OF THE ONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS: ENACTED DECEMBER 28, 1859, TO TAKE EFFECT JUNE 1, 1860. WITH TUTIONS OF THE STATE AND THE UNITED STATES, PREFACE. THE stereotype plates of the General Statutes and of the Supplement thereto having been destroyed in the great fire which, on the 9th and 10th of November, 1872, consumed a large portion of the best business part of the city of Boston, the Legislature, at its extra session, passed on the 10th of December the following resolves, being Chapters 70 and 71 of the Resolves of that year: Resolved, That the secretary of the Commonwealth may contract with the state printers for the reproduction of the stereotype plates of the General Statutes and Supplements thereto, destroyed in the late conflagration in the city of Boston, at a cost not exceeding ten thousand four hundred and fifty dollars. Resolved, That the commissioners on the publication of the General Statutes appointed by chapter one hundred and forty of the resolves of the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine, be authorized and directed, at an expense not exceeding five hundred dollars, to cause to be incorporated in the new stereotype plates of the General Statutes and Supplements thereto, references to subsequent legislation and judicial decisions. This volume is published under the authority of these resolves, and is designated "Second Edition, 1873," for convenient refer ence. In reproducing the plates of the General Statutes, the commissioners have retained everything which was in the former edition; have inserted in their proper places all amendments to the Constitutions of the Commonwealth and the United States; have noted the chapters, sections, and parts of sections of the statutes expressly repealed or superseded; and have made numerous references in the margin to subsequent legislation and judicial decisions. |