MISSISSIPPI'S EIGHTH CODE. 1848.

Howard & Hutchinson's compilation of the statutes of this state, apparently at least, was unsatisfactory to Mr. Hutchinson, one of the compilers. We learn from the preface to the code compiled alone by him, called "Hutchinson's Mississippi Code," now to be considered, that he was engaged on his own initiative from March 1843 until the completion of his labors in 1848 in the compilation of the code bearing his name. Hutchinson having practically completed his compilation early in 1848, presented the same to the Judiciary Committee of the legislature, seemingly a joint committee of the two houses. The committee passed upon it favorably as is to be presumed, since the legislature passed an act (Laws 1848 p. 131) approved March 2, 1848, providing for the purchase by the state of two thousand copies of the compilation, paying six dollars for each copy. The act required the statutes passed at its then session to be incorporated in the compilation; reserved to the state the right to publish not exceeding two thousand copies additional to those purchased for the use of the state; enacted that the Code should be deemed published by authority of the state, should be taken as evidence of its laws, and further provided that the Governor should appoint three suitable persons to examine the compilation, and that no money should be drawn from the treasury on account of it until after the examination was made by said persons nor until they, with the sanction of the Governor, had certified that the work contained a full and complete compilation of the statute laws of the state. There is no statutory recognition of the facts, but the Governor manifestly appointed three persons to examine the work and the certificate mentioned must have been favorable to the compilation, since it is well known that the Code was promptly recognized as being in force.

Mr. Hutchinson states in the preface to his code that wanton strictures of his work were made during the examination of it by the legislature, but it was ably sustained and triumphantly carried and that the passage of the bill adopting it, in spite of such strictures, was more than the equivalent of a vote of gratitude of the state.

Hutchinson's Code is a monument to the ability and painstaking care of the compiler, but he was mistaken in his conception that it permanently would be the controlling code of the state. He tells us in his preface that: "An incentive to the undertaking of the compilation was to furnish a work of standard and lasting utility, the first in the series of the Municipal Statutorry Codes of the State": further saying that legislation thereafter adopted should be at stated periods faithfully arranged and compiled after his model, with intermediate citations to the laws it embraces as affected by the supervenient enactments, adding that no future edition of the work would be needed since the plates of the stereotype of his code will supply any number of copies that can be desired.

Mr. Hutchinson in his interesting preface, worthy of being carefully read by all lawyers of the state not already familiar with it, affirmed that his code was not a revision of the laws nor a digest of them, nor a compilation of the statutes at large, such as Peter's compilation of the acts of Congress. Having stated what his code was not, he proceeded to inform us what it was. He claimed it to have been a substitute for the Statutes at Large; denominated it as an "Analytical Compilation," such he affirms to have been then for the first time presented. It did not contain in full the expired, superseded and repealed enactments, except such as seemed demanded for the ascertainment and enforcement of the rights originating under them; it, however, made reference to such expired, superseded or repealed statutes as were deemed worthy of note.

As had been done in Howard & Hutchinson's Code, of which Mr. Hutchinson was one of the compilers, the Code we are now considering arranged its chapters, as near as could be done, in conformity to the arrangement of Blackstone's Commentaries. Mr. Hutchinson's preface to his Code contains a short paragraph relating to its arrangement, worthy of being quoted. It shows that he had fighting blood in his veins. It reads thus:

"The plan adopted and pursued is in close conformity to the lucid Analysis of Blackstone's Commentaries; and this fact is thus stated to anticipate the cavils of those whose arrogance might not otherwise be rebuked."

Hutchinson's Code was a great work of its kind, a credit to the state and is yet of value. The original manuscript of his Code has been preserved and is among the collections of our state's Department of Archives and History.

MISSISSIPPI'S NINTH CODE. 1857.

