United States of America. * District Court of North-Caronna, to-wit. BE it remembered, that on the sixth day of December, in the forty-first year of the Independence of the United States of America, A. D. 1816, JOSEPH GALES of the said district, hath deposited in this Office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as Proprietor and Publisher, and also the right to the order and arrangement of the Work, to-wit, "The Office and Duty of a Justice of the Peace, and a Guide to Sheriffs, Clerks, Constables and other Civil Officers: According to the Laws of NorthCarolina. With an Appendix, containing the Declaration of Rights and Con stitution of this State, the Constitution of the United States, with the Amendments thereto; and a Collection of the most approved Forms. By HENRY POTTER, Judge of the United States' District Courts of North-Carolina." 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 the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned." And also to the Act, entitled, "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 times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical prints." In testimony whereof, I WILLIAM H. HAYWOOD, Clerk of the Circuit Court PREFACE. IN a free Representative Government, where there is a residue of Sovereign Power retained by the People, it is highly important to the safety and well-being of the State, that her citizens be rightly informed touching the Civil Polity, the Municipal Regulations, and the Administration of the Laws, under which they live, and by which they con'sent to be governed, One of the means, and perhaps not the least, of diffusing this kind of knowledge, is to supply the Judicial and Ministerial Officers (particularly that class of useful citizens who bear the burden of deciding petty disputes without reward) with a Compend of the Law, and of the Forms by which it is administered. The State of North-Carolina has been favoured with three very useful publications of this description; and from which much aid has been derived in the execution of the present design. But the first edition is out of print-the second very scarce-and the third, which appeared in the year 1800, was sold out, and afforded but a partial supply. The increased population of the State-the augmentation of Justices of the Peace and other Civil Officers; and a growing thirst for useful knowledge, enhanced by the cultivation of Literature and Science, have greatly increased the demand for such information. And after a lapse of sixteen years, in the course of which the laws must have undergone many radical changes, as well by adjudged cases, as by acts of the General Assembly, the call for a new edi tion of a JUSTICE must necessarily be great. To supply this general and increasing demand, is the object of the following Work. Much care has been taken to render it useful, not only to Justices of the Peace, but also to Sheriffs, Coroners, Clerks, Constables and other Officers; and indeed to every citizen. New and important heads are introduced; and the whole matter has been arranged with no small degree of attention to method and perspicuity, The utility of correct Precedents, or Forms of Proceedings, must be manifest to every person. A general collection, therefore, of the most approved and useful Forms, is added by way of Appendix. Raleigh, Dec. 2, 18161 |