Divided and arranged entirely anew; revised and corrected; and adapted to the present State of the Criminal Law,

BY

T. N. TALFOURD, Esq.

BARRISTER AT LAW.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR BALDWIN AND CRADOCK; R. PHENEY; A. MAXWELL;

S. SWEET; H. BUTTERWORTH, AND STEVENS AND SONS.

PREFACE.

SINCE the publication of the Second Edition of this work, which took place in 1820, it has been deprived of the further superintendance of its Author, Mr. Dickinson, by his death. His object in first publishing it, and afterwards enlarging it, are thus expressed by himself, in his Preface to the second edition.

"The former edition of this work was not gratuitously obtruded on the public by its Author; having been originally compiled for personal service only, and published at the instigation of some of his fellow labourers in commissions of the peace, at a distance from the metropolis; who concurred in complaining that they were too dependant on their respective clerks of the peace for information sufficient to execute, with tolerable facility, the ordinary duties of justices in session. To comply with this their requisition, and to relieve other persons similarly circumstanced from an undignified embarrassment, was the principal, if not the only object he had in contemplation. For the due execution of this limited purpose, he then restricted his observations to little more than elementary instruction; and if the rapid sale of a considerable edition, in a very short period of time, be any criterion whereby to judge of the utility of such a work, he has every reason for being well satisfied, so far at least, as respects the design.

"He cannot, however, conceal from himself, nor does he wish to conceal from the public, that several persons of professional distinction, (doubtless from having formed expectations of finding in his work much more than he