The legislature, by act approved March 1, 1854, (Laws 1854 p. 154) formally made it the duty of the Judges of the High Court of Errors and Appeals, (the name then designated what is now our Supreme Court) to appoint three Commissioners to revise, digest and codify the laws of the state and to propose such alterations or amendments thereof and such new laws as they might deem expedient. The Judges, without questioning the power of the legislature to impose on them extra-judicial duties, shortly after the passage of the act appointed William L. Sharkey, Samuel S. Boyd and Henry T. Ellett as Commissioners to discharge the duties required by the statute. Mr. Boyd resigned as a Commissioner shortly after his appointment and William L. Harris was appointed in his place. The Commissioners who prepared the Code of 1857 were men of great worth. Judge Sharkey was a Judge of the High Court of Errors and Appeals from its organization under the Constitution of 1832, until he resigned in 1851; during much of the time he was the Chief Justice of the Court and was recognized as among the most eminent of American judges. Henry T. Ellett was at the time of his appointment one of the most eminent and learned lawyers of the State, he practiced his profession at Port Gibson, Claiborne County; was afterwards a Judge of the High Court of Errors and Appeals. William L. Harris attained distinction as a lawyer in Georgia, his native state, before coming to Mississippi which he did in 1837, making his home at Columbus. He was an eminent Judge of the Circuit Court of this State for a number of years before he became a Code Commissioner, and after the adoption of the Code of 1857 was a Judge of the High Court of Errors and Appeals. In 1867 the State was remanded to military control, whereupon Judges Ellett and Harris resigned as members of the High Court; removed to Memphis, formed a copartnership, and successfully practiced their profession in that city for a number of years. A code compiled by commissioners of the capacity of the men who formulated the Code of 1857 could not have been expected to fall short of being an excellent one. It is known historically that it met the expectations of the profession. For several years after it ceased to be operative the lawyers of this state who had practiced while it was in force were loud in its praise and regarded it as superior to the Code of 1871 which followed it. It was fairly well indexed.

It is to be noted, however, that the able Commissioners mentioned failed to perform some of the duties imposed upon them by the legislative act under which they were appointed. They were required by the act mentioned to add to the Code provisions "such marginal notes as may be necessary" of "such decisions of the High Court of Errors and Appeals as may be applicable." They were required, by way of an appendix, to have the code include "a manual of forms for the use of clerks of courts and justices of the peace." The code does not contain marginal notes nor citations to court decisions, and a manual of forms is not to he found within its covers. It is to be presumed the Commissioners were in some way relieved of the duties mentioned, but legislative relief has not been found in the printed statutes.

The codifiers were required, as soon as their work was completed, to submit a copy of the Code prepared and proposed by them to the Judges of the High Court of Errors and Appeals and the Judges were required to examine the same and report thereupon to the legislature, recommending such alterations and amendments, if any, as they should deem proper. The Judges manifestly examined the work of the Commissioners and presented the same to the legislature. The legislature, as we learn from the preface to the Code, began consideration of it at the January term 1856, but failed to then dispose of it otherwise than to defer its consideration until the next session. At the December 1856 session of the legislature consideration of the code was renewed and the same was materially amended. It was finally adopted as amended by act approved February 2, 1857. The Code became operative November 1, 1857. The act adopting the code was not published otherwise than in the Code itself and this is true of several other statutes passed at the session of the legislature which began in December 1856 and ended in February 1857, a fact confusing to uninformed examiners of the statutes enacted at that session.

Persons interested in the boundaries of the state will find an interesting and doubtless an authentic history of the subject, entitled "Introductory Remarks," in the Code of 1857, being the first Section of the Code Chapter on "Limits and Divisions." Code p. 47, brought forward from the Laws of December 1856 and January and February 1857, p. 225.

The compensation granted the Commissioners who prepared the Code of 1857 was to be determined by the Judges who appointed them; they were no doubt fairly compensated, but statutory evidence of the amount paid them has not been found.

A PROPOSED CODE THAT DID NOT MATERIALIZE, 1865.

In 1865 Mississippi was under military control and Judge William L. Sharkey was by the President of the United States (Andrew Johnson) appointed Provisional Governor of the State "for the purpose of enabling the loyal people of the State to organize a state government."

