Davis' Criminal Law Consolidation Acts[2] may for the purpose of citation be abbreviated to "Dav Cr Cons".
The Acts are printed in the order in which they received the Royal assent, and an attempt has been made to distinguish by brackets those provisions which are introduced for the first time.
It would, however, it is conceived, be unsafe for a practitioner to assume that the only alterations in the law made by these Acts are such as are made by the provisions marked as described; for in many instances, where no brackets occur, the subjoined note informs the reader that the section is nearly verbatim, or that it is framed upon one or more statutes; and, obviously under such circumstances new words must occur, the operation of which upon the construction of the clause it must be extremely difficult to foretell.
It is unreasonable, perhaps, to expect to find, in a work published as this is, a history of the multifarious laws digested by the Acts, or a complete compilation from reports and text-books, of the leading decisions with reference to analogous legislation, or a description of the evidence and procedure in relation to the offences provided against; but though full information upon these points might not have been expected, it is only reasonable to suppose that such a work as the present will systematically point out those channels wherein such information may be readily obtained.
To have furnished references to such sources of information would have been an easy task, and would have added greatly to the practical utility of the book.