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SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK, ss.

BE remembered, That on the sixth day of March, in the fortieth year of the Independence of the United States of America, John Tappen, of the said district, hath deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof he claims as author and proprietor, in the words following, to wit:

"The County and Town Officer; or, A Concise View of the Duties and Offices of County and Town Officers in the state of New-York, with appropriate Precedents: In Two Pars By John Tappen, Counsellor at Law." In conformity to the act of Congress of the United States, entitled "An act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books to authors and proprietors of such copies. during the time therein mentioned" And also to an act, en itled "An act supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints."

THERON RUDD, Clerk of the Southern District of New-York.

IN a government like our own, founded on the immutable principles of justice and duly recognizing the rights and privileges of its citizens, it must confessedly be of primary importance, that the correspondent duties of civil officers-the guardians and executors of the laws, should be well understood and correctly administered. Impressed with the force of this interesting fact, I have been long persuaded, as well from my own observation, as the information of others, that the errors and inaccuracies which have been frequently committed by county and town officers in the exercise of their several official duties, might in many instances have been avoided, through the aid of a Manual, such as this book presents to the public. Hence I have been induced to believe, that I could not render my fellow-citizens a more essential service, than by the work now humbly submitted for their use. To subserve a purpose thus salutary, has been the cardinal object of my ambition while preparing and systematising it for the press. How far I have succeeded in accomplishing that desirable end, it remains for the commu nity to determine. In In a work of this kind, novel and original in its character, embracing topics inexhaustible in their nature and diversified in their established arrangement, framed in the closet by means only of individual research and reflection, and in a manner without any extraneous assistance or advice, it cannot be matter of surprise, that defects should be incorporated with it, and that amidst a variety of readers of different dispositions and opinions, there should be those who are insensible of its public utility, and those who may depreciate its merits. To all such I would observe, that whatever demerit they may discern in the following pages, that should they not be willing to give me credit for the purity of intention which conduced to their publicity, I humbly crave that they would at least absolve me from the odious imputation, that they were dictated by the vain, supercilious and reprehensible ambition to be distinguished as an author. So far from being actuated by a motive so ignoble, I would rebut that invidious allegation, with assuring the candid

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