Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/167

Rh although the most important or latest acts were published in the newspapers, and a volume of statutes was printed and bound at Oregon City in 1851. It was not until January 1853 that the assembly provided for the compilation of the laws, and appointed L. F. Grover commissioner to prepare for publication the statutes of the colonial and territorial governments from 1843 to 1849 inclusive. The result of the commissioner's labors is a small book often quoted in these pages as ''Or. Laws, 1843–9'', of much value to the historian, but which, nevertheless, needs to be confirmed by a close comparison with the archives compiled and printed at the same time, and with corroborative events; the dates appended to the laws being often several sessions out of time, either guessed at by the compiler, or mistaken by the printer and not corrected. In many cases the laws themselves are mere abstracts or abbreviations of the acts published in the Spectator.

Nor were the archives collected any more complete, as boxes of loose papers, as late as 1878, to my knowledge, were lying unprinted in the costly state-house at Salem. Many of them have been copied for my