"1. Conferring powers of local legislation upon boards of supervisors, and the local authorities of towns and villages, and prescribing the rights and powers thereof.

2. Providing for the organization, government and control of corporations except banks, banking and trust companies, and municipal corporations.

3. Providing for the collection and assessment of taxes, and the exemption of property from taxation throughout the state. 4. Relating to the poor.'

The commissioners were directed to submit a printed report to the legislature in the month of January, eighteen hundred and ninety, and were permitted to prepare bills for the revision and consolidation of such other general statutes as they might consider most in need of consolidation and revision.

Under the law Governor Hill appointed Isaac H. Maynard, Charles A. Collin and Eli C. Belknap, commissioners, and they began their labors June fifth, eighteen hundred and eighty-nine. The general plan adopted by the commission for the work in hand was:

1. To embody in a single chapter, or series of chapters, all the laws relating to a single subject, so that the entire law relating thereto might be easily ascertained, and that each chapter, or series of chapters, might stand on its own merits and be separately considered.

2. To fit each law into a clearly defined system, so that a continuance of similar work upon the general statutes would not involve a reconstruction of the work previously submitted, but that all should be parts of one consistent whole. (Senate documents, 1890, No. 24.)

The name "General Laws" was adopted for the complete revision as being capable of easy abbreviation and to avoid confusion with the Revised Acts of eighteen hundred and one, Revised Laws of eighteen hundred and thirteen and Revised Statutes of eighteen hundred and thirty.

Other members of the commission during its existence besides those above named were Daniel Magone, John J. Linson, Charles Z. Lincoln, William H. Johnson and A. Judd Northrup.

Under the authority of chapter ten hundred and thirty-six of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-five, Governor Morton appointed the statutory revision, commissioners then in office, Messrs. Lincoln, Johnson and Northrup commissioners of code revision.

This commission, having previously been authorized to report such measures as they "deem expedient" became vested with all the powers of former commissions appointed under the constitution

of eighteen hundred and forty-six relating to the statutes. (L. 1893, ch. 24.)

The labors of the commission, from eighteen hundred and eighty-nine to nineteen hundred, resulted in the enactment of forty-eight general laws and in nineteen hundred, after eleven years of labor the commission sought to complete its work and presented to the legislature of that year forty-nine bills, purporting to complete its plan of revision. These bills were of three classes: (a) proposed general laws; (b) amendments purporting to bring the general laws already enacted down to date, including general laws, which it was found necessary, in part, to rewrite; (c) the so-called "Code Bills" which carried out the plan of code separation adopted by the commission, including a rearrangement of the Penal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure.

While the commission was in existence another commission for the codification of the game laws was authorized by chapter ninetynine of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety.

A ninth edition of the Revised Statutes, a private publication, was prepared by Charles A. Collin, a former member of the Statutory Revision Commission of eighteen hundred and eightynine, and was issued in eighteen hundred and ninety-six. In this edition the topical order of the Revised Statutes, followed theretofore in the various editions was departed from, the editor giving as a reason therefor the condition of the revision of the laws then in progress.

A new state constitution went into effect on January first, eighteen hundred and ninety-five, which omitted the provisions in the constitution of eighteen hundred and forty-six regarding the codification of the whole body of the law.

Both of the provisions of the constitution of eighteen hundred and forty-six relating to the codification and revision of the statutes (Art. 1, § 17, Art. 6, § 24) have now disappeared from the organic law of the state.

The constitution of eighteen hundred and ninety-four (Art. 1, § 16), re-enacted the provisions of the constitution of eighteen hundred and twenty-one (Art. 7, § 13), and of eighteen hundred and forty-six (Art. 1, § 17), making applicable to the state such parts of the common law and of the acts of the legislature of the colony of New York as together formed the law of the colony on April nineteenth, seventeen hundred and seventy-five, and the resolutions of the congress of the colony and of the convention of the state in force April twentieth, seventeen hundred and seventyseven, which had not expired or been repealed or altered and were not repugnant to the constitution.

At the time of the adoption of the constitution of eighteen hundred and ninety-four, however, the acts of the legislature of the colony and the resolutions of the congress and of the convention of the state had been repealed (L. 1828, ch. 21, Statutory Construction Law, § 30) as the statutes of England and Great Britain made applicable by the constitution of seventeen hundred and seventy-seven had been repealed. (L. 1788, ch. 46; L. 1828, ch. 21, Statutory Construction Law, § 30.)

The new constitution contained a provision classifying the cities of the state and requiring the legislature to pass general statutes relating to the government of each. (Art. 12.) According to this provision of the state constitution by chapters five hundred and forty-eight and ten hundred and eleven of the laws of eighteen hundred and ninety-five, the governor was directed to appoint two commissions, each to consist of five persons who were to prepare and submit on or before February first, eighteen hundred and ninety-six, general city laws relating to the property, affairs of government and the general deportment of cities of the second and third class, respectively. By one of the commissions a charter for cities of the second class was prepared and became a law.

In the year eighteen hundred and ninety-six a second edition of Birdseye's "Revised Statutes, Codes and General Laws of the State of New York" was issued.

