WINTERS 
 
 HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY OF THE NEW YORK 
 LAW INSTITUTE. 
 
($arn?ll IGaro ^>rijnnl iCibrarg 
 
Cornell University Library 
 KFN5676.N53W78 
 
 History of the library of the New York L 
 
 3 1924 022 802 221 
 
 NEW YORK LAW INSTITUTE 
 
 History of the Library 
 
 BY 
 
 49448 
 
 WM. H. WINTERS 
 
 LIBRARIAN 
 
PRESS OF DOUGLAS TAYLOR A 00. 
 
 8 WARREN STREET 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 5%76 
 
HISTORY OF THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 New York Law Institute" 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM H. WINTERS, Librarian. 
 
 The first movement toward the formation of the New- 
 York Law Institute had its origin, according to Judge 
 Wm. Kent, in a meeting held at the residence of Wm. 
 T. McCoun, at No. 30. Warren Street, and according to 
 Hon. Edward Patterson, in his excellent sketch of the 
 Law Institute, it was due to the active interest mani- 
 fested by Mr. George Sullivan, a recent acquisition from 
 the Boston Bar, one of Loring's " Hundred Boston 
 Orators," and Mr. James W. Gerard, a young New 
 York lawyer, whose united labors in this direction 
 began as early as 1826. Internal evidence, however, 
 points to the fact and strengthens the statement of the 
 younger Kent that the establishment of a Society law 
 library in the City of New York was owing, in a great 
 degree, to the influence and exertions of Chancellor 
 Kent. The project grew out of the necessity of provid- 
 ing the legal profession with an extensive and easily acces- 
 sible collection of books in every department of law, and 
 such collection was manifestly beyond the means of indi- 
 vidual members of the bar. 
 
 * Written by request for " The Memorial History of the City of New 
 York." 5 vols. 8vo. New York, 1892-93. 
 
% 
 
 Perhaps a vivid recollection of the disappointing and 
 embarrassing deprivation in youth, of access to the privi- 
 lege, profit, and learning of a large and comprehensive 
 law library, induced Charles O'Conor, in old age, to make 
 his generous and gracious gift to the Law Institute 
 library. At any rate a union of effort and means 
 became necessary to provide the members of the bar 
 with the working tools of the profession, and this mo- 
 tive and necessity, more than all else, gave birth to the 
 New York Law Institute. The time was ripe for this 
 movement, as the only collections of law books of any 
 extent or value in or near the City of New York were 
 the private library of Chancellor Kent and the " Bed- 
 ford House " library of Chief-Justice Jay. 
 
 The first regular meeting of the Society, of which 
 any written record is extant, was held in pursuance of 
 notice at the American Hotel, at the corner of Broad- 
 way and Barclay Street, on the fifth day of February, 
 1828. At this meeting there were present Ogden Hoff- 
 man, Thomas Addis Emmet, Hugh Maxwell, Jas. W. 
 Gerard, and nearly all of the leading members of the 
 bar. Ex-Judge Jonas Piatt was called to the chair and 
 Chas. G. Troup made Secrectary. An election of offi- 
 cers being held, James Kent was chosen President and 
 Smith Thompson, Peter A. Jay and Beverly Robinson, 
 Vice-Presidents of the Association. Previous to this 
 meeting, however, on the 19th day of January, 1828, 
 the Constitution as drafted by Chancellor Kent had 
 been submitted at a conference probably held at the 
 residence of Wm. T. McCoun, and it was subscribed by 
 Chancellor Kent, Hugh Maxwell, Wm. T. McCoun, 
 John Duer, Jas. W. Gerard, Daniel Lord, George Sulli- 
 van, David Ogden and the others present — nineteen in 
 all. 
 
 In the beginning the Law Institute was meant, says 
 Mr. Gerard, "to be very much of the character of the 
 
present Bar Association — not merely a library, but an 
 Association which should, by salutary rules, guard the 
 purity of the profession, and hold a check upon the 
 members through investigation and the power of expul- 
 sion." It was, however, found impossible to carry out 
 such views and they were abandoned and all the energies 
 of the members were turned toward establishing a Law 
 Library, which would contain, as it were, the law of 
 the larger part of the civilized world. In March, 1828, 
 the library of Robert Tillotson was purchased on such 
 liberal and satisfactory terms that, by resolution, the 
 free use of the library was voted to Mr. Tillotson, and 
 in his visits to the city he was to be granted its privi- 
 leges in the same manner as if he were a regularly 
 elected member. 
 
