Of our fifty States and Territories only Alabama, Arizona, the District of Columbia, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New York (partially), North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin (sixteen States) have any official revision or “General Laws”; that is to say, one or more volumes containing the complete mass of legislation, up to the time of their issue, formally enacted by the legislature.  A number of other States have what are called “authorized revisions” or authorized editions of the law.  This phrase I use to mean a codification by one or more men (usually a commission of three) who are duly appointed for the purpose, under a valid act of the State legislature, but whose compilation, when made, is never in form adopted by the legislature itself.  Leaving out the constitutional question whether such a book is in any sense law at all—­for in all probability no legislature can delegate to any three gentlemen the power to make laws, even one law, much more all the laws of the State—­leaving out the constitutional question.  It is very doubtful how far such compilations are reliable, although printed in a book said to be authorized and official, and held out to the public as such.  That is to say, if the real law, as originally enacted, differs in any sense or meaning from the law as set forth in this so-called “authorized publication,” the latter will have no validity.  Indeed, some States say this expressly.  They provide that these compilations, although authorized, are only admissible in evidence of what the statutes of the State really are—­that is to say, only valid if uncontradicted.  It was impossible to correspond with all the States upon this point—­if, indeed, I could have got opinions from their respective supreme courts, for no other opinion would be of any value.  The compilation of the State of Arkansas says, somewhere near its title-page, that it is “approved by Sam W. Williams.”  It does not appear who Sam W. Williams is, what authority he had to approve it, or whether his approval gave to the laws contained in that bulky volume any increased validity.  This is a typical example of the “authorized” revision, and this is the state of things that exists in such important States as Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming (twenty in all).

Before leaving these States, which do have some form of “revised statutes” or complete code—­and be it remembered that I am never here speaking of annual laws, for however bad their form and the form of their publication, they are usually, at least, official—­it will be interesting, and, I think, throw further light on the subject, to cull some passages from the laws of States having such “authorized revisions,” to show how far their real authority extends.  The general statutes