OF

CRIMINAL CASES,

TRIED IN

THE MUNICIPAL COURT

OF THE

CITY OF BOSTON,

BEFORE

PETER OXENBRIDGE THACHER,

JUDGE OF THAT COURT FROM 1823 TO 1843.

EDITED BY

HORATIO WOODMAN,

OF THE SUFFOLK BAR.

BOSTON:

CHARLES C. LITTLE AND JAMES BROWN.

1845.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845,

By GEORGE M. THACHER,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

93138

BOSTON:

PRINTED BY FREEMAN AND BOLLES,

WASHINGTON STREET.

PREFACE.

THE following volume has been prepared at the suggestion of several professional gentlemen, who were acquainted with the nature and importance of many of the questions decided in the Municipal Court of the city of Boston, during the period in which the late Judge Thacher presided over that tribunal. It has been thought that a selection from the opinions and charges delivered by him, during the long period of his judicial labors, could hardly fail to be valuable as a contribution to criminal law in the United States; as well from its containing the results of an experience of twenty years exclusively devoted to that branch of the law, as from the extensive jurisdiction of the court over which he presided. It has been thought, also, that this volume may have a general interest, as a record of the principal criminal cases which have been subjects of interest or excitement to the people of the city of Boston, during that time; from its local reminiscences, and from the light which it may throw upon the history of the city, during that period.