The General Laws of New York" by Edward L. Heydecker appeared in nineteen hundred, a private compilation of the "General Laws" of the Statutory Revision Commission as thus far enacted by the legislature.

"The General Laws and other General Statutes of the State of New York" by Robert C. Cumming and Frank B. Gilbert, who with Owen S. Potter were assistants to the Statutory Revision Commission, and as the editors of legal publications did much to make the statute laws of the state readily accessible, were published as a private venture in the year nineteen hundred and one. In their preface they say: "For about sixty years the Revised Statutes were the basis of the general statute law of the state. In the meantime, however, large portions had been repealed, the substance having been re-enacted in the Civil, Criminal or Penal Codes. Other portions were superseded by subsequent legislation or rendered obsolete by reason of changed conditions; and there had been enacted a vast body of supplemental legislation regulating the interests, occupations and industries which had grown up since eighteen hundred and thirty. So that even when the Statutory Revision Commission was created in eighteen hundred and eighty-nine it had become inaccu

rate to designate a compilation of the general statutes as "The Revised Statutes."

A third edition of Birdseye's "Revised Statutes, Codes and General Laws of the State of New York" appeared in the year nineteen hundred and one.

Chapter six hundred and sixty-four of the laws of nineteen hundred abolished the Statutory Revision Commission and repealed not only the act authorizing the appointment of the commissioners but the act creating a commission to revise the Code of Civil Procedure. The repeal of these statutes left the work of classifying, consolidating and revising the statutes in an unfinished condition.

On January twenty-sixth, nineteen hundred, in accordance with a suggestion of Governor Odell a resolution was adopted by the assembly authorizing the speaker to appoint a committee of seven to which should be referred all bills prepared by the Statutory Revision Commission. February first, nineteen hundred, the speaker announced the following committee: Honorable Adolph J. Rodenbeck, James T. Rogers, George S. Sands, Edward H. Fallows, Samuel S. Slater, Joseph I. Green and N. Taylor Phillips.

This committee compared with the existing statutes many of the bills presented by the Statutory Revision Commission to the legislature of nineteen hundred and reported some of the bills to the assembly. Several were passed in the assembly and sent to the senate.

All but four of the bills presented by the Statutory Revision Commission to the legislature of nineteen hundred failed to pass, and at the close of the session a joint committee of the legislature, consisting of three senators and five assemblymen, was authorized to consider the bills of the Statutory Revision Commission and and report thereon to the legislature of nineteen hundred and one. This committee consisted of the Honorable Edgar T. Brackett, George R. Malby and Thomas F. Grady, representing the senate, and the Honorable Adolph J. Rodenbeck, James T. Rogers, Edward H. Fallows, Joseph I. Green and N. Taylor Phillips, representing the assembly.

A thorough revision of the general statutes was recommended by the joint committee of the legislature which would cover the entire field of legislation and would be based upon a page-to-page examination of the session laws, and which would: (1) Make the general laws comprehensive. (2) Specifically repeal all obsolete, contradictory and unnecessary laws. (3) Classify all remaining

laws.

The following plan of code revision was suggested by the joint committee of the legislature: (1) To eliminate from the code all matters not relating directly to practice and to assign the material so removed to a place in the general laws. (2) To make such obviously necessary changes in pleading and practice as may be agreed upon by the authority making the revision, after conference with the bench and bar. (3) To reduce the general practice provisions to a single brief legislative practice act.

The plan of the legislative committee received very general indorsement. Resolutions approving it were adopted by the following bar associations of the state or by committees representing them: Albany County Bar Association, Rochester Bar Association, Erie County Bar Association, Brooklyn Bar Association and with some reservation by the Association of the Bar of the City of New York and the State Bar Association.

On February twenty-first, nineteen hundred and one, a special committee on Statutory Revision Commission bills was again appointed in the assembly consisting of the Honorable Adolph J. Rodenbeck, James T. Rogers and James E. Smith. This committee reviewed the work done theretofore on the revision of the statutes and recommended in addition to what had been recommended previously: (1) A complete history of each law. (2) A subject matter index of the laws. (3) A classification of all special laws not included in the general laws.

A Commission on the Law's Delays was appointed by Governor Odell pursuant to chapter four hundred and eighty-five of the laws of nineteen hundred and two as amended by chapter six hundred and thirty-four of the laws of nineteen hundred and three, to inquire into the delays and expenses in the administration of justice in the counties of New York and Kings in the first and second judicial districts of the state and to suggest legislation thereon. The commission made an extensive report to the legislature January twenty-fifth, nineteen hundred and four. This commission was restricted in its investigations both as to the territory affected and as to the field of legislation.

During the same session in which the Commission on Law's Delays was appointed an item was inserted in the appropriation act authorizing the appointment of a Committee of Fifteen to report on the condition of the statutes. This committee was appointed pursuant to chapter five hundred and ninety-four of the laws of nineteen hundred and two and was composed of fifteen members chosen by Governor Odell as follows: Alton B. Parker, Charles Andrews, Robert Earl, William H. Adams, Samuel T. Maddox, Frank H. Platt, Frank Hiscock, John G. Milburn, Ce