Governor Sharkey by proclamation called a Constitutional Convention, which met in the Capitol of the State August 14, 1865 and was in session only ten days. It approved a number of amendments to the constitution of 1832, and passed several ordinances. Among the ordinances was one, in form a resolution, requiring the President of the Convention (Hon. J. Shall Yerger, delegate from Washington County) to appoint a committee of three, members of the convention, to report to the then next session of legislature such laws and changes in existing laws of the state as deemed expedient in view of the amendments of the constitution approved by the convention.

The President appointed on the committee A. H. Handy, E. J. Goode and William Hemingway, Mr. Handy declined the appointment and Robert S. Hudson was appointed in his place. Mr. Handy was a distinguished lawyer of Canton and at one time a Judge of the High Court of Errors and Appeals; Mr. Goode was one of the most learned lawyers of the state, he then resided at Monticello, but soon afterwards removed to Des Moines, Iowa, and attained prominence at the bar of that state; Mr. Robert S. Hudson was a lawyer of renown, residing at Yazoo City. Mr. William Hemingway, a farmer, was a delegate to the Convention from Carroll County and was the grandfather of Professor William Hemingway of the Law Department of our State University, himself a codifier. The William Hemingway first mentioned was the only man, not a lawyer, ever appointed to revise the laws of the State, a great tribute to his intellectual and moral worth. To revise the old statutes pertaining to slavery and make them conform to the conditions of a free - state, the majority of its people being recently emancipated slaves, required a capacity possessed by but few lawyers and Mr. Hemingway's appointment as one of the commissioners was no doubt a wise one.

It cannot be found that the committee ever acted or made any report. The journal of the convention shows by inference that its work was tentative; it had to be submitted to the President of the United States, perhaps for transmission to Congress for approval, before becoming operative. No time was fixed by the convention when its acts were to become operative; it adjourned subject to the call of the President, manifestly to await the approval of its work by Federal authority.

The convention's actions were disapproved and thereby the commission appointed to revise the laws ceased to exist. The proceedings of the convention are of much interest, its journal contains everything said and done, and should be read by the people of the present generation who wish to be informed as to the state of the public mind in those eventful and distressing days.

MISSISSIPPI'S TENTH CODE. 1871.

The legislature passed an act, approved June 9, 1870, (Laws 1870 p. 624) providing for a new code; it authorized the Governor, with the advice and consent of the senate, to appoint "three Commissioners to revise, digest and codify the laws of the state, to propose such alterations thereof and such new laws as they may deem expedient." The act required that the Commissioners should cause two hundred copies of each chapter of the Code to be printed as soon as it was completed by them, one copy thereof to be promptly given to the Governor and another to each of the Judges of the Supreme Court, the others for the use of the legislature. The Judges were required to examine each chapter of the Code, as early as practical, and suggest in writing to the Governor such changes and alterations therein as a majority of them should agree upon and the Governor was directed to transmit the Code with the written suggestions of the Judges to the legislature at its first session held after the commissioners had completed their work, with such recommendations as he deemed advisable. The statutory requirement that the Judges of the Supreme Court should examine the chapters of the (then) proposed new code and make suggestions for the improvements of them was wise, but an intelligent mind will conclude that it was unwise to require, as the act did, the Judges to pass upon any chapter of the work without the whole of the code before them. A code of laws is an entirety and its merits or demerits, generally speaking, cannot be determined by an examination of a single chapter without knowledge of the entire contents of the work. The act providing for the code of 1871 fixed the compensation of each of the Commissioners at four thousand dollars and made it their duty to supervise the printing of the code, if adopted, to index the same and note on its provisions the court decisions authoritatively construing them. The last duty mentioned was not performed but no legislative recognition of the commissioners having been relieved of the duty can he found. The Governor, in pursuance of the act, approved June 9, 1870, appointed J. A. P. Campbell, Amos R. Johnston and Amos Lovering Commissioners to perform the duties required by the act and the senate confirmed the appointments. Judge Campbell was at the time a lawyer of distinction and afterwards achieved eminence as a Judge of the Supreme Court; which position he held for eighteen years and was the Chief Justice of the Court for a considerable part of the time; he resided when appointed a Code Commissioner at Canton, Madison County; he removed to Jackson in 1876, when he became a Judge of the Supreme Court and in that city he continued to reside until his death, a few years ago.