 Chancellor Kent donated a set of his Commenta- 
 ries on American Law and Mr. David A. Jones a copy 
 of Statham's Abridgment, a book as old as the early 
 Caxtons and published before Columbus sailed from 
 Palos, and which for many years kept the reputation of 
 having been the first printed book on English law. 
 
 Many of the old classics of the law, rare and valuable 
 reports and commentaries, were the gifts of the accom- 
 plished scholar, Peter A. Jay, President of the His- 
 torical Society, and the eldest son of Chief-Justice Jay. 
 In the future, upon the Law Institute's tablet of grate- 
 ful recognition of the benefactors and lovers of its li- 
 brary, no names will be engraven deeper or more con- 
 spicuously than those of Peter A. Jay and Charles 
 O'Conor. One runs across Jay's name in the books 
 and treasures of the Law Institute library frequently, 
 and with the same pleasurable surprise and interest 
 that he does Brockholst Livingston's name as associate 
 counsel in the great law cases and criminal trials of 
 Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Richard Harison and 
 Egbert Benson. 
 
In the early part of the year 1830, it was resolved to 
 petition the Legislature of the State for an act of incor- 
 poration, and accordingly on the 2 2d day of February, 
 1830, the Law Institute was duly incorporated by Chapter 
 48 of the Laws of 1 830. The Charter and By-laws enacted 
 in accordance therewith were accepted and adopted at 
 a meeting of the Institute held in the United States 
 Court-room on the 12th day of May, 1830. Many of the 
 old historical records of the New York Law Institute 
 have fortunately escaped the devastation and vicissi- 
 tudes of fire and time, and attached to this Charter and 
 By-laws of 1830 are preserved the signatures of the 
 most noted men of the New York Bar: James Kent, 
 Thomas Addis Emmet, Hugh Maxwell, John Anthon, 
 George Griffin, David Graham, Samuel Jones, Caleb S. 
 Riggs, Daniel Lord, James W. Gerard, William Kent, 
 J. Prescott Hall, Ogden Hoffman, William M. Price, Da- 
 vid Dudley Field, Francis B. Cutting, Charles O'Conor, 
 Samuel J. Tilden, John Jay, William Curtis Noyes, 
 Theodore Sedgwick, John Graham, Richard O'Gorman, 
 John K. Porter, Henry L. Clinton, James T. Brady, 
 William M. Evarts, Joseph H. Choate, Stephen P. 
 Nash, Charles F. Southmayd, Henry D. Sedgwick, Ash- 
 bel Green, Robert S. Green, George Bliss, John E. Par- 
 sons, Edwards Pierrepont, A. Oakey Hall, John McKeon, 
 Henry Hilton, Wheeler H. Peckham, Everett P. Wheeler, 
 John E. Burrill, Frederic R. Coudert, William Allen 
 Butler, William A. Beach, Samuel Blatchford, Clarence 
 A. Seward, James C. Carter, Charles Tracy, Aaron 
 J. Vanderpoel, John T. Hoffman, Edwin W. Stough- 
 ton, Fred. W. Hinrichs, John R. Dos Passos, Delos Mc- 
 Curdy, Burton N. Harrison, William C. Whitney, and 
 many others equally famous, living and dead. 
 
 In the Report on the Libraries of the United States, 
 published at Washington in 1876 by the Government, is 
 the following reference to the collections of the New York 
 
