attendance at the terms of the Circuit Court. After the appointment of Justice SWAYNE to the Supreme Court, in 1862, his necessary attendance at its protracted terms, and his duties. in other districts of his extended circuit, rendered it impossible for him to give any considerable portion of his time to the court at Cincinnati. As a result of these causes, the labor and responsibility of presiding in the Circuit Court were imposed by law on the District Judge. In addition to his labors there, it was his duty to hear and decide cases in the District Court, and after the adoption of the internal revenue system of the United States they were exceedingly numerous, and frequently involved new and difficult questions. The enactment of the bankrupt act of 1867 greatly increased the previous heavy pressure upon the District Judge. This brief reference is made, preliminary to the statement that it was a physical impossibility for the court to prepare extended written opinions in all the cases before it, which are reported in these volumes. It was deemed expedient that these Reports should not exceed two volumes. The cases reported comprise but a small portion of the whole number decided by Judge LEAVITT. The Reporter has exercised his best judgment in selecting the cases for publication. His aim has been to include only such as might be of some interest to the profession. He has purposely omitted all the cases arising under the Fugitive Slave act. The abolishment of slavery, and the certainty that it could never again have an existence in this country, rendered the report of such cases altogether superfluous. And for a reason kindred to this, the numerous exciting cases growing out of and connected with the late civil war, with one or two exceptions, do not appear in these volumes. That was an abnormal condition of the country, never, as we may hope, to return again. Some of these cases created at the time a highly excited state of public feeling; but as the exigencies which gave rise to them have passed away, it is deemed expedient not to report them. With the consent and approval of the Hon. S. S. FISHER, the learned and laborious reporter of four valuable volumes of Patent Cases, the Reporter of the present volumes has reproduced the decisions of Judge LEAVITT, as reported by Mr. FISHER. If any apology for this were needed, it will be found in the fact that the edition published by him was very limited, and that the work is in the possession of only a small number of the profession. CINCINNATI, March 1, 1872. |