of the matter placed upon the card being noted on it together with the statute which it affected.

Seven different cards were used, on three of which was placed the substance of the statutes, while four were employed to record the data necessary for the Historical Record of Statutes.

The work of the examiners being completed the cards were arranged according to their classification and thus every law of general application enacted by the Legislature since its first session, whether repealed or not, was assigned to the subject to which it related.

The plan adopted and followed in thus assembling all of the statutory law of the State was published and is known as the "Plan for Collating the Statutes Preparatory to the Work of Consolidation and Revision prepared under the direction of the Board of Statutory Consolidation" and may be found in the State Library, and reference to it is made for the detailed manner in which that portion of the work of the board was performed. The labor involved may possibly be conceived from the fact that while the laws passed at the first session of the Legislature were contained in 47 chapters, there were 524 chapters enacted by the Legislature of 1908 and a total number of over 55,500 chapters enacted during the one hundred and thirty years from 1778 to 1908 inclusive which are contained in 110,329 pages, and upwards of 250,000 cards were employed in collating and classifying the laws and in preparing the Historical Record.

With the statutes so classified and the cards relating to the same subject assembled, the work of consolidation began. In this work some of those theretofore employed as examiners, together with other members of the bar specially qualified in the subjects assigned to them, were employed as "consolidators" to prepare the Consolidated Laws.

The consolidators were directed to make copious notes, and to insure uniformity in the work a letter of instruction was furnished to each, setting forth in general terms the manner in which the work should be performed.

The laws so prepared and the notes of the consolidators were then carefully examined, checked and verified by a separate force employed in the office of the board and submitted to each member of the board and by them carefully examined; and such changes as were by them suggested having been made, the laws were again submitted for final examination and completion.

THE NAMES OF THE LAWS.

The board fixed upon the term "Consolidated Laws" to distinguish these statutes from the "Revised Acts," "Revised Laws," "Revised Statutes" and "General Laws," and the name thus given is defined by section eighteen of the General Construction Law as follows: "The term Consolidated Laws' shall mean the compilation of the statutes prepared by the Board of Statutory Consolidation and the amendments thereof."

Forty-eight of the fifty-nine Consolidated Laws retain the names under which they appeared in the General Laws, except that to the "Domestic Commerce Law" is given the name "General Business Law," the "Statutory Construction Law" is now known as the "General Construction Law," and the "Military Code" is now "Military Law."

The following three existing general statutes are incorporated as Consolidated Laws, namely: The "Penal Law," formerly known as the Penal Code, which has been arranged alphabetically without change in substance, and in which certain provisions of the Revised Statutes and Session Laws, together with several sections of the Code of Civil Procedure, have been consolidated; the "Second Class Cities Law," formerly known as Uniform Charter of Cities of the Second Class, and the "Tenement House Law."

The Public Service Commissions Law and the Railroad Law (chapter 39 of the General Laws) being general statutes, although not Consolidated Laws, are included under their respective names.

EIGHT NEW Laws.

In classifying the provisions of the Session Laws, and the Revised Statutes which were included in the page to page examination, there were found many general statutes which could not be assigned to any of the existing General Laws, and these with certain provisions of the Code of Civil Procedure were therefore incorporated in eight new Consolidated Laws to which were given the names "Civil Rights Law," "Debtor and Creditor Law," "Decedent Estate Law," "Drainage Law," "Education Law," "Judiciary Law," "Prison Law" and "State Boards and Commissions Law." The former location of each section of these new consolidations, as well as the sections of all of the Consolidated Laws, following the plan adopted in this edition, appears under

each section. All of the consolidators' notes being included in this edition reference is made to them for the history and scope of these new consolidations.

SECTION NUMBERS CHANGED

SCHEDULE OF REPEALS.

The section numbers of nearly all the General Laws have been necessarily changed by the introduction of statutes not heretofore contained in the General Laws, and to allow for expansion, by omitting numbers between articles which may be utilized if new sections are added to the Consolidated Laws.

A complete schedule of repeals forms a part of each of the Consolidated Laws in which all statutes consolidated in the text, also all obsolete and other statutes relating to the subject matter contained in each law, are repealed, including statutes previously repealed.

Statutes which have been amended "so as to read as follows" have been considered as superseded and repealed by the amending statute and are also included in the schedule.

THE CONSOLIDATED LAWS PRESENTED TO THE LEGISLATURE.