Law Institute as they were in the Centennial year: 
 "The Law Institute Library has become a success in 
 the highest and broadest sense, and now furnishes the 
 Bench and Bar of the city in legal treatises, text books, 
 American and foreign reports, collections of leading 
 cases and trials — resources of incalculable value. The 
 library, now the best public law library in this country, 
 contains over 20,000 volumes, complete sets of reports 
 of Courts of all the States, the Federal Courts, the latest 
 revisions of the Statutes, complete reports of English, 
 Scotch, Irish and Canadian Courts, one of the best col- 
 lections of the Session Laws of all the States, nearly all of 
 the Collections of Trials, one of the largest collections 
 of English and American law periodicals, next to the 
 library at Washington one of the best collections of 
 French law in the country. It has also a very fine col- 
 lection on the literature of the law, memoirs and biog- 
 raphies;" and to this may also be added as of interest 
 an extract from a recent press notice: " There is proba- 
 bly no other law library in this country which has upon 
 its shelves so rich and valuable a collection of rare works 
 on legal topics. It possesses very full collections of 
 reports of cases in the American, English, Scotch, Irish 
 and Canadian Courts, sets of American and English 
 statute laws, the publications of the English Record Com- 
 mission, the English House of Lords and House of Com- 
 mons journals and session papers going back to 1509. 
 The State papers of England and America are a feature 
 of this institution of peculiar value. Of the documents 
 pertaining to American history are .the charters of the 
 American colonies, Congressional papers from 1791 and 
 New York State papers since 169 1. The English and 
 Irish Records, in which this library is peculiarly full and 
 rich, contain complete accounts of the foundation of 
 British and American Law." 
 Among the rare books and documents of this library 
 
6 
 
 which will be found to possess interest and attraction 
 not for the lawyer only, but for the antiquarian as well 
 — are the laws of the ancient Greek States, the property 
 laws and constitution of Athens, the political and legal 
 arguments of the Greek Statesmen and Orators from 
 Antiphon to Isseus, and the laws extracted with skill and 
 discernment by Petitus, Prateio, Dareste and Pardessus 
 from the works of the orators, historians and philoso- 
 phers of Greece — the entire body of the Roman Law, 
 the Ante-Justinian Statutes and Jurisprudence, the Jus- 
 tinian books and the Romano-Barbarian Codes — the 
 Leges Barbarorum or laws of the Lombards, Franks, 
 Goths, Vandals, Alemanni and other German tribes ; 
 elegant editions of Hessels and Kern's " Lex Salica"and 
 Le Gruchy's " L'Ancienne Coutume de Normandie " — 
 the Corpus Juris Canonici and the ancient Constitutions 
 and Canons of the Church — the Sea Laws of 016ron, 
 Wisby and the Hanse Towns ; the restored text of 
 " The Black Book of the Admiralty, a venerable book of 
 great authority in the Admiralty Court, and which dis- 
 appeared from the Admiralty Register in London dur- 
 ing the latter part of last century ;" " Guidon de laMer;'' 
 Maritime Chapters and Ordinances of Amalphi; the sup- 
 posed Rhodian laws; "II Consolato del Mare," of which 
 an edition was published at Barcelona in 1494, and 
 which is the earliest general code of Maritime law 
 in modern Europe and embracing as it does the legisla- 
 tion of many kingdoms, is a valuable monument of the 
 learning of the middle ages — Repositories of ancient 
 laws and jurisprudence like the "Corpus Juris Ger- 
 manicae, " " Codigos Antiguos de Espafia "—the Code of 
 Godfrey de Bouillon, the first Christian King of Jerusa- 
 lem, ' ' Assises et bon Usages de Royaume de Jerusalem, " 
 originally intituled " Lettres de Sepulcre, " because they 
 were deposited with much ceremony in a great chest in 
 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; perhaps the best of 
 
the feudal collections, and certainly interesting as a code 
 of laws framed by a body composed of all the nations 
 of Europe, of a legislative assembly of gallant Knights 
 like Sir Philip Sidney — the flower of the chivalry of the 
 world — the Ottoman Codes and the Koran, commonly 
 called the "Alcoran of Mahomet," in French, German, 
 English and the original — the Ordinances of Menu, 
 translated from the Sanscrit by that elegant scholar Sir 
 William Jones, "perhaps the only lawyer equally con- 
 versant with the year-books of Westminster, the Attic 
 pleadings of Isaeus and the sentences of Arabian and 
 Persian Cadis " — -Sir George Staunton's translation of the 
 Code comprising the ancient and modern jurisprudence of 
 China — the laws of the Anglo-Saxon Kings of England, 
 the laws and the Domesday Book of William the "Con- 
 queror, the " Monumenta Ecclesiastica Anglicana " and 
 the ancient law records preserved in the Tower of Lon- 
 don — the Senchus Mor or Brehon Code of Ireland, the 
 ancient Brehon law tracts, the Statutes of the Irish Par- 
 liament from 1 310 to the close made famous by the 
 orations of Grattan and the Irish patriots, and contain- 
 ing among many other curious things the law of 1447, 
 entitled "An Act that the King's Officers may travel by 
 Sea from one place to another within the Land of Ire- 
 land " — the Acts of the Parliaments of Scotland, 1124- 
 1707, Laws of the Scottish Borders and the ancient laws 
 and customs of the Burghs of Scotland; the ancient 
 Laws and Institutes of Wales, containing the three 
 ancient Codes and the law of the Kindred and 
 Blood Feud — the Code Judiciare of the French Revolu- 
 tion, published in the year VII. of the Republic; the 
 Statutes of Oliver Cromwell ; " Codice di Napoleone il 
 Grande pel Regno d'ltalia," printed in Milan in 1806; 
 Yazoo Fraud Act of Georgia, giving rise to opinions by 
 the most eminent lawyers of the day, Robert Goodloe 
 Harper, Alex. Hamilton, Chief-Justice Marshall; the 
 
