PREFACE.

THIS work is intended to include the decisions of all the Courts which have had occasion to construe the Act.

The reported cases in the Privy Council, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Superior Courts of Law and Equity of the Province of Ontario, are contained in the present volume. Cases in which the decisions pronounced have been appealed from and which therefore have not yet been finally disposed of are reserved for a future volume. The second volume will contain the reported cases in the Courts of the other Provinces, and cases in the Privy Council and Supreme Court the reports of which were not received in time for the present volume.

The method of arrangement adopted has been to print, first, the judgments of the Court of highest authority, and then those of the other Courts. The decisions of each Court are placed in order of time.

Where the judgments of several Courts in any case are given, the final judgment is placed first, and is printed in large type, and the judgments of the lower Courts follow in smaller type.

The heading of the pages shews the highest Court to which the case has been carried.

The Reports are taken from the Official Reports wherever this was practicable.

Most of the head-notes have been revised or entirely re-written. Where other points than the constitutional one were involved, the statement of facts has in many cases been abridged.

In no case has any omission been made in a judgment without the omission being marked by asterisks, or otherwise. The omissions are of matters not affecting the constitutional points.

Square brackets, thus [

], shew that the words placed within

them are introduced by the editor.

The quotations given in the various judgments have, as far as possible, been verified and corrected.

June, 1882.