The sixty-one Consolidated Laws, with the legislation of 1907 incorporated and an Act amending the Code of Civil Procedure generally and an Act amending the Code of Criminal Procedure generally, contained in seven volumes, together with the report of the board, were presented to the Legislature on February 27, 1908, and thereafter several hundred copies were distributed among the state officers, the judiciary and members of the bar throughout the State, "for the purpose of obtaining their suggestion and advice," as provided in the act creating the board.

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It being impossible to pass the laws so presented during the session of 1908, by direction of the Legislature of that year the board was "directed to complete its work and present its final report to the Legislature prior to February 1, 1909, and to prepare in official form for introduction all bills reported by it for enactment and have the same printed in typographical form as reported as senate and assembly bills for introduction on the first day of the session of the legislature of 1909," and by concurrent resolution a joint committee of the Legislature was appointed "to consider after the adjournment of the Legislature the proposed recommendations of the Board of Statutory Consolidation and to report thereon to the Legislature of 1909

for the purpose of facilitating the consideration of such recommendations by the next legislature.”

Pursuant to the authority above mentioned the legislation of 1908 was incorporated in the Consolidated Laws and sixty-one chapters were printed in bill form contained in 8,143 pages and introduced in the Senate and Assembly January 6, 1909.

The joint committee made its report January 6, 1909, recommending the adoption of the Consolidated Laws as early in the session as possible to the end that any general legislation enacted during the session might become amendments or additions to the Consolidated Laws, and pursuant thereto all of the bills prepared by the board were passed without amendment and became laws with the approval of the Governor on February 17, 1909, except the following, which with slight amendments were thereafter passed, namely: The Penal Law, which went into effect March 12, 1909; the Tenement House Law, in effect March 20, 1909; the Transportation Corporations Law, in effect April 21, 1909; and except the Public Service Commissions Law and the Railroad Law which were vetoed as above stated.

CODE OF CIVIL PROCEDURE AND CODE OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE.

Authority was given in the act creating the board to report for enactment such amendments as it may deem proper and necessary to condense and simplify the existing practice and as shall best adapt the procedure to existing conditions," but the board determined to confine its work to the consolidation of the general statutes and to defer any action upon the revision of the Code of Civil Procedure other than to remove the substantive provisions contained therein and incorporate them in the Consolidated Laws.

Several independent general statutes existing in the Revised Statutes and throughout the session laws which relate wholly to practice and not heretofore found in the Codes or any general law were discovered in the progress of the work, and these have been added as new sections to the Code of Civil Procedure, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Penal Law.

Over six hundred sections of the Code of Civil Procedure containing substantive matter have been eliminated therefrom and incorporated without change of substance and without change in practice in the following Consolidated Laws:

Banking Law, Civil Rights Law, County Law, Debtor and Creditor Law, Decedent Estate Law, Domestic Relations Law,

Executive Law, General Business Law, General Corporation Law, Joint-Stock Association Law, Judiciary Law, Lien Law, Military Law, Penal Law, Personal Property Law, Prison Law, Public Officers Law, State Finance Law.

By reason of the foregoing, acts amending the Code of Civil Procedure and the Code of Criminal Procedure became necessary, both of which are included in this edition.

The section numbers of the Code of Civil Procedure and the Code of Criminal Procedure remain unchanged, but the sections of the Penal (Code) Law have been renumbered throughout.

Tables are furnished showing the location in the Consolidated Laws of the substantive provisions removed from the Code of Civil Procedure while the location in the Penal Law of the former sections of the Penal Code may be found by turning to Laws 1881, chapter 676, in the "Consolidated Schedule of Repeals."

THE HISTORICAL RECORD OF GENERAL STATUTES.

The preparation of this record continued throughout the entire existence of the board and it is one of the most valuable results of its labor. It contains the short title and history of every general statute passed since 1778 and has been extended by the editor so as to include the legislation of 1909. By means of this table the bar will be able to ascertain at once the legislation affecting every section of any general law, including the Revised Statutes and the Codes to date, if amended, when amended, and if repealed, when repealed. The table further serves to show what statutes have been treated as of general application and included in the Consolidated Laws either in the text or in the schedule of repeals. The statutes which do not appear in the Historical Record were considered by the board special, private or local statutes and not included in the consolidation, and concerning them no record has been made. This is the first complete record of the kind ever prepared with reference to the general laws of this State and its importance can hardly be overestimated.

THE CONSOLIDATED SCHEDULE OF REPEALS.

This is a consolidation of the schedules which follow each of the Consolidated Laws. To this is added a reference to the section of the text of the Consolidated Law where each section of the live provisions of the statutes consolidated is incorporated.