"Scarlet Letter Act" of Massachusetts, the "Aaron 
 Burr Act" of Ohio, and the Laws of the " Chamberlain 
 Legislature " of South Carolina — the Purple Book of 
 Bruges, the laws inscribed upon the wax tablets of 
 Pompeii, and the Bronze Table of Aljustral; the newly- 
 discovered Law Code of the Cretan Gortyna, reminding 
 us forcibly of the query of the Athenian to the Cretan 
 in Plato's Laws, "Tell me, stranger, is God or a man 
 supposed to be author of your laws? " — the Ancient Law 
 of Holland and the Modern Dutch Codes, with the com- 
 mentaries made classic by the genius of Grotius or the 
 learning of modern writers — the Laws and Ordinancss 
 of New Netherland, 1638-1674; the Duke of York's 
 Laws enacted at Hempstead, Long Island, in 1664; the 
 old and rare Corporation Ordinances of the City of 
 New York; the Documentary History of the Colony and 
 State; the New York City Directories, reaching back 
 almost to the beginning in 1786, and the perfect sets of 
 New York and Brooklyn Corporation Manuals — the Law 
 Register of Alexander Hamilton, from 1795 to his 
 retainer in a case by the Trinity Church Corporation a 
 few weeks before the fatal July day of 1804; the Quaker 
 Girl, or " Manhattan Well " murder case of Burr and 
 Hamilton that gave episode and interest to Fay's "Nor- 
 man Leslie," the test case of Hamilton's under the Tres- 
 pass Act against Tories ; the Washington copy of the 
 Code de Louis XIII. ; the Plantation Laws of Virginia, 
 with autograph of Richard Henry Lee, who moved the 
 Declaration of American Independence; The Note-Book 
 of Chancellor Hardwicke; Lord Chief -Justice Holt's 
 copy of the Eyre MSS. Reports, and many volumes 
 with autographs, annotations and interesting associa- 
 tions of famous lawyers and jurists, and others, the 
 gifts of members, the Kents, father and son, Jay, 
 Evarts, O'Conor, Field, Brady, Bliss, the Abbotts, 
 &c." 
 
The library at the present time ranks as one of the 
 three leading libraries in the world in American and 
 British Law Literature. Its growth since its organiza- 
 tion is indicated by the following figures, showing the 
 number of its volumes in the stated years in which esti- 
 mates have been made : 
 
 1828 Library organized. 1869 13, 5°° 
 
 1842 2,413 1876 20,270 
 
 1851 4,544 1880 24,391 
 
 1855 6,000 1885 29,560 
 
 1860 8 ,55° 1893.... ..41,195 
 
 By an arrangement with the city authorities the library 
 from the first was provided with accommodations in 
 what was known as the "Old City Hall," and when 
 larger space was required, rooms were provided in the 
 "New City Hall" on Chambers Street, in which it 
 remained until that building was destroyed by fire on 
 the 19th day of January, 1854. By this fire, one of its 
 periodical visitations, the library lost eighty-one volumes 
 and had many others seriously injured. Most of the 
 furniture and the adornments of the rooms were also 
 injured or lost. A Committee of the library, consisting 
 of Charles O'Conor and William Curtis Noyes, adjusted 
 the loss with the insurance companies at two thousand 
 two hundred and fifty dollars, retaining the books 
 and property injured, and this sum was accepted in 
 compromise and promptly paid. For some time 
 after this fire, the library had a shiftless existence, 
 and very often, in its impecunious condition, when its 
 inability to pay rent or other debts was made a matter 
 of record, Charles O'Conor came to its aid with loans of 
 large sums of money. In its hour of trial and tribula- 
 tion the library was also generously remembered in large 
 donations of books by James R. Whiting, Joseph Blunt, 
 Charles Edwards, Theodore Sedgwick and the Secre- 
 
