PREFACE.
The Federal Reporter is devoted exclusively to the prompt and complete publication of the judicial opinions delivered in each of the United States circuit and district courts. It publishes both oral and written opinions, and such charges to juries as are deemed of general importance. The copies of the written opinions are in most instances supplied by the clerks, and the stenographic reports of the oral opinions prepared by the authorized stenographers, of the respective courts. In some districts, however, all the opinions, both oral and written, are regularly reported by qualified attorneys, employed specially for that purpose. Each opinion is published in full, and as promptly as is consistent wlth necessary accuracy. The opinions published embrace many decisions upon subjects of general interest, including railroad cases, questions of jurisdiction, and the interpretation of local laws, as well as decisions in admiralty, bankruptcy, patent cases, criminal law, and those relating to the construction of the federal statutes. In order to present these opinions promptly to the public the Federal Reporter is issued every week, and each number contains all opinions received and ready for publication at that time. In pursuance of this plan the number of pages in each issue is necessarily unequal, and it is consequently impossible to anticipate with accuracy the number of volumes to be formed by the publication in the course of a year. Each volume, however, will not exceed a thousand pages, and will contain a carefully-prepared index, together with a full table of the cases cited.
It is believed that by this means many able and learned opinions will be rescued from a most undeserved oblivion, while greater uniformity in the interpretation of the federal statutes and the practice of the various federal courts will at the same time be secured. It would seem, therefore, that such an undertaking is not only possessed of great intrinsic merit, but, now that it has been fairly inaugurated, it actually appears to present itself in the light of a public necessity. "A publication that will do this," says the New York Times of June 17, 1880, in commenting on this enterprise, "will be a public boon."
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