DECISIONS

OF THE

Supreme Court of Newfoundland.

ANNOTATED, REVISED, AND EDITED

BY E. P. MORRIS,

OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND BAR, QUEEN'S COUNSEL, BENCHER"
OF THE INCORPORATED LAW SOCIETY

PREFACE TO THE FIRST VOLUME.

THE importance to the legal profession of having in an available form the decisions, which from time to time have been given in our Supreme Court, must be so obvious that it might appear unnecessary to say anything by way of notice or preface to the present work. Since the granting of the Royal Charter, 1825, only one volume of Reports or Decisions of the Supreme Court have been published, namely, in the year 1829, containing the decisions of the years from 1817 to 1828.

I propose that the present series shall consist of about six volumes, embracing all the reported decisions of leading cases of our Courts on points of law and general interest. The present volume, as will be seen by reference, embraces all the reported decisions from 1884 to 1896, inclusive. The second volume, now in the hands of the printer, will contain the decisions from 1874 to 1884, and so on, down to the date when the volume previously referred to was issued, each volume embracing about ten years' decisions.

I have formed the present volume out of such cases as I deemed important and instructive, and omitted such cases only as appeared not important for the current study and practice of the law, and which were only an affirmation of principles long since settled by English Courts.

In the work of revision I have been careful not to abridge any judgment except as to the pleadings or statement of facts, and unimportant as regards the result. The reasoning of the Judge and the authorities cited, no matter how prolix, have in no way been retrenched. In cases where three judgments have been given in the same cause, I have published in full, without any curtailment, the one which in every respect appeared the fullest. In but few cases has a judgment standing alone been abridged.

The head note to each case has been constructed with a view of putting briefly and without unnecessary use of technical phraseology the gist of each decision. My aim has been to furnish the practitioner with reports of our own Courts in such a form that he will readily find the information he requires for ordinary purposes.