be law are omitted in the text, and made to accompany, by way of notes, the particular cases by which they were overruled. |