10 
 
 taries of State of the several American States. James 
 T. Brady proved an active friend and with Charles 
 Tracy made repeated and urgent appeals to the Board 
 of Supervisors to carry out the fundamental agreement 
 and understanding, that was entered into with the Cor- 
 poration at the organization of the Society to provide it 
 with suitable rooms for its use; or, at least to make 
 good the losses that had resulted to the Association 
 from the violation of this compact. For a time the 
 library was closed and its books stored, and then they 
 were placed in the basement of the Court House, in 
 quarters so small that only a part of the books could be 
 shelved, so that the utility of the library was much 
 diminished, and the membership in consequence fell off. 
 
 In April, 1855, a room was secured on the second 
 floor of No. 45 Chambers St., fronting the Park, and in 
 the Spring of 1859, the library, by an arrangement with 
 the United States Government, was removed to the build- 
 ing in the rear of the United States Courts at No. 41 
 Chambers St. At this time the cost of the books 
 and furniture, as appears by the Brady Memorial, 
 had amounted to about fifty thousand dollars. In its 
 quarters in the old Burton Theatre building Mr. David 
 E. Wheeler made a bequest of $1,000 to the library, 
 and. Mr. Hugh Maxwell presented it with a costly silver 
 vase and the excellent portraits of Thomas Addis Emmet 
 and Chancellor Kent. The marble bust of its late Presi- 
 dent, James T. Brady, was presented to the Institute 
 shortly after his death in 1869. 
 
 Its early and late benefactor, Charles O'Conor, noted 
 for his characteristic, fervent and proud love of the city 
 of his birth, in 1884, by a generous bequest in his last 
 will and testament, executed on the eightieth anniver- 
 sary of his birthday, gave to the library twenty-one 
 thousand dollars in cash, all his bound volumes en- 
 titled " My Own Cases " and " My Opinions," with the 
 
11 
 
 silver plate and vase that had been presented to him 
 by the ladies and lawyers of the City of New York. 
 
 In July, 1875, upon the completion of the new Post 
 Office building in the City Hall Park, the library was 
 assigned magnificent rooms on the fourth floor of that 
 building, and from its removal to these elegantly fur- 
 nished quarters, it entered upon a new era of progress and 
 prosperity. It was then under the Presidency of Charles 
 O'Conor, whose predecessors in office had been James 
 T. Brady, the peerless orator; John Anthon, the great 
 Nisi Prius advocate, "who began his career amidst a 
 race of giants;" Samuel Jones, who was classed by Mr. 
 O'Conor with John Wells, " the prince of Bar Orators," 
 and Chancellor Kent, of world-wide fame. Aaron J. 
 Vanderpoel, a keen lover of good books, a kindly, con- 
 siderate official, a public-spirited citizen, one of the best 
 equipped lawyers of the New York City Bar and its 
 most popular member, held the position of Honorary 
 Librarian. 
 
 Under the combined influence, intelligent interest and 
 active labors of these two men, the library of course made 
 energetic and rapid strides in usefulness and prosperity 
 and became favorably known to the profession and to 
 the press and the public as well. Its broken sets were 
 completed and there was secured an approximately and 
 reasonably complete collection of books in every depart- 
 ment of jurisprudence. 
 
 In 1888 changes were made in the library rooms under 
 the supervision of the Government Superintendent of 
 Construction, Mr. Wm. J. Fryer, and by a judicious 
 and admirable arrangement of galleries and alcoves, the 
 shelving capacity of the library was- almost doubled. 
 The new classification and re-arrangement of the books 
 has continued to the present time. 
 
