T. AND T. CLARK, LAW BOOKSELLERS, GEORGE STREET. LONDON: STEVENS, SONS, AND HAYNES. MDCCCLXV. GLASGOW: J. SMITH AND SON. ADVERTISEMENT TO THE PRESENT EDITION. IN preparing a new edition of Mr Thomson's Treatise on Bills of Exchange, it has been found necessary to make considerable changes on the original work, in order to present a clear view of the law as it at present stands. During the interval of twenty-nine years, which has elapsed since the publication of the former edition of Mr Thomson's Treatise, considerable portions of it have become obsolete. It contained numerous dissertations on points of law, then open, which have since been decided; and it contained much that has become obsolete by the operation of the Mercantile Amendment Act, and other important recent statutes. To have reprinted the portions thus rendered obsolete, in addition to all the new matter requisite to explain the law that has come in their place, would have made the present edition unnecessarily large, as well as unnecessarily inconvenient to consult. All the obsolete portions of Mr Thomson's work have therefore been omitted. For other reasons, it was necessary to omit other portions. In some instances there was a needless encumbrance of the work with the details of decisions, long since admitted to have proceeded on erroneous principles. The portions thus encumbered have been rewritten, so as to condense them, and thus to give clearer prominence to the existing law. In other instances the text was found already so overlaid with notes, that to have attempted to have incorporated the recent decisions and statutes in any intelligible form would have been hopeless. For this reason (assisted occasionally by other reasons of less importance), the Editor has found it necessary to rewrite certain articles. Among these are the articles on the Stamp Laws, on Alterations, on Bank Checks, on Bank Notes, Deposit Receipts, and Letters of Credit, and on the Construction of Bills. Other |