Judge Amos R. Johnston had obtained distinction as a lawyer before his appointment as a code commissioner; he resided and practiced his profession first at Raymond and afterwards at Jackson. He was the father of the late Frank Johnston, a distinguished Attorney General of the State and the grandfather of Frank Johnston, Jr., now one of the Judges of the Illinois Appellate Court and the author of a meritorious law book, entitled "Modern Conception of Law." Since locating in Chicago, Frank Johnston, Jr., has been an Assistant Corporation Counsel of that city, a First Assistant States Attorney of Cook County, including Chicago, a Circuit Judge, and was appointed to his present position by the Supreme Court of the State, attaining these several distinctions alone by his merits.

Amos Lovering is understood to have been a Carpetbagger, of uncertain residence, and but little is known of him. A careful reading of the Code of 1871 will not disclose a section or a part of one which is even suggestive of his personality. Had he not been a Code Commissioner, it could be said of him that in his passage through this state, like a cat walking on a blanket, he left no tracks behind him.

The Commissioners performed the duties required of them, except in the particular hereinbefore mentioned, their work was presented to the legislature at its January session, 1871, and the same, after many amendments made to it, was adopted by act approved May 12, 1871, published in the Code, being its first chapter. The Code became operative October 1, 1871, and six thousand copies of it were published by the state; its printing was supervised by Judge Johnston and he prepared the index to it.

The Code of 1871 was the first of Mississippi's Codes in which the sections were numbered consecutively from the beginning to the end of the volume, and the commissioners who prepared it are entitled to credit for this distinctive improvement in the practical make-up of our Codes. It has been followed in the Codes subsequently enacted.

The Code of 1871 did not prove satisfactory to the bench and bar of the state, although it would be difficult to point out a convincing reason why it did not meet approval; probably the dominant reason was the fact that it was enacted by a carpetbag legislature.

MISSlSSIPPI'S ELEVENTH CODE. 1880.

By statute approved February 27, 1878 (Laws 1878 p. 202) the legislature provided for the eleventh Code of the State. A preamble to the act affirmed that there was an urgent necessity for a revision and codification of the laws and that Judge J.A.P. Campbell, then Judge of the Supreme Court, had expressed a willingness to perform the work. The facts stated in the preamble justifies the statement hereinbefore made that the preceding Code, the Code of 1871, was unsatisfactory to the bench and bar and inferentially shows that Judge Campbell, one of its codifiers, was himself dissatisfied with it.

The act providing for the then new code authorized and empowered Judge Campbell "to revise and codify all the laws of the state of a general nature" and to submit the same to the legislature at its next regular session, beginning in January, 1880, and appropriated one thousand five hundred dollars as his compensation for so doing.

Judge Campbell accepted the authority given him by the act. In January, 1880, he submitted his code to the legislature; it was adopted, with but few amendments, by act approved March 5, 1880 (published in the Code itself beginning on p. 41) and, except a few chapters which were made to take effect earlier, it became operative by its terms November 1,1880. The act adopting the code required Judge Campbell to superintend its publication, to arrange its chapters and sections, prepare notes and references to decisions of the Supreme Court, as far as applicable, and to make a full and complete index to the work. Seemingly because it was recognized the previous compensation provided for the codifier was inadequate, he was allowed for the services last mentioned three thousand five hundred dollars. The Code of 1880 brought into our statutes several new and important provisions, now universally regarded as having improved our jurisprudence, but some of them did not escape adverse criticism by the old and conservative lawyers of the state at the time they became operative.

