PREFACE.

This edition of the Annotated Code of Maryland is the same in plan
and scope as the edition of 1912; hence no extended explanation is
necessary.

This edition—legalized and made evidence of the law by the act of 1924,
ch. 219—includes (1) the Constitution of the United States, with index,
(2) the Constitution of Maryland, with index, and (3) the Public Gen-
eral Laws of the State down to and inclusive of the Acts of 1924, with .
index. The Constitution of Maryland and the Public General Laws are
annotated through 143 Md., 262 U. S., 67 Law Ed. and 296 Federal.

The numbering of the articles has not been cnanged, but because of
the enactment and repeal of statutes since the 1912 edition, it was of
course necessary to change the numbering of the sections. The number of
the sections in the Codes of 1912, 1904 and 1888—the latter being the
last Maryland Code which was adopted as the law, rather than as evidence
of the. law—appears above each statute, where also will be found a refer-
ence to the Act or Acts enacting and amending the section. The references
above the sections to the Annotated Code of 1912 (abbreviated as " An.
Code ") refer to the number of the section in the last volume of that
Code in which such section appears—there were four volumes of that
Code, the first two published in 1912, the third in 1914 and the fourth
in 1918.

No liberties have been taken with the statutes; they are reproduced
(save for manifest errors in spelling) just as they appear in either the
official copy of the Acts, or else in the certified copy thereof on file with
the Clerk of the Court of Appeals.

Care should be exercised to ascertain whether the decisions deal with the
statute as it now stands. It should also be borne in mind that decisions
which do not refer in terms to a statute are not included.

At the back of Volume II, following the index, will be found a table
of the Acts of 1920, 1922 and 1924, appearing in the present edition;
similar tables of prior Acts will be found in the second, third and fourth
volumes of the edition of 1912.

Under the Act of 1916, ch. 126—Art. 66A, sec. 9—all annual and
continuing appropriations payable out of the general treasury to schools,
commissions, boards, corporations, officers, etc., are repealed, such appro-
priations being now provided for in the State Budgets—see Art. 3, sec.
52, of the Md. Constitution.