Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1878,

By ALBION W. TOURGEE,

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

JMU

PREFACE.

The test of practical utility is the only one which should be applied to a work in any manner designed for the special use of the legal profession. The object of this volume is to enable the professional reader more easily, quickly and certainly to ascertain what is the law in regard to practice in Civil Actions and Special Proceedings. For this purpose, the amendments which have been made to the Code of Civil Procedure have been carefully collated and, where it has been possible to do so without material change, incorporated in the text, with proper references to the amending acts. Where this was not practicable, they have been inserted as additional sections, in the most fitting relations.

The decisions of the Supreme Court upon the various sections and modifying and amending acts have also been carefully digested and arranged for immediate reference.

It was not intended to have the character of a treatise, though a few notes have been introduced. The decisions upon our Code are not yet sufficiently numerous to allow the details of the system to be filled out by analysis of the cases, and the writer was not vain enough to suppose that his own opinions could supply the lack of data in our Reports.

The decisions of other States have been referred to in but few instances. The early announced intention of our Supreme Court to regard the decisions of no other State as authority upon matters of practice, has been very closely adhered to, and the result is, that the North Carolina practitioner is almost without a guide in such matters, unless the very point in question can be found in the volumes of our Reports. It is in a clear and distinct arrangement of the law, specific reference to the amending statutes and the means it affords for an easy and exhaustive consideration of the authorities bearing upon