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PREFAC E.

A Second Edition of this Treatise has long been delayed by the pressure of professional engagements, and by the changes effected in the criminal laws during several successive sessions of Parliament. It has of course been an object that it should embrace, as far as possible, the statutes of consolidation and improvement, for which the country is so much indebted to the able and judicious exertions of Mr. Peel.

"The crime of high treason was not originally “included in the plan of this Work, on account "of the great additional which the proper space "discussion of that important subject would have occupied; and because prosecutions for that

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crime, happily not frequent, are always so con"ducted as to give sufficient time to consult the

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highest authorities." These reasons, which were given in the preface to the first edition, have still been allowed to operate; and the crime of high treason is not, therefore, one of the sub

jects discussed in the following pages. The law upon all other indictable offences will, it is hoped, be there found in an appropriate arrangement; and a chapter or book upon the law of Evidence in criminal prosecutions, which formed a part of the original plan of the Work, has now been supplied by the kind assistance of my friend, Mr. E. Vaughan Williams, whose professional attainments abundantly assure the value of the addition.

WM. OLDNALL RUSSELL.

Lincoln's Inn, May, 1826.

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