VOL. I.

No. 1.

IN submitting the present Work to the consideration of the Public, the Proprietors confidently trust that a very short statement will be sufficient to demonstrate its utility and importance.

From the now widely diffused study of the Law of Scotland, and from the numbers and intelligence with which all its departments are filled, it may be safely presumed that any feasible proposal to diminish the acknowledged difficulties in its practice, and to extend at the same time its publicity and influence, will be impartially, if not favourably entertained. It may seem unnecessary further to premise, that, in a few standard publications, and with the aid of some ably conducted periodical reports, the student has the means of acquiring a general knowledge of its principles and procedure. But, for such as devote themselves seriously to the Profession of the Law, and whose success depends upon the promptness and formality, as much as on the soundness of their measures, it is also indispensable to know, and be prepared, on every contingency, to avail themselves of the Decisions, and other Judicial Transactions which are daily occurring in the Supreme Courts, and subjecting the Law itself and its forms to modification and improvement. Not unfrequently

a question may be decided to-day, establishing legal doctrines or points of form never previously considered, which, before a fortnight has elapsed, may be used as precedents in judging or regulating the most important analogous cases:-And both Counsel and Agents, in town as well as in the country, may unavoidably remain for months ignorant of the existence of judgments, which, if seasonably communicated, from being founded on similar species facti, would be of essential advantage to them in the preparation of causes intrusted to their care. Considerable expense, and often great inconvenience, is thus sustained, which might have been altogether obviated by a more frequent and early publication of the proceedings of the Supren e Courts; and, if the conductors of the Scottish Jurist, by collecting and circulating, WEEKLY, a careful report of those proceedings, in a cheap and convenient form, can in some measure diminish the labours, and facilitate the inquiries of legal practitioners, they will accomplish the principal object of their undertaking.

The Jurist will be published regularly every Monday during the sitting of the Court of Session; and will be found to contain authentic information regarding the judicial occurrences of the week immediately