The new and most important changes in our law made by the Code of 1880, omitting minor ones, may be enumerated as follows:

1. The complete emancipation of married women from the disability of coverture.
2. The abolition of Dower and Curtesy as theretofore known.
3. The almost complete abolition of estates in joint tenancy and entirety, the new law providing that all conveyances and devises of land to two or more persons jointly, even to husband and wife, shall invest the grantees or devisees with title as tenants in common unless the grantor or testator in unmistakable terms granted some other estate. Previous statutes had only partially accomplished this end.
4. Enabling creditors to vacate and set aside conveyances fraudulently made by their debtors to hinder, delay and defraud them before their debts have been reduced to judgments.
5. The abolition of private seals and the extinguishment of all distinctions between sealed and unsealed writings.

The abolition of private seals and of all differences between sealed and unsealed writings is said to have been especially objectionable to former Chief Justice Peyton of the Supreme Court, regarded by many lawyers of his day as having been more learned in the common law than any Judge who ever presided in that court. It is related that the former Chief Justice verbally assailed Judge Campbell, saying, "you have ruthlessly destroyed all the learning of a century on the subject of seals; I have spent many years of my life endeavoring to master the subject and now, Sir, you have thrown the fat in the fire." To this Judge Campbell replied, "Judge, there is nothing in the world to prevent you continuing your studies of the law of seals to the end of your life and I trust your study of the subject will be interesting."

Another old lawyer of the time must have seriously regretted the abolition of private seals as he is reported upon his first reading the section of the code abolishing private seals to have soliloquized thus:

"Beneath this lies all that remains of Locus Sigilli, a character of ancient date, whose mission was to give peculiar solemnity to documents. Emigrating to this state in its earliest days, he served his day and generation to a good old age, and was gathered to his fathers, generally mourned by the members of the legal profession. He left surviving him only one relative, now in the keeping of corporations. Obit November 1, 1880. His last request was that this epitaph should be under Seal. (L.S.)."

Another provision of the code of 1880 new to our law at the time was the section abolishing Dower and Curtesy. Other sections of the Code made provision giving a surviving spouse a liberal share of the deceased one's estate, but this did not lessen the regret of the old lawyers at the abolition of Dower and Curtesy. Section 1170 of the 1880 Code abolished Dower and Curtesy and reads thus: "Dower and Curtesy, as heretofore known, are abolished." The same old lawyer who soliloquized over the abolition of private seals, when he first read the section just quoted, is said to have uttered to himself the following:

Venerable relics of antiquity, you have come down to us from a former generation. You have survived the wreck of empires and change of dynasties. Born away back in the womb of time, whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, you have outlived the war of the Roses, passed safely through the Protectorate, crossed the ocean, survived the great American Revolution and rode out the storm of the late great war between the states. Whatever attendants were absent from the bridal altar, you two at least were always there; and when the bride and groom mutually murmured, 'with all my worldly goods I thee endow,' you as priest and priestess sealed the covenant. Like shades, you followed the twain blended into one and when either fell, one of you administered the balm of consolation to the survivor. If pure religion and undefiled be to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, thy mission has been akin to it. Venerable priest and priestess of the common law, farewell! You have been pleasant in your lives and in death hath not been divided."

MISSISSIPPI'S TWELFTH CODE. 1892.

The Constitution of 1890 by section 278 provided that:

"The Governor shall, as soon as practical, appoint three suitable persons, learned in the law, as Commissioners, whose duty it shall be to prepare and draft such general laws as are contemplated in this constitution and such other laws as shall he necessary and proper to put in operation the provisions thereof and as may be appropriate to conform the general statutes of the state to the Constitution. Said commissioners shall present the same, when prepared, to the legislature at its next regular session; and the legislature shall provide reasonable compensation therefor."

