OF

BRITISH LEGISLATION:

BEING

A CLASSIFIED AND ANALYSED SUMMARY OF PUBLIC BILLS, STATutes,
ACCOUNTS AND PAPERS, REPORTS OF COMMITTEES AND OF COMMISSIONERS, AND OF SESSIONAL
PAPERS GENERALLY, OF

THE HOUSES OF LORDS AND COMMONS.

EDITED BY

LEONE LEVI, F.S.A., F.S.S., &c., &c.,

OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW,

PROFESSOR OF THE PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF COMMERCE AT KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON;
AUTHOR OF " COMMERCIAL LAW OF THE WORLD," "MANUAL OF MERCANTILE LAW," ETC.

Dedicated by special permission to H. R. H. the Prince Consort.

VOL. VI.

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 65, CORNHILL.

PREFACE.

THE object of the brief introduction to each volume of the ANNALS is to direct the attention of our readers to the most prominent documents therein inserted, and to the most salient facts therein contained. In the constant succession of events, both political and social, which are passing before us, and which so mould the internal and external condition of the State, we are in danger of losing the solemn lessons they are intended to teach, and of failing to recognize the links by which they are so closely bound together. Any means, therefore, which may be afforded for the better study of such momentous occurrences, and any guide which may direct the reader through the various divisions of our voluminous chronicles, may, we trust, prove useful and acceptable.

Under Series A, "Finance, Commerce, and Agriculture," we have many documents illustrative of the financial condition of the Empire when just emerging from the commercial crisis of 1857, and a record is there preserved of the Rates of Interests and Rates of Exchange at such a critical and eventful period. There will be found also in the Series, a minute delineation of the Trade of the United Kingdom, amounting in 1857 to the enormous sum of 334,000,000l., so arranged that the reader can at a glance