 On the main entrance floor are kept the Law Reports, 
 Law Journals and Reports' Digests of the United States, 
 
12 
 
 the different American States, England, Ireland, Scotland 
 and the Canadian Provinces. In the gallery are located 
 the American and English Commentaries, the Diction- 
 aries, Cyclopaedias and books of reference, Historical 
 and Biographical Works, Roman Law, Trials, the Statute 
 Law, Revisions, Codes, Digests, Session Laws and In- 
 dices to Statutes of all English-speaking countries; the 
 Codes, Commentaries and selected law periodicals of 
 Germany, France, Austria, Spain, Italy, Holland, Bel- 
 gium, Switzerland, Turkey, Mexico, etc., etc., and on the 
 uppermost floor, the Court of Appeals Cases, Reports of 
 Parliamentary and Congressional Debates, Constitu- 
 tional Convention Journals and Debates, American and 
 Foreign State Papers, United States and New York Legis- 
 lative Documents and Journals, New York City Legis- 
 lative Documents and Department Reports, Corporation 
 Manuals, Books of Statistics, Atlases and Maps, City 
 Directories, Miscellaneous Journals, Association Reports, 
 House of Lords and House of Commons Journals, and 
 the Charles O'Conor and other valuable donations. 
 
 Within the limit of this article, it is impossible to speak 
 at length or in detail of the particular treasures of this 
 library's collections or of the many volumes with inter- 
 esting and curious histories, and by both contents and 
 bibliographical value worthy of special and extended 
 notice. The library, however, is not specially rich in the 
 treasures, fancies or the queer conceits of prosperous 
 book-collectors. A law librarian is apt to value a Lon- 
 don imprint of Grotius as much as an Elzevir, and he 
 hardly takes notice if his huge folios are by Baskett, 
 Wynkin de Worde or Baskerville. The library possesses 
 no editions de luxe and but few first editions, editiones 
 principes collected as such. Its incunables came by gift 
 or purchase because of the books' contents and practical 
 utility and not by reason of the mere date of the imprint 
 or the signatures of famous printers. 
 
13 
 
 Its bindings, especially in the department of foreign 
 law, are noticeable and elegant, but not such as would 
 have justified the sumptuous taste or superb skill of 
 Padeloup, Derome, Le Gascon, a Grolier or the lovely 
 designs of Clovis Eve, and yet if this magnificent library 
 should be destroyed by fire, from whose dreaded visita- 
 tions it has made so many narrow escapes, it would be 
 perhaps safe to assert, that it would be as impossible to 
 replace it in its integrity as to restore to the book- 
 shelves at Mount Vernon the scattered volumes of Wash- 
 ington's library; or to the apartments of "The Albany," 
 the books, letters and manuscripts of Lord Byron ; or 
 to secure the " Corambis " copy of "Hamlet"; or a 
 half dozen copies of Shakespeare's books and letters, 
 or the manuscript plays that were burnt with the Globe 
 Theatre; or a few Valdarfer's Boccaccio, Venice, 1471, 
 the rarest book in the world; or the Naples, 1474, 
 edition of Horace, the rarest of the classics; or the 
 Mentz Cicero of 1465, the first classic put into print; or 
 Cliamaco's book, the first printed in the new world ; or 
 the original edition of the book printed at Saint Di6 in 
 1507, first suggesting the name "America" for the 
 newly-discovered Western Continent; or to find in mod- 
 ern book -marts smaller books than the "Thumb 
 Bible " or larger than the giant volumes of the Escurial, 
 or cheaper than the bound "Penny Testament," or 
 more curious than the Elegy printed on black paper 
 with white letters ; or a perfect copy of the first Aldine 
 Virgil; or the lost Constitutions of Aristotle; or the 
 "Morton's Hope" chronicle of Motley's and Bismarck's 
 student life at Gottingen; or the borrowed copies of 
 Blackstone, with which Webster and Lincoln began in 
 youth the study of law. 
 
 The work of the recent decade of years and of the new 
 epoch of the library's progress and development may be 
 fitly epitomized and illustrated in the statement that the 
 
14 
 
 Law Institute Library has been either the pioneer or of 
 the pioneers : 
 
 a. In securing complete sets of American, English, 
 
 Irish, Scottish and Canadian Law Reports. 
 
 b. In attempting to collect the Law Journals of the 
 
 United States, England, Canada, Ireland, Scot- 
 land, British Colonies, France, Germany, Austria, 
 Spain, Italy, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, etc. 
 
 c. In attempting to collect complete sets of the Revi- 
 
 sions, Codes and Session Laws of each State and 
 Territory of the Union, so as to preserve on the 
 shelves of the Law Institute an almost unique 
 and priceless historical memorial of American 
 State and Statute literature. 
 