The Governor, John M. Stone, after the Constitution became operative appointed the commission of which R. H. Thompson was named as chairman and George G. Dillard and R. B. Campbell as members thereof. The chairman was then a practicing lawyer of Brookhaven, Mississippi; Mr. Dillard a lawyer of Macon, Mississippi and Mr. Campbell, a lawyer of Greenville, Mississippi. All three of them had been members of the Constitutional Convention of 1890; Mr. Dillard was and had been a member of the legislature for a number of years, he was a man of scholarly attainments and of great industry; no man in the State was more thoroughly familiar with the duties of the several state and county officers or with the practical affairs of the state government than was he. Mr. Campbell was and is an eminent and able lawyer, a son of the late J. A. P. Campbell, a distinguished Judge of the Supreme Court and one of the codifiers of the Code of 1871 and the sole codifier of the Code of 1880. The Commissioners met January 6, 1891 and duly considered the duties imposed upon them. Their conclusion was that their work would be unsatisfactory and unworthy if they should fall short of preparing and presenting an entire revision of the general statutes of the state. This opinion was concurred in by the Governor, and all the Judges and Chancellors of the State who were kind enough to express an opinion on the subject and by many leading citizens whose views were sought. The commissioners having determined to prepare a complete revision conceived that it was their duty to make it, as far as they could, the equal in usefulness of the highest standards of such compilations. They were impressed with the fact that a code is for the use of the people, for the average rather than the professional man; they were mindful that statutory excellence, generally speaking, is a growth and determined to preserve the many valuable characteristics of the statutes then in force, but at the same time to remove their excrescencies, and to add such new provisions as the Constitution, the development of the state, and the times required.

The Commissioners did as best they could what no codifiers had theretofore done. This can best be stated by quoting from the preface to the Code:

"An examination of the previous revisions of our statutes showed that the attention of the learned gentlemen who prepared them was almost wholly directed to subject matters rather than to the language of our written laws. Our statutes have been written by the hundreds of men--the learned and the unlearned, the sententious and the verbose--who have been members of the legislature. In many instances, too, they have been written under the most unfavorable circumstances. One man's composition is frequently injected into another's, wholly different in style, presumably by way of amendment, while statutes have been copied with variations from every quarter. The result of all this is painfully manifest on our statute- books. The jargon of the law, the 'saids,' the 'suches' and 'aforesaids,' the 'provisos' and 'provided furthers,' the verbosity, the endless tautology, the involution of case within case and parenthesis within parenthesis, have engendered in the minds of many people an idea that multiplied efforts at certainty are essential, and that statutes have to he written in a different language from ordinary composition. Our books abound in instances where strained efforts at certainty have produced great uncertainty. The commissioners, therefore, not only gave attention to the subject matters of the law, but carefully scrutinized the language of every section of our statutes which is carried into the revision, and corrected it in a great majority of instances. They wholly abandoned what they deemed to be useless verbiage, and hope that they have succeeded in presenting the result of their labors in good, every-day English, that will not be found to be repulsive to the citizen or hard to comprehend."

The Commissioners more thoroughly annotated the Code of 1892 by citing and epitomizing the decision of the Supreme Court construing its several sections than had been done in any preceding code, and this too, although not required by law to do so. This required much and tedious labor. It is well that subsequent Codes adopted their annotations, adding the court decisions made since the Code of 1892 became effective.

The Commissioners gave preference after consideration to the alphabetical order in the arrangement of the chapters of the Code. In fact, when the nature of the various subject matters of a code is considered it will be seen that an alphabetical arrangement is the only one upon which the entire body of a code can be adjusted. Any other plan soon exhausts itself and leaves a large part of the book to he arranged arbitrarily. A familiarity with the subject of the chapters of a code greatly aids the reader in finding any desired section of' the law.

