PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. In 1895 the Conference of Commissioners on Uniformity of Laws, which met that year in Detroit, instructed the Committee on Commercial Law to have prepared a codification of the law relating to bills and notes. The matter was referred to a sub-committee consisting of Lyman D. Brewster of Connecticut, Henry C. Wilcox of New York and Frank Bergen of New Jersey; and I was employed by the sub-committee to draw the proposed law. When completed, the draft, with my notes, was submitted to the subcommittee, who printed it and sent copies to each member of the conference, and also to many prominent lawyers and law professors, and to several English judges and lawyers, with an invitation for suggestions and criticisms. The draft was submitted to the conference which met at Saratoga in August, 1896; and the Commissioners who were in attendance, being twenty-seven in all, and representing fourteen different States, went over it section by section, and made some amendments therein, most of which were such changes in the existing law as I had not felt at liberty to incorporate into the original draft. The draft as thus amended was adopted by the conference; and in such form it has been submitted to the legislatures of many of the States. It has been passed and has become a law in New York, Connecticut, Colorado and Florida. I am informed. that the Commissioners on Uniformity of Laws will make special effort to have it adopted in many other States at the next session of their legislatures. The text of the law as printed in this edition is that of the New York statute. This is precisely the same as that of the draft published by the Commissioners on Uniformity of Laws, and the statute as passed in Connecticut, Colorado and Florida, except that the section numbers have been changed, and section headings introduced, to conform the statute to the plan adopted by the Commissioners of Statutory Revision in their revision of the General Laws, and three sections, viz., 330, 331 and 332, relating to special matters heretofore embodied in other New York statutes, have been added. In the course of the passage of the bill through the New York Legislature a number of errors were made in the engrossing and were not detected until too late to be corrected. I have indicated these by asterisks and foot-notes. Probably none of them are of such a character as to effect the meaning, since they are so obviously mistakes. In submitting this edition of the statute to the public, I embrace this my first opportunity to publicly express my appreciation of the unvarying courtesy and consideration shown me by the Commissioners on Uniformity of Laws, and especially by those composing the sub-committee having the preparation of the bill in charge. JOHN J. CRAWFORD. 30 BROAD STREET, NEW YORK, July 8, 1897. *These are the numbers of the sections as enacted in the following states: Ala- bama, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming. In some instances these numbers have 32 30 3171z 1676 TABLE OF CORRESPONDING SECTIONS OF THE STATUTES (Continued). Commis- *These are the numbers of the sections as enacted in the following states: Ala- *These are the numbers of the sections as enacted in the following states: Ala- bama, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming. In some instances these numbers have |