 d. In making the attempt to collect official copies of 
 
 the Foreign Codes, Civil, Commercial, Crimi- 
 nal, Procedure and the standard Continental law 
 authors and commentators, illustrated in French 
 literature by the writings of Pardessus, Pothier, 
 Valin, Cleirac, Montesquieu, Vattel, Cujas, 
 D'Aguesseau, Domat, Orfila, Boulay-Paty, Glas- 
 son, Hautefeuille, Laurent, Merlin, Locr6, Pouil- 
 let, Toullier, Calvo, Pradier-Foder6, Cauchy, 
 Couder, Rolin-Jaequemyns, Demolombe, B£dar- 
 ride, Ortolan, Riviere, Desjardins, Valroger — and 
 in German literature by the writings of Savigny, 
 Thibaut, Mittermaier, Feuerbach, Grimm, Hugo, 
 Koch, Kant, Bulmerincq, Hoist, Puchta, Kant, 
 Grotefend, Heffter, Windscheid, Gareis, Mohl, 
 Lewis, Vangerow, Borchardt, Martens, Dern- 
 berg, Sohm, Bar, Bluntschli, Gneist, Holtzen- 
 dorff, Ihering, and by the recent works of the 
 German collaborators, the Series on Commercial 
 Law, edited by Endemann; German Jurispru- 
 
15 
 
 dence by Binding; the recent German Codes by 
 Bezold; International Law by Holtzendorff, and 
 Public Law by Marquardsen. 
 
 e. In collecting the English, French and German 
 translations of Foreign Codes and the Miscella- 
 neous Writings and Association Proceedings of 
 the German and French Jurists. 
 
 /. In collecting the writings and biographical sketches 
 of the great New York Lawyers of the past and 
 the present: Wm. M. Evarts, Charles O'Conor, 
 James T. Brady, James W. Gerard, David Dud- 
 ley Field, Daniel Lord, Wm. Curtis Noyes, 
 Thomas Addis Emmet, Ogden Hoffman, John 
 Wells, James Kent, Brockholst Livingston, Aaron 
 Burr, Alex. Hamilton. 
 
 g. In collecting the rare pamphlets, addresses and 
 law arguments of Rufus Choate, Harrison Gray 
 Otis, Thomas S. Grimk6, Robert Goodloe Harper, 
 Henry Wheaton, Nathan Dane, Theophilus Par- 
 sons, Wm. C. Preston, John Sergeant, Chas. 
 G. Loring, Caleb Cushing, Horace Binney, 
 Wm. Pinkney, Henry Stanbery, Richard H. 
 Dana, Jr., George S. Hillard, Benjamin R. 
 Curtis, and others, whose brilliant reputa- 
 tions are fast becoming traditional because the 
 memorials of their busy lives have been preserved 
 in no tangible book shape. 
 
 h. In collecting the tracts, pamphlets, essays, maga- 
 zine articles and newspaper discussions relating 
 to new and important questions of the day; 
 American Fisheries, Commercial Trusts Combi- 
 nations, Foreign Immigration, Voting Reforms, 
 Land Registration Laws, Law Reform, Codifi- 
 
16 
 
 cation, Tariff Controversy, Telephone and Tele- 
 graph Law, French Spoliation Claims, Geneva 
 Arbitration Award, Railroad Law, Elevated Rail- 
 ways, Electricity Law, Presidential Elections, 
 Indian Laws, Death Penalty, Sanitary Legislation, 
 Civil Service Reform, Law Schools, State and 
 City History, Medico- Legal Jurisprudence, Inter- 
 national Law, Neutrality, Constitutional Law, 
 Habeas Corpus, Corporation Law, Charters and 
 By-Laws, etc., etc. 
 
 The Law Institute Library has been one of the first and 
 one of the most active in every movement to make law 
 libraries comprehensive and useful and, as far as means 
 and time permitted, practically complete. It had made 
 itself an Institution worthy of the Great Metropolis, and 
 by reason of the prestige it has achieved, it is daily 
 visited and used by practical lawyers more than any 
 other library in the world. Its present officers are: 
 Stephen P. Nash, President; Joseph H. Choate, Samuel 
 Blatchford and John E. Burrill, Vice-Presidents; James 
 R. Cuming, Treasurer; Henry D. Sedgwick, Recording 
 Secretary, and Benjamin D. Silliman, Corresponding 
 Secretary.