The code as prepared by the Commissioners was presented to the legislature at its January session, 1892. Commissioner Dillard was a member of the State Senate and Commissioner Thompson accepted an invitation by the House of Representatives to be present at its session when the Code was under consideration and was given the right to be heard on all subjects pertaining to the Code. It would be reasonable to expect a legislature to act erroneously in passing upon a code unless one or more members of each house be thoroughly familiar with the work as a whole or had the aid of some person so familiar with it. In the absence of a person so informed many amendments to particular provisions are apt to be offered although the subject matters of the amendments are provided for in other parts of the Code. As already stated, a code must be considered as a whole, and even one person in the legislature who comprehends it as an entirety can prevent the adoption of such amendments as the ones mentioned. Two different sections of a code dealing with the same subject matters are frequently inharmonious and produce confusion rather than clearness as to their proper interpretation. Commissioner Dillard in the Senate and Thompson in the House prevented a goodly number of proposed improper amendments being made to the Code of 1892. The legislature adopted every chapter of the Code. Amendments, however, were made as was to be expected, some of them of consequence, a few radical, yet the main body of the work received legislative sanction. The Code was adopted by act approved April 2, 1892, and its parts not made effective before that date became operative November 1, 1892. The three commissioners were each paid two thousand five hundred dollars as compensation for preparing the Code. The legislature required of Commissioner Thompson that he should superintend the publication of the Code and prepare an index to it, for which he was paid an additional one thousand dollars.

The Commissioners who prepared the Code of 1892 contemplated having printed under each of its sections a notation showing the original enactment of its prototype, if it had one, and citing the same where found in preceding Codes but they were precluded from so doing by the amount of labor that would have been necessary to have done so and want of time within which to do the work. Nothing contributes more to the correct construction of a statute than a knowledge of its history from its original enactment to its present form, and it is to be hoped that the work contemplated but omitted by the codifiers of the code of 1892 will be performed by whomsoever the next Code of the State shall he prepared.

There is no analytical connection between the subject matters contained in a compilation of all the general laws of a state, the subject matters of a code are too variant and distinct, and human minds are too unlike, for a satisfactory index to be made to such a compilation except in the way about to be stated, the way in which the index to the Code of 1892 was sought to be made. That way is this: Each section of the code must he separately and carefully considered; it must then be indexed under every heading a reasonably intelligent person would be likely to look for it and as well under every heading where it can be conceived that the simple minded might probably look for it. Not only should the leading index headings be arranged alphabetically but sub-headings should be arranged in the same way.

An index to a code constructed on any other plan is likely to prove as great a misfit as did Lord Shaftesbury's and philosopher Locke's early charter or constitution for Colonial Carolina, said to have been theoretically perfect, according to the view of aristocratic England, but when sought to be applied to the wilds of Carolina it would not work.

The code of 1892 contained the first statutory provision enacted in the state directing how books containing statutes passed at the several sessions of the legislature should be labeled; it required them to he labeled "Laws of Mississippi" followed by the year in which they were enacted. Before that time they were labeled according to the whims of the publisher and some of the labels were quite inappropriate. It also forbade the use of Roman numerals in our statute books; they had at that time so far passed out of general use until but few persons were able readily to comprehend the various commingling of the letter I, V, X, C, D and M as used by the Romans; but all were able to comprehend the arabic figures. Sometimes the Roman numerals led to error, as they did when the preacher announced to his congregation that his text was to he found in the three "I'd" verse of the two "I'd" chapter of the one "I'd" John, causing his uninformed hearers to believe that the apostle was a one-eyed man. Subsequent codes have continued these provisions in force.

MISSISSIPPI'S THIRTEENTH CODE. 1906.

The legislature, by act approved March 19, 1904, provided for the State's thirteenth code. In pursuance of its terms the Governor appointed Commissioners to prepare the Code, he named Judge Albert H. Whitfield, of Jackson, then the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, as the chairman of the Commission and Hon. Thomas C. Catchings, of Vicksburg, and Hon. William H. Hardy, of Gulfport, as members thereof. The Commission was required to submit its work to the legislature at its 1906 session for approval. Judge Whitfield was a gifted man of learning and ability and had obtained distinction as a Judge of the Supreme Court. Thomas C. Catchings had been a state senator, a state's Attorney General and a distinguished member of Congress for several terms before his appointment as a codifier and was at the time of his appointment and still is a lawyer of pre-eminent ability, the equal in learning and intellectual strength of any lawyer of the state. William H. Hardy was a lawyer and had attained prominence at the bar and as a promoter of public enterprises.

