Page:Howell v. Miller.pdf/11

Rh attention was paid to subdivisions and chapters in former compilations, except so far as was necessary to preserve intact the chapters of the Revised Statutes of 1846, which chapters were retained so far as their several sections were then in force. Other general enactments of later date, kindred to the subjects of those chapters, were included therewith in the successive chapters of his compilation. In devising the captions to the several titles, parts, and chapters of his compilation, he adopted the captions and the corresponding subdivisions of the revision of 1846, so far as the same were applicable and suited to his purpose. When they were not applicable, and could not be used, he adopted captions essentially new, and adapted to the subject-matter of such subdivisions, so that whenever any title or chapter of the Revised Statutes of 1846 was inserted as being general laws still in force, he preserved and used the titles thereto as they were enacted by the legislature of Michigan when the revision of 1846 was enacted into law. When any general enactment subsequent to the revision of 1846 was included in the compilation, he placed at the head of such enactment the original title thereto as adopted by the legislature; and to subserve the purpose of subheads in the division of chapters he adopted the plan of printing in capital letters the leading words of such titles, as catchwords to the eye, and indicating the subject-matter of the act. He did not use the small-cap subheads used by Howell to indicate corresponding subdivisions of his chapters. In order to indicate the date of enactment and approval and the taking effect of any general statute, he devised the plan of noting the same as a sidenote in the margin of the page opposite the title of the general enactment. For the purpose of indicating the history of each separate section of any general enactment, as to its amendment subsequent to the enactment of the statute, he devised the plan of noting such amendments, the year thereof, the date of approval, and the time of taking effect, together with the section number of such section in all prior compilations of the general laws of the state, in chronological order, in footnotes immediately following such section, so as to show the complete legislative history of each section subsequent to its enactment, and to note its number in the compilations of 1857, 1871, Howell’s Annotated Statutes, or in so many of those compilations as it appeared. In collecting together the general statutes in force, and numbering their sections consecutively, as had been done in all prior compilations, he adopted, in order to indicate such consecutive numbering, the plan used by his predecessors Cooley and Dewey in 1857 and 1871, the numbers being inclosed in parentheses at the head of the several sections. In making annotations denoting the legislative and compilation history of the various sections of the general laws of the state, he noted the consecutive numbering of sections as they appeared in Howell’s Annotated Statutes, in the same manner as he deemed it his duty to note the same numbering of sections in the prior compilations of 1851 and 1871. In making these annotations relative to enactment, amendment, and section numbering of the sections of the general laws of the state as they appear in the several volumes of the Session Laws, compilations, and Revised Statutes of Michigan, he referred to the original session laws and original compilations, and did not pirate and copy the same