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THE

Virgines laws, status

CODE OF VIRGINIA:

WITH

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

AND

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES;

AND THE

CONSTITUTION OF VIRGINIA.

PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO AN ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF VIRGINIA, APPROVED MAY
TWENTY-ONE, EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-SEVEN.

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PREFACE.

An account of the former revisions of the laws of this state will be found in the reface to the Code of 1849. It is therefore unnecessary to repeat it here.

Since 1849, there has been no such revision, except that provided for by the act of Iarch 18, 1884.

Two volumes, prepared by Col. George Wythe Munford, designated respectively as he "Second" and "Third" Editions of the Code of Virginia, were published, by uthority of the General Assembly, the one in the year 1860, and the other in the ear 1873. These were compilations merely, not revisions. Col. Munford had no thority to revise, and the General Assembly did not revise what he had done, but erely ordered the books prepared by him to be published. Therefore, the Code of 49, adopted in all its parts, as a whole, on the 16th day of August, 1849,* continued be the Code of Virginia, except in so far as it was altered by constitutions and atutes of later date.

The statute law of the state, after great lapse of time without revision, being in ich confusion, the General Assembly, on the 18th day of March, 1884,† enacted it "three persons, to be elected by a joint resolution of the General Assembly, shall ise and digest the Code of this commonwealth. It shall be their duty to collate 1 revise all the general statutes, civil and criminal, of this commonwealth, ich may be in force at the time of the completion of their work. In performing s duty, they shall suggest such contradictions, omissions, or imperfections, as they y discover in the statutes, and the mode in which the same may be reconciled, plied, or amended without producing a radical change in the present system the statute laws of this state; they shall arrange all the statutes under ropriate titles and chapters, and divide them into sections, numbering them secutively, from one to the end, having regard to the division into titles and ters; also make such notes and explanations and marginal references, as may be ful to a clear understanding of the statutes; and they shall, in all respects, and complete the revision as hereby directed, in such manner as, in their ion, will harmonize the general statutes, and make the code of statute laws, as tig at the close of this work, as complete as possible." This act is very much ame as that under which the revision of 1849 was made,‡ except that it prohibits, rms, "any radical change in the present system of the statute laws of the state" requires the sections to be numbered consecutively from one to the end.

er the passage of this act, and on the day of its passage, the General Assembly ted the following joint resolution ||: "That E. C. Burks, W. R. Staples, and John Riely, be and they are hereby chosen to be the persons designated to perform the ties provided for in an act approved March 18, 1884, entitled 'an act to revise and at the Code and statutes of Virginia.""

lets 1849-50, pp. 256-7. +Acts 1883-4, pp. 702, 703, ch. 523, 1. Acts 1845-6, pp. 26, 27, ch. 34. Senate amal 1883-4, p. 661; House Journal 1883-4, p. 791.

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