The Commissioners performed their duties and submitted the Code prepared by them to the legislature as they were required to do. For some unknown reason or without reason the legislature in passing upon the Code did not consult the Commissioners or either of them; they were not given opportunity to explain their work nor to give reasons why improper amendments should not be adopted. A large number of amendments were made to the Code as prepared by the Commissioners and that too, when in the nature of things a large majority of the legislators were inadequately advised of its parts not immediately under consideration. It follows from what has been said that the defects of the code as adopted, if there be defects, cannot be charged to the Commissioners who prepared it.

The act adopting the code as it came from the legislature authorized Commissioner Catchings to contract with and employ an expert and competent person to prepare a full, complete and exhaustive index to the Code. Had Commissioner Catchings himself been employed to index the Code and had made the index it is beyond question that it would have been an excellent one.

Nothing new of consequence was brought into the law of the state by the adoption of the Code of 1906 as it came from the legislature, with unimportant exceptions it was a mere republication of existing law. Its chapters are arranged alphabetically as should always be the case. Under its several sections previously construed by the Supreme Court the decisions are noted and ably epitomized. The code became operative October 1, 1906, as to its parts not put into effect at an earlier date and it is still operative, although a subsequent code has been published and is in general use, this state having at this time, something unusual, two operative codes.

The Commissioners were each paid two thousand dollars for their services and Commissioner Catchings received an additional one thousand dollars for supervising the printing of the code and such other services as were required of him in connection therewith.

The legislature appropriated one thousand two hundred dollars, or so much thereof as necessary, to pay the expert employed to index the code; the exact sum paid him was determined by his contract to do the work. There is no statutory evidence of the sum for which the expert contracted to render service.

MISSISSIPPI'S FOURTEENTH CODE. 1917.

The State is indebted to the Hon. William Hemingway, now a professor of law in our State University, for its fourteenth Code. He prepared the code on his own initiative while engaged in the practice of law at Jackson and this he did without legislative authority. Mr. Hemingway is a lawyer of decided ability and great industry, and the Code, bearing the name "Hemingway's Annotated Mississippi Code," is a monument to his worth. Hemingway's Code did not and does not purport to be other than a republication of pre-existing statutes. Speaking as of the date of its publication Hemingway's Code contains (a) the unrepealed provisions of the Code of 1906, (b) the amended sections of that code in their amended form and (c) all statutes of a general nature enacted before its publication and after the adoption of the Code of 1906. During the ten years intervening between the time when the Code of 1906 became operative and the publication of Hemingway's Code the legislature enacted many statutes of a general nature and the republication of them in the code, with a guide to each in a single index, was a great convenience to the bench, the bar and the public. Mr. Hemingway rendered distinct service to the state by citing under each section of his code every reported Supreme Court decision previously rendered construing or in any way passing upon the same as found in its prototype. He adopted the annotations and their statement of the decisions contained in the Codes of 1892 and 1906 where they did not need correction and corrected them when correction was proper; he noted decisions rendered after the adoption of the Code 1906 and correctly epitomized them and in addition arranged his annotations to show the code in force at the time the decisions cited were made. Mr. Hemingway's index to his code is an excellent one, constructed as an index to a code should be in order for it to give satisfaction.

The one adverse criticism that can be made is this: Codifier Hemingway departed slightly from the true alphabetical order in the arrangement of the chapters of his code. It is in two volumes. He seems to have selected a number of its chapters for the first volume; these he arranged alphabetically in that volume. The balance of its chapters designed for the second volume are also arranged alphabetically therein. Every lawyer who when desiring to examine a particular chapter of the Code has taken in hand the wrong volume will recognize the force of this criticism.

In 1921 Mr. Hemingway prepared and published a supplemental volume to his code, containing all amendments made to the statutes contained in his code as then published and all statutes of a general nature enacted after its publication. The Supplement is well annotated, citing and epitomizing Supreme Court decisions; it is well indexed and a valuable book.

Hemingway's Code as supplemented was adopted and made an official compilation of the statutes of the state by legislative act (Laws 1922 p. 370) approved April 8, 1922.