PREFACE. WHEN a new work is offered to the public, and, especially, when there are several existing works upon the subject, it is expected that the author will state the reasons which induced the publication, and that he will give an outline of its plan and character. In the first place, then, it is an admitted fact that an extensive, accurate and convenient work upon the practice in the courts of record of this State, is one that is greatly desired by the profession. Several works have been written, and each of them has its merits; but no one of them has professed to include the entire practice at law, in equity, and in special proceedings, in all the courts of record in this State. It is true that there are numerous works, English and American, which, in the aggregate, treat of the subjects included in this work; but most of them cover the same ground that the others do, so that they are practically duplicates. Again, most of them omit, altogether, some of the most important subjects; and they are all of them several years behind the statutes and the decisions of the courts. There is still another feature of these works which deserves notice. In some of them the Code seems to be regarded as the entire system of practice, and their efforts seem to have been limited to an exposition of its provisions. This view is proper enough in one aspect, but it is, nevertheless, a very limited view of a full system of practice. It is to be recollected that the American practice had its origin in the English courts, and that the practice of the courts of Queen's Bench, the Common Pleas and the Exchequer, furnished many of those rules of practice which so long governed the practice in our courts. In this State, as in other States of the Union, statutes have been passed, from time to time, for